Boot Camp for Bad Boys

Chapter 8

        “Cosying up to Buffy already, are we?" Danny teased. "What did she say?" Demi asked when I returned for that little brief meet up with Buffy earlier, now suddenly, everyone was interested with my conversation with Buffy. "Because for once, she wasn't screaming bloody murder at anyone."

"You know, it’s weird when she had said she was proud of me; despite the fact she knew I was having a digestion problem but I still turn up for my training round the field."

“You’re bluffing right?" Caleb asked sceptically and I resist to roll my eyes at the boy who had walked in on me, full on dancing with my jazz hands and feet all over. I still remember that once over look and amused smile he had gave me, now it was just so hard to even wipe that silly smirk out of my memory. God damn Allie, you’re already smitten.

“Why would I bluff about that sort of thing?”

“You act like you actually frame up those words that she just said to you.” He chuckled. “Well, I could if I would, seems like you’re just jealous that Buffy has probably never praised you before.”

“Oh I’m sure that’s the reason for my jealousy, jazz clown.” He said those last words under his breath, making it loud enough for only me to hear.

“My god Caleb, it was just that one time you ever saw me dance, once.”

“Once was all it took to remind of the clowns I used to watch at the circus.”

“You know what? I’m going to stop talking to you until you stop being mean to me.”

“Fine by me.”

“Fine!”

“Fantastic!”

“Spectacular!”

“Perfect!”

“Oh my god you two, cut it out already, people are looking our way.” Demi turned around to glare at the both of us. I stuck out my tongue at Caleb and walked beside Danny who gladly threw his arm around me. “What’s wrong Allie? Did that big mean ogre scream at you?” Danny turned to Caleb who then, earned himself an eye roll.

“Why are you speaking to her in that baby voice Danny? Did a fly get into your throat?

“Why? Do you want me to speak like that to you too?”

“f**k off Daniel, don’t make me punch you.”

“What a mean ass ogre indeed.” I made a face as Danny and I then sprinted past a scowling Caleb behind.

**

I was really excited about the bonfire that we were having later tonight. After lunch, I dashed back to our cabin, wanting to pee so badly since I’ve been holding it in since lunch. I blasted some music on my phone before making my way into the bathroom to pee, humming as I was doing my business. After I was done, I washed my hands and messed with the food stain I didn’t know had gotten onto the hem of my shirt.

“Damn it.” I cursed silently, scratching at the dry food stain, kicking my shoes to the side. I hummed to the music that was playing on my speakers. It was some random old song that I grew to love when I heard my mom always playing it in the car.

I poked my head under my unmade bed and smacked my palm around the floor board s I heard the sound of plastic crunching under my palms. Snickering, I dragged the plastic out of the hiding spot.

"Mental note, check under her bed too."

I screamed out loud, dropping both my phone and the bag of my marshmallows before I watched Caleb sitting peacefully on Demi’s bed. "f**k! What the hell are you doing here Caleb?"

"Demi asked me if I could come right in here to get her head bank since she planned to play some badminton with the other campers.”

“And..?” I looked at him, still mad the fact I didn’t even realize when he had come in or heard him come in, but then also I think I was pretty distracted with the stain on my shirt and the music on the speakers was blasted on maximum volume.

“Anyways, I pretty much searched every hiding place I could ever think of, even in your medicine drawer. You didn't have anything under your bed the last time Danny went snooping around for your marshmallows." Caleb said, grabbing the marshmallow from the floor.

"I knew it and I was right. Either you or Danny would snoop around for it. My hiding spot changes every now and then. But now I guess I could now count these babies with my fingers. They won't last me another week." I sighed, remembering the sleepless nights I've been stuffing myself with those, not forgetting secretly stuffing my mouth with marshmallows in between training yes I hid them in my pocket—don't judge me.

"We could always go out to get some, I take you already know they let us out for a whole day every two fortnight."

"And yet you still feel the need to sneak out of this place.” I folded my arms to my chest.

“Try being here every day for the last year. Even a sane man can go crazy.”

“I know it’s been only day but I can't wait to get out of her, or else I might have to go all prison break on this place." my eyes wandered to the window where I had spent my time earlier peeking at the shirtless boys who were doing push-ups on the field, and one in particular, stood there like some energy drink commercial model, pouring a whole bottle of water, dousing himself from head to toe.

Caleb’s cleared his throat, getting my attention once again and I looked at him sheepishly. Oh he knew alright, that I was indeed peeking at him earlier.

He folded his arms, Demi's head band in one hand. "Anyway, I came here to give you these.”

“What? More insults you can possibly throw at me?”

He frowned. “No, I brought you some medicine, take it with some water. I don’t want to have to carry you back if you knock out cold at the bonfire later tonight.” He passed me a strip of Advil and gestured at me at the bottle of water on my desk.

“Ha ha.” I laughed dryly. “It’s just a fever, now that I pass out that easily either. And say if I really did knock out cold, I still wouldn’t want to trouble you to carry me all the way back here.” I said, popping the pills into my mouth and I quickly washed them down with the bottle of water.

“Good, because I wasn’t planning on it.”

Ugh!

After glaring at each other for a while, I decided to lie on my bed for a bit, hopefully squeeze in a nap for an hour and Caleb sat on Demi’s bed, grabbing a random book from her pile of books, flipping it open. The awkwardness was growing between us and I wondered when was he gonna leave, but I didn’t want to ask him either—because part of me wanted him to stay.

I had a sudden urge to ask him what exactly did he get himself a spot in this Boot Camp? I could feel the words were at the tip of my tongue, but yet I couldn’t seem to be able to get them out. I shouldn’t have to ask, right? But what if I did? Would he then turn me away, yell at me and call me nosy? As I laid there on my back, overthinking, he finally broke the silence by asking.

"You look like you have something to ask me.”

My eyes widened as I tried to blink away the thoughts that were swimming around my head. Why was he even looking at me in the first place?

"Nothing really." I said almost too quickly.

“I could even skip over those frown lines that’s forming on that forehead of yours.”

I rolled my eyes and he scoffed, flipping the pages of the book, stopