Fireflies
Blurb Synopsis: It was your first summer working at a sleep away camp, and you were feeling a little homesick yourself. That all disappeared when you met the counselor of your sister group, Harry, who is in charge of the all-boys cabin, Campfire. Your all-girls cabin, Butterflies, came to love Campfire and their counselor, and very quickly, so did you. You were afraid you had come to like him a little too much, more than friends typically do.
Genre: Camp Counselor!Harry, friends to lovers, fluffy, some nostalgic vibes, and romance.
Warnings: None
Word Count: 6.3k words
Pairing: Harry x Reader
Music Inspo: Fireflies by Owl City I guess (click to listen)
*
You had been coming here for a good while now, already having memorized the placement of Ursa Major and Minor in the night sky. You found your way down the trail, past the sandy beach, and to the rickety wooden dock every night after lights out. The flashlight clicks off in your hand, but once you reach the pavilion you hardly need it anymore, the last licks of the bonfire lighting up the beach. A loon sings nearby on the lake, waves lapping at the shore, plastic shovels, and a few socks certainly hidden amongst the sand.
The twist-off cap opens with a pleased sigh, and the refreshing cold beer is welcomed by your lips. Exhaling, your eyes float towards the pitch-black sky and search for Orion whose tall figure has escaped you for the last few nights. These nightly stargazing trips have become a comfort for you, your new home suddenly being a camp of youngsters, and your bedroom consisting of a tiny cabin that leaks when it rains and lacks air conditioning.
You had just finally been starting to adjust to life as a summer camp counselor, and there was one significant reason for that. His name was Harry, well, is. He’s the counselor for the all-boy cabin, Campfire, and has been your sister group for your all-girl cabin, Butterflies.
Due to this, the both of you had been seeing a lot of each other as your cabins interacted often. Nearing the end of the first week of camp, and now anytime one of your kids asked to play with Campfire, you jumped at the opportunity. Although it mostly was due to seeing Harry, who had quickly become your favorite coworker, it was undeniable that your kids got along so well.
That was another thing, he was so good with his kids, and yours. There were a few girls in your 8s cabin who did a bad job of hiding their crushes on him, always hanging all over him. With no fail, every day during your shared swimming time in the lake, they were begging Harry again and again. Whether it was to throw them in the water, hoist them up onto his shoulders, or to build a sandcastle with him - they couldn’t get enough of him. After spending only four days with him, you couldn’t blame them, because neither could you.
It almost shocked you how quickly you had come to know him, and became fast friends. After running into each other on the main trail on your way to breakfast the first day, you found him waiting by the large red pine near your cabin every morning since. He even had begun to save his sausages for you, and you always gave your banana muffin to him.
Today, your groups had spent the entire day together, and so did you and Harry. The kids especially enjoyed your time on the paddleboards this afternoon, but you weren’t too sure about Harry pushing you off into the water every time you got the courage to stand up on it. The laughs continued throughout your hike in the woods that Harry claims he didn’t get your cabins lost on, but you knew better than to believe him when he began to nervously knead at his bottom lip with his fingers. Face painting may have been your favorite activity from today, despite the nervousness that tickled your body when his face was inches away from yours. He painted the most darling butterfly on your cheek, and he bragged about the banana you left on his for the rest of the day.
The beer dribbles off of your bottom lip, gracing your skin flushed from the heat still sitting in the night air, and from thinking about him. Harry. Everybody loved him, even the other camp counselors, and especially some of the fellow female ones. You couldn’t help but notice how Porcupines and their counselor, Erica, had taken a liking to Harry. They seemed to be friends from last summer, but this was your first summer working here at the camp, and that fact alone intimidated you. It made you tell a white lie when Harry asked if you wanted to play board games with his group, or if he should hang out with Porcupines who live in your cabin neighborhood.
Only after a week of knowing him, with four of those being camp days, and the others being staff training days, there was little he couldn’t do to dazzle you. Every night, there was a huge camp-wide bonfire. Not everybody joined, only those who wanted to, but ever since you claimed the upright log right of Harry on the first night, it had become your spot. He continued to amaze you night after consecutive night with his guitar playing, from Take Me Home, Country Roads to Wagon Wheel and of course, Wonderwall. More than once, you had felt his eyes on yours and found just that when you looked over at him, him soon winking with smiling lips.
