Sun Kissed by J.K. Rock

Chapter One

Seth

Beetles ticked in the forest gloom. Split wood lay jumbled, heaped, on the needle covered ground. Blisters marked my palms from chopping trees, and the raw skin throbbed. I have been laboring— no, struggling— to ignore how the cedar scent reminds me of my old days here at Camp Juniper Point, of the guy I'd never be again.

I slashed, my ax sinking deep into a fallen yellow pine, splinters filling the air like confetti. Only this wasn't a party. It was mindless work, hard labor and I needed to stop thinking so damn much. Yet being back in North Carolina's Pisgah Woods, where I'd hiked with my ex-girlfriend, Lauren, made staunching the memories impossible.

My blade flashed in the mid-summer light, shearing off boughs, each thud giving me a savage satisfaction. I might have lost my best friend, the only girl I'd ever love or trust, but I could sure as hell rip apart this rotted tree.

In fact, I wished it could chop it into a million pieces. Turn it into sawdust and grind it into the earth the way I wanted to bury the raw burn in my gut. But as a caretaker for my grandparents' camp, Juniper Point, I followed orders: clear the pine off the trail and deliver the logs for the bonfire. Now that I was eighteen and too old for camp, I wouldn't be sitting around that fire laughing with friends or flirting with my girl.

My ex-girl.

The memory of Lauren's hand in mine as we'd watched the leaping flames each year, singing off-key until we laughed, cut through me, sharp as a fresh blade. But that ended last summer when she'd returned to camp with an ex who wasn't an ex—someone she said she'd break up with, but then broke my heart instead.

I'd believed in her, in us, and—eventually—a future together. I thought that if I gave her space, she'd become her old self—the astronomer who quoted Star Wars and debated Marvel superheroes.

Most of all, I'd had faith that she'd remember what we'd meant to each other and come back to me.

Dumbass.

Hadn't my deadbeat mom taught me not to trust anyone when she'd dropped me off at preschool and never came back? At least not until two weeks ago, after I'd graduated high school. Nice job, Mom. I couldn't get out of town fast enough when she'd rolled up to the house in a cab last month, trying to make things all better. I'd heard that act before— that she'd gotten clean. That this time would be different. Cheers to Gramps for coming through with the caretaker job to spare me the latest episode of Reines family drama, even if it meant spending the rest of the summer at Camp Juniper Point. Better here than back in Indiana.

I shoved the thought aside and hacked a branch in half, my shoulders aching. A drumming sounded nearby, and I spotted the scarlet-topped head of a pileated woodpecker. Dryocopus pileatus, I automatically recalled. It banged its long white bill into a dead balsam, widening a hole from which scurried large, black carpenter ants. I dropped my blade and chugged warm water, the bitter tang of metal sliding down my throat. All around me, shrubs and saplings competed for the scarce sunlight in this dank, natural sauna. Had it been this hot in the North Carolina mountains every year?

Swiping the sweat from my forehead, I took a deep breath and hefted the ax again, my arms straining as I brought it down on the main trunk. The simple instrument was a lot more satisfying than a chain saw with the added bonus of no air and noise pollution. It felt good to use my own hands, my strength, and my will to slog through it after the shit year that I'd had.

A cloud of dust rose as I chopped through the top of the tree; something whizzed by my ear and embedded itself in the white birch beside me.

What the hell?

I examined the yellow-tipped arrow, recognizing it from the camp's archery course. One inch to the right, and it would have been in my skull.

Maybe that would have been preferable.

I yanked it loose and headed for the clearing on the other side of a copse of beech trees. I'd avoided the campers until now, but if I didn't toss the thing back on the field, one of them would come searching in the woods— and I wasn't in the mood to socialize.

When I burst through the trees, the bright sun made me see spots. The instructor yelled "Not clear" for everyone to hold, making me realize what a stupid move it was to walk onto an archery course without checking. I waved the arrow at a line of girls who pointed and smiled at me, someone yelling, "Seth." It wasn't until my vision returned that the arrow dropped from my numb fingers.

They were Lauren's former bunk mates, the Munchies Manor girls. It was exactly the reminder I'd been avoiding by working on the edges of the property and leaving the onsite work to the full-time caretaker. My eyes skimmed down the line of familiar girls, my gaze automatically searching out Lauren, her absence feeling like a pulled tooth. Yet the sight of another girl distracted me, her long purple tie-dye skirt blowing in a light wind; her dreadlocks pulled off her face to show large gray eyes that widened when I met them.

Trinity.

We stared at each other for a long moment and it all came rushing back, her stolen journal last year, her secret crush on me revealed. My eyes darted away then returned, our gazes locking. I wondered if she still felt that way. Not that it'd change anything. She was pretty with those larger-than-life eyes, her chin a soft point beneath her full mouth. But looks didn't matter to me. Trinity and I were just friends. Friends who had less and less in common as she'd gotten more involved in astrology and fortune-telling— stuff I didn't believe in.

"What are you doing here?" she called.

For the first time, I noticed her smile, the kind that lit up her whole face. Where would I be now if it had been Trinity who'd held my heart all those years? Just my luck, I'd care about someone who wouldn't stick around.

The universe had a perverse sense of humor.

"Working. I'm staying at my grandparents' house." I nearly smacked my head. Why had I shared that? It wasn't like I wanted a visit.

After a last look at Trinity, I waved back at the girls, spun on my heel, and headed into the woods. I was done trusting in things I couldn't count on. Trinity could have her superstitions. As for me, reality was all that mattered, and right now, that meant I needed to finish up, deliver the wood, and forget about camp for today.

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