Perfect Timing: a tratie story

May // Chapter 7

Travis Stoll

I'm unpacking my last bag (and by unpacking I mean throwing stuff in whatever drawers have space) when Connor runs into the room, catching me off guard and drags me to the closet with our supplies, closing the door behind us. "Connor what the-"

"shhh, you're gonna want to hear this" he says pausing for dramatic effect, "you remember Gardner, right?" It's been so long since we've talked about her I'm surprised I still know exactly what he's implying.

I raise my eyebrow "yeah? what about her," I ask nonchalantly as I prepare to leave the closet

"she's single" he blurts out, smirking at me stupidly

I freeze in my tracks for a second trying to read his face, "no Connor, she's dating that Nick kid. Has been for a while," I say, careful to keep any bitterness out of my voice

"that's funny, cause the two daughters of Aphrodite at the camp store definitely said they broke up two weeks ago"

I hold back a stupid grin that's coming on as I continue to look for a trace of dishonesty. "And why did you pull me into a closet to tell me that? It's not like I really care about Katie's relationship troubles."

He rolls his eyes and moves to open the door, "that part was just for fun," he pushes past me to meet the rest of the confused cabin. I barely catch him mumbling that I'm a liar as he walks away.

•••

All through lunch I try to catch Katie's eye without raising Connor's suspicion. I swear I even notice her look over to my table a couple times, but there's something off about her expression

"You're looking at the Demeter table an awful lot for someone that doesn't care about Gardner's relationship problems," Connor says, taking another bite of his food.

"what was that?" I glare

he rolls his eyes as if I'm the one who's being immature, "nothing."

As we're leaving the dining pavilion, I tell Connor to take my group back to the cabin and start to weave through the crowd towards cabin 4, stopping Katie right before she follows Miranda through the door.

I laugh when I see I scared her a little, but then I notice how sad she looks and immediately stop. "hey, are you alright?"

She crosses her arms and tries to smile but she doesn't meet my eyes "I'm fine, how are you?"

"I'm better now that i'm out of school," I gently joke, looking for any trace of a real smile. "listen I heard about that idiot that-"

"I really don't feel like talking about it, Travis." She looks down at her feet. "I'm sorry I just..." she trails off

"hey hey look you don't have to apologize," I reach down to her arm as she looks up at me. "We can talk about something else, I just want to catch up with you. Is that okay?" she nods, looking slightly suspicious "Um okay," I pause to think "let's talk about what you want for your birthday, then?"

she scrunches her eyebrows up like she wasn't expecting that question "my birthday?"

"yeah," I laugh, "May 26th right? I only have two days to prepare so some ideas would be nice, sunshine."