Oh, those lips and all of the dreams you had about them.
The lake water lapping at your feet hanging off of the dock does little to cool you down on this early June night, but after the train of thought that’s taken off, there’s little you can do to cool down. To make matters worse, your skin spreads with electricity when you hear a twig snap nearby. You don’t even have the time to ask who’s there, because the milky moonlight lights up features of a familiar somebody.
“Care if I join ya?” they rasp, nodding to the section of dock to your left. Shaking your head ‘no,’ the wooden boards rattle and squeak with their heavy footsteps. “Y’know ‘ve seen ya sneak out, but neva knew where ya went, and now lookie here. I found ya.”
“Congrats, you finally won a game of hide-and-seek,” you joke, the dark glass wet against your shaky fingers as you hold out the beer to him.
“Oh, shuddup. Ya don’t know how hard it ‘s bein’ tall when tha kids ask me t’ play hide-and-seek. ‘s not like I can hide behind a tree as easily as they bloody can,” he giggles, and clinks the neck of his beer bottle against yours. “Cheers t’ a great almost first week o’ camp, and here’s t’ many mo’.”
“Cheers,” you echo, the frosty beer doing little to move the knot that appeared in your throat the second he stepped onto the beach in front of you.
Yes, here’s to many more weeks of camp with him- with Harry.
*
Your stargazing nights dipping your toes in the water continued every night without fail. And night after night, Harry showed up with two bottles of beer. Sometimes, he beat you and you found him waiting for you. Other nights, you were early and brought wine coolers instead. Nonetheless, it became another camp tradition of yours, and neither of you broke it.
That was until you broke your two and a half week streak one night, and not because you were sick or had a legitimate reason. No, your reason did feel legitimate, and it stung every time your subconscious drudged it back up. That didn’t mean you could tell Harry though, and you had a good reason for that too. A good reason was something he seemed to be missing, you thought, and you wished that you knew why.
*
Earlier that day, rain had been forecast for most of the afternoon, but instead of refreshing showers for the kids to dance in, a muggy heat had settled in the air. You couldn’t say that you weren’t complaining, because well, you were and Harry got an earful of it. He didn’t complain though, and lastly, yours ceased once your shared swimming time arrived. Lucky for you, your leadership staff had moved things around for your group to swim again later, after lunch. Seeing Harry in his short royal blue swim trunks not once but twice was rewarding enough, and so was when he stuck you on his shoulders, pulling laughs from all of the kids’ smiling lips.
The incessant heat drilled at your sun kissed skin later that night when you had had enough of your humid cabin, settling on the first of the wooden steps. Your attention was drawn over to a nearby staff cabin when you heard voices and laughter, but you dismissed it as you decided to take a cool shower in the bathhouse up the hill.
The voices grew louder amongst the cover of trees surrounding you, and as you hiked up the hill, you realized you were nearing their source. Almost immediately, you pick up on one of the voices, recognizing it seamlessly. You take a step forward at the inviting sound, but your foot stops in midair when you finally recognize the second voice. If that wasn’t enough to repel you, the appearance of them both outside a shaded cabin does it for you.
There he stands with only inches in between the two of them. Harry, and fricken Erica, of all people. You’re not sure what’s going on, but quickly, you realize that you stepped in on something you shouldn’t have. You turn around hastily and begin to walk away, but you freeze in place when the voices plummet into silence. Looking over your shoulder, your suspicions are confirmed when a pang jolts through your body at the sight of his lips upon hers. Your limbs are unstuck now and moving fast and away from that tragic sight. You don’t stop walking until you reach the bathhouse and hear the loud bang! of the door slamming behind you. Thank God you find that you have the girl’s side all to yourself a few moments later, and only once you’re under the cold spray of the shower, do you let the tears fly.
*
You didn’t know what to do with the rest of your night once you swore off showing up to the dock under the stars that night to meet him. Instead, you took advantage of the spotty Wi-Fi to catch up on YouTube videos, but it did little to distract you from what was going on deep down inside of you.
The next day wasn’t much better as it was still sweltering hot outside, and it was awkward trying to avoid Harry and his cabin, even though you and your kids had all become fast friends by now. Once you reached dinner, the worst of the day was over, and yet you wondered how’d you be able to do it all over again and ignore him. Even today, you weren’t able to fully ignore him. Your cabin was scheduled to bike earlier that afternoon before it got too hot, and in order to go biking, you had to have two staff with for safety reasons. You exchanged as few words as possible with him before and after the bike ride, but he still tried to crack jokes over your walkie talkies during the ride, seeing that the two of you were on a special channel, per the rules. It was obvious that he knew something was up, because neither of you had missed a night on the dock under the stars together, and last night you had done just that.
It was difficult at first, sitting in your cabin last night once the clock struck ten o’clock. You had begun to squirm and a hot itchy feeling came over your body, filling you with guilt, but quickly it subsided and was replaced by something else when you remembered seeing his lips on hers. Fucking Erica, what did he even see in her? you had poured over at least a dozen times since then. She was always yelling at her cabin when you passed her, and when she wasn’t, she was on her phone and ignoring her kids. You were surprised that one of them hadn’t gotten hurt badly yet, seeing as she never paid attention to them, and it drove you nuts how Harry could have feelings for somebody like that. He adored his kids and yours, making you wonder all the more why things had to be this way.
Your kids had complained all day, asking to play with Campfire, to hike to The Point with them or to do the low ropes course with them. Relent you did not, and only once besides the biking did they interact, and that was later in the day when it was time for cabin cleaning and so your cabins played together outside while you and Harry did the big cleaning jobs.
Regardless of how good of a job you had done at avoiding him today, you still felt his eyes on yours in the pavilion at lunch and dinner, and especially during swim time when you hung back on the beach. You just didn’t know how to talk to him normally again after seeing what you did, and you already knew the tragic effects it had caused for your friendship, and not just that, but anything more that you had wanted.
*
Yesterday had seemed like a piece of cake compared to now, sitting in your cabin as the short hand neared the nine and the long hand neared the six. You had thought about sneaking over to your friend, Molly’s cabin, for the night but you passed up the idea after remembering she had started dating another counselor recently, and was probably somewhere with them. Quickly, what was starting to become one of the best summers was now turning into a dream turned nightmare. It all slowly drifted away when you finally succumbed to the exhaustion building up from your long day spent in the sun.
*
When you awoke next, it was already quarter to ten pm, and you weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. No, you quickly wished it was the next morning or anytime later than well, now. It was still too soon, and as you slipped on sandals to use the bathroom, the guilt found its way back to you. The only thing going for you was that you had avoided any run ins with him, or for that matter, anybody, on your way to the bath house to use the bathroom. This is why I shouldn’t down wine coolers when I’m sad, you tsked within your thoughts as the flashlight led you back down the path to your cabin.
Cursing yourself for not turning on the fan before you fell asleep, you let the screen door of your cabin slap against the doorframe once you return. During your disaster of a day, you had also left clothes laying around, the beginning of what would surely become a colossal mess.
“Y’know, yer not s’posed t’ eat in here, you’ll attract bears and racoons,” a voice drawls from across the room. A jolt rockets through your body at the fright, only to end in a groan. “‘s true, I swear it. One o’ me coworkers last summer had a raccoon in their cabin ‘cuz they didn’t heed tha warnings.”
“Sure,” you respond, picking up an empty Doritos bag that you toss in the bin, ignoring his eyes that you feel hot on your back. “What are you doing in my cabin, Harry? You do realize that you’re breaking a rule, right? ‘No counselors of opposite sex in another counselor’s cabin after lights out,’” you recite aloud, continuing to pick up more of the evidence from your prior night spent wallowing in your tears and choice of junk food. Well, last two nights, for that matter.
“Bears seem much mo’ harmful than a simple visit from yer friend, I reckon.”
Friend, you say? you think silently to yourself before you can stop, accompanied by a scoff that falls from your lips for him to hear.
“If ya wanna know, ya’ve been ignorin’ me all day long. Ya wouldn’t answer yer texts, so I had t’ go t’ some dire straights and pay ya a visit. So, why’re ya ignorin’ me, darlin’? Did I do sumthin’ wrong?” Harry ponders aloud, moving from his previous perch on the cloth chair in the corner to your bed now.
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” you insist, picking up a pink Laffy Taffy wrapper to add to the handful of others.
“Yes ya were, even tha kids in our cabins noticed. Mo’ importantly, ya stood me up fer our nightly visits on tha dock, not jus’ last night but t’night as well. Figured there must be an important reason ya skipped, looks like t’night ya fell asleep, but why’d ya miss last night?”
With your back to him, you try to swallow past the lump that’s appeared in your throat, but it’s next to impossible. The opportunity arises, and you take it and run. In reality, you tie the full garbage bag into a knot and enter the humid night once again. You can hear his heavy footsteps behind you.
“‘m not done talkin’ t’ you!” Harry exclaims, the door slamming behind him as you walk down the trail blindly, knowing that the nearest dumpster is only ahead a few paces.
“Shouldn’t you be hanging out with your girlfriend? Seeing that’s how all of the counselors here spend lights out time,” you retort, the bravery growing within you as the crickets sound from the tall grass around you.
“What girlfriend? I don’t have one.”
“Oh, so then why were you sucking face with Erica? That kind of thing implies a relationship, you know,” you spit in return, at last finding the dumpster in the near dark, and pitching the garbage bag into it. “Let’s see how good you really are at hide and seek,” you tease after hearing the plop! of the garbage bag falling into the dumpster.
“I already found you t’day when we played,” he groans, but you can hear his footsteps following yours.
Your name flies from his lips but quickly, his voice becomes far away as you dash down the trail. He calls for you, but he’s already lost you and within moments, you see the flickering light above the very cabin you’re looking for.
His voice tickles at your ears as you slip in past the door, pressing it closed so it doesn’t make a sound. It doesn’t really look like how you had expected. Remnants of a clean, organized cabin remain amongst the clothes, shoes, and books strewn across the floor. A Fleetwood Mac poster dons a wall, leaving the others lonely in the small room. A blue quilt is tugged halfway up the bed with random shirts littering the striped sheets. Amongst them sits his Macbook covered with stickers, an open Marvel comic, and a journal thrown to the side, open to a page covered in messy handwriting.
The squeaking of the door opening sounds behind you, accompanied by heavy footsteps and labored breathing. Taking a page from his book, you plop down onto the bed and are soon enamored by the vinyl stickers on his laptop. The knot appears again in your throat as you trace the designs on the stickers, letting them grow hazy through the tears filling your eyes.
“Me cabin isn’t a very good hidin’ spot, darlin’,” Harry murmurs from behind you, but you could care less, knowing that this is where you wanted to end up all along.
“You probably don’t know this, but I’ve wanted to be friends with you since the very first day I met you. You had this contagious happiness to you that seemed to spread to anybody you met. No matter who it was or what kind of mood they were in, they always left you with a smile on their face,” you begin, toying with the unraveling edge of a sticker showing a Fender Telecaster guitar. “You can always make me smile, and I appreciate that so much, but I saw you and Erica kiss and I . . I can’t pretend that it didn’t tear me apart, Harry.”
“Darlin’, I told ya, ‘m not datin’ her. I did last summer, fer maybe two bloody weeks.”
“Then why-,” you begin, until he cuts you off prematurely.
“She kissed me, not tha otha way ‘round, ‘m tellin’ ya tha truth,” he nearly promises aloud, words hurried and adamant from over your shoulder.
You begin to nod your head until your ears prick up at the sound of one of your manager’s shouting from the trail a warning about being in your own cabins past lights out. Not wasting another second there crying on his bed, you scurry away without another word to Harry, even though you were filled to the brim with them. His face consumed with worry and questions was burned into your mind for the rest of the night.
It was the very last thing you saw until you fell asleep.
*
You were unsure of how to feel the next day, a Friday, and you found that it was all the more harder today to avoid him. First, your groups had art time together in the Art building, and then before you could stop it, your cabins began to play together at the nearby volleyball net when you and Harry were each cleaning up after board game time in your own cabins. It was hard to stay mad at Harry, you swiftly learned, due to him really laying on the charm and fun during volleyball with the kids. You thought it would be a good idea to avoid getting in the lake again later that day, but once again, he just couldn’t stay away.
“Not gonna swim today, are we?” he asks, brushing away sand from your towel that you occupy before he sits down next to you.
You suffice an answer with a quick shake of your head, grateful for the minimal cover of your dark sunglasses, hoping that they hide at least some of your secrets.
“Ah, so yer still ignorin’ me, ‘s that right?” he hums, the weight easily heard in his words. No matter what you do, you don’t look at him, but as the seconds tick by, it becomes all the harder.
You can hear the little drip drop of the lake water pooling off of his body, probably from the lip of his mustard yellow swim trunks scattered with cartoon pineapples. Despite the anger, your insides scream at you to finally look over at him, and the entirety of his wet body. You somehow resist, keeping your eyes forward at your kids dipping in and out of the waves. When you remember the revolting sight of him kissing her, it becomes far easier to distract yourself by counting the heads of your kids for the third time in ten minutes.
“Harry, did you convince her to come and swim?” one of Harry’s boys from Campfire asks from the shallow end.
“No,” he groans, just at your side, and when the boy asks ‘why’, he doesn’t hold back, “How am I s’posed t’ know? Ask her, she won’t tell me anyways. She’s all crabby t’day,” he retorts, getting up and brushing the sand from his legs before stalking off to sit on the dock. He sinks down onto the wooden planks almost in the very same spot that he would every night you’d find him waiting there under the glow of the moon and the stars.
The sight of him making one of the tanned lifeguards laugh is worsened by your reminiscent thoughts. Wishes course through your mind hastily and unwarranted, including why this has to be so hard.
*
Every time the cursed image would float into your subconscious once again, you would bat it away with your imaginary stick. Slowly, it began to work, and by the time dinner rolled around, you were warming up to him again, or so you thought. In your place in line, you scoped out the empty seat beside him at his table, but by the time you had gotten your food, it was filled, and with another attractive coworker from the Bat Cave cabin.
For the second night in a row, your place next to Harry at the campfire had been stolen away from you. This time, you hadn’t meant for it to happen, and that had only made the burn sting worse.
Instead of staying to listen to Harry lead singalongs with his Fender acoustic sat in his lap, and with the lifeguard from earlier fawning over him from your seat, you skipped your first ever nightly campfire. Comments from your kids from the last two days found their way back to you and only made you wish you were somewhere else all the more. It had grown annoying the number of times they had asked you why you wouldn’t let them play with Campfire cabin or ‘why you and Harry weren’t friends anymore.’ One incident from earlier that day at the beach had almost brought tears to your eyes, and thank God you had remembered your sunglasses today if it had succeeded.
You had finally let your eyes stray to Harry once he had forgotten about the cute lifeguard and dove back into the water, welcomed by his campers. One of your girls ran out of the lake, water dripping from every inch of her little body. She said hi to you and asked if she could sit by you, a question you didn’t have to think about. After wrapping her Moana towel around her, she fell onto Harry’s previous seat, and soon you felt her eyes hot on your cheek.
“Why aren’t you swimming?” she wonders aloud, pulling the towel around her front and hiding her bent legs underneath it.
“I forgot my suit.”
“Then just go and get it in your cabin,” she insists with a shrug of her shoulders, as if it’s obvious.
“I don’t want to swim today.”
“Then why didn’t you just say that?” she laughs, letting her shivering chin fall onto her bent knees. “But you always swim with us, and with Harry,” the little girl named Zoey says, the question heard in her voice. This time, it’s a question you can’t answer as easily as before. “It’s not as much fun without you swimming out there with us, even Harry says so.”
Again, you’re lost for words and you think she may be able to tell. You attempt to pass the time by counting your children again, but it takes longer when they’re dipping in and out of the water. Just when you think that you have most of them, you lose track once they start to move.
“I think Harry likes you,” Zoey declares aloud, and an amused scoff hums from your lips. Your insides battle for how much value to take from her words, both wondering what a kid could know and also aware of how smart and observant they actually are. “I think he’s super cute, but I’m not old enough to be his girlfriend. I’m only eight, so I think you should be his girlfriend. Do you like him?”
“I don’t know, I think he likes somebody else,” you answer with a contradicting laugh contrite with ironic sadness.
“I asked him and he said he doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Zoey remarks, turning her head to smile up at you proudly with one eye closed shut, squinting at you through the bright rays of the summer sun.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Zoey?” you tease, turning your head to look at her, crossing your arms comically.
“I don’t know,” she giggles, her thick and dark eyelashes clumping together from the lake water. Your hand wanders to her tanned neck dotted with freckles, laughs singing from her lips once your fingers dance across the crook of her neck. “Fine, some of us in Butterflies and Campfire are trying to get you and Harry to be boyfriend and girlfriend. We call it ‘The Fireflies Mission’ - you know Fire from Campfire cabin and Flies from Butterflies cabin. But it’s Top Secret so you can’t tell anybody I told you,” she reveals, raising a finger to her lips.
A laugh peels from your lips until it ends abruptly, the words settling with you. The sentiment knits together within your mind and your heart comes to be involved, bringing forth the heavy warmth behind your eyes that threaten to spill onto your cheeks.
“You guys are sweet, but don’t bother,” you say, sufficing for an answer with a dismissing wave of your hand.
“No! You two would be so cute together, we all think so. We think Harry likes you, and don’t you think he’s cute? Come on, I bet you do,” she teases, bringing her revenge with pink chipped polished fingers crawling up your arm.
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do! That’s why you keep staring at him and his butt!” she insists, with a smirk missing a few teeth.
“Zoey, stop it!” you return, but your words quickly collapse into laughs that she echoes.
“If you don’t tell him, then I will!”
“Zo’, you don’t even know if I like him or not,” you approach sternly, but it’s wasted once a chuckle consumes your argument.
“You so do, you two are always flirting! Just ‘cause I’m a kid doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” she argues, fire behind her crystal blue eyes. Her blonde eyebrows wiggle along her freckled forehead, wet pigtails swinging above her shoulders. “So, are you gonna tell him or not?”
An answer escapes you, and when it does, she lets her towel fall away as she gets to her feet in a hot pink, one-piece swimsuit. Before you can stop her, her long legs dotted with bug bites, scrapes, and bruises sprint away from you.
“Harry!” she exclaims, glancing over her shoulder to you, sticking her tongue out at you.
“Zoey!”
“I’m not going to,” she calls back, turning around and pulling down the white goggles over her eyes. You’re forgotten and she returns to her friend, Cammie, who’s searching for shells underwater. “Harry, I wanna be thrown in too!” Zoey continues, pulling on Cammie’s arm to follow until she’s jumping on Harry’s back where he’s crouched in the water. You look away, attention stolen by your name spoken on the walkie talkies.
Little did you know, that within moments, Harry’s eyes were running over to you and all because of something a little birdy had said.
*
It was still light enough that you didn’t need your flashlight yet, the one each of you was given at the beginning of the summer, and the one that Harry had already lost little to your surprise. You could still hear his voice belting out Hey Jude at the campfire from down the trail, beginning the end consisting solely of na na’s. Slowly, the na na’s grew louder and louder, probably as Harry convinced more kids to join the terribly simple singalong, and one you had wished you were a part of. You wouldn’t want to do anything more, and yet, you knew why you couldn’t.
The reasons were shy and didn’t come to you when you asked, and with that realization, your feet begin to stray from your nightly walk to your cabin and to somewhere else. The blankets were far messier than before and now, CDs and more books joined their distraught mess. T-shirts scattered the floor and so did socks and bandanas, several that were familiar from donning his head of curls already this summer. All of the rules, both campwide and personal, flew through your head, and exited out through your other ear. You wished that so many other thoughts could do the same, but you felt yourself clinging to so many, and that you had begun to become okay with that.
“Told ya me cabin isn’t a good hidin’ place when yer tryna t’ hide from me.”
The voice surprises you, but not enough to bring you to turn around. You’d be lying to yourself if you said that you had hoped he wouldn’t have come. The one thing that does surprise you is the fact that what doesn’t come to you is any words that feel right, and as if they belong.
“I don’t wanna fight with ya anymo’, darlin’. Tha kids don’t like it and neitha do I. Bloody hell, look at me soundin’ like a proper dad, already,” Harry announces, the second half claimed by an awkward laugh marked by the silence you give to him. “I dunno how many times I gotta fookin’ say it, but ‘m not with Erica, or anybody else fer that matta. Ya’ve become me best friend ova tha last few weeks, and ‘m sorry that that kiss ruined that, but I wanna fix it. I don’t wanna lose me best friend ova some rubbish kiss, a kiss that I didn’t even want or initiate . . Anyways, ‘m goin’ back t’ tha bonfire. I told ‘em I was jus’ usin’ tha loo quick, but ‘ll be waitin’ at tha dock t’night, and I really hope ‘ll see ya there . . . butterfly.”
*
An owl cooed in the distance, joining the nightly song led by the crickets and the frogs. Somehow, the heat still lingered despite the absence of the sun, and the humidity left a stifling feeling in the air. It made you wonder why you remained here, miserable from the humid heat and mosquitoes that pestered at your skin. The fan you bought for its five different settings beckoned you to return the second your cabin door closed. Now, a ways down the trail, you almost wish you’d never left. With each step, that begins to shrink away as a nervousness overwhelms you, propelling your feet forward. A yawn lingers on your lips as the rocks and dead leaves crunch beneath your steps.
Curses fly from your lips when your eyes land on the empty dock painted with the moonlight. Your chest falls with a long sigh when you glance to your phone that reads 10:18 pm, almost an hour late. The emotions brew inside of you as you turn on your heel quickly, backtracking your steps.
“Didn’t think ya’d show,” a voice murmurs from the darkness, making you whip around to face the pavilion where it comes from.
“I fell asleep again, I’m sorry,” you confess with a heavy voice, laden with apologies and regret. Harry steps out of the shadows with his hands hidden in the pockets of his baby pink hoodie, only a few steps away and nearing you with every second. “Please believe me, I-.”
The explanation escapes your lips and also the air when he steps forward, lacing his fingers with yours.
“I believe ya . . butterfly, ‘s okay.”
“And Harry, I believe you too . . . when you said you didn’t kiss her. I’m sorry it took me so long to,” you admit, the overdue words diving into the air to grace his ears.
“Thank ya, darlin’. Now, I heard sumthin’ funny from a li’l birdy earlier t’day,” he smirks and it only grows higher when you take his other hand into yours. One corner of his mouth reaches higher up his cheek as confusion knits together within your mind. “A certain sumbody had sumthin’ interestin’ t’ tell me befo’ I threw her into tha water . . Sound familiar now?”
His growing grin fills your eyes as the puzzle pieces click together almost instantly.
“Zoey,” you grumble from behind gritted teeth as his giggle sings in your ears. “That little liar.”
“Reckon they’ve had it out fer us tha whole summer,” he smiles. “I told her that I bet I love her counselor mo’ than she does,” he confesses hesitantly, eyes flitting away from yours with a blush filling his cheeks.
“Harry,” you begin warmly, squeezing his hands in between your clammy pair.
“I only wanna do this if we’re gonna really give it a try, don’t wanna ruin our friendship or have tha kids pay tha price of it not goin’ well. So no mo’ ignorin’ me when things get tough,” Harry says, pointing his stern eyes at you, but you hardly notice because of the words he speaks. “No if’s, and’s, or but’s, got it?” he finishes, reciting his catch phrase he uses with the boys in his cabin.
“Got it,” you smile, feeling as if your lips couldn’t reach higher, but they do when his come to meet yours. They’re sweeter than you had imagined, and softer. The nostalgic smell of sunscreen clings to his skin, almost hidden by the strong scent of the bonfire you always smelled on him during your nights on the dock. The troubles from the last few days melt away upon his lips, and all traces escape when his arms come around you.
“How bad d’ya reckon they’ll freak when we tell ‘em?” he wonders aloud after breaking the kiss, pulling you against his warm chest.
“Wait, you think we should tell them?”
“Ya, we gotta, seein’ as their Fireflies Mission worked and ev’rythin’. We’ll just leave out tha part where we did all the hard work,” he snickers from above you, resting his chin on the top of your head.
“How’d you find out about their mission?” you giggle against his chest, the tassels to his hoodie digging into your cheek.
“Cuz they’re not very good at keepin’ secrets, just like they’re counselors,” Harry chuckles, pulling one from your mouth as well. “C’mon, let’s go. I think tha beers I brought might still be cold.”
A soft ‘okay’ leaves your lips to meet the air as he pulls on your hand to follow him, the first grains of sand tickling at your toes as you ruminate on how you haven’t felt this okay in quite a long time.
All thanks to your special little firefly, the best friend to your very own butterfly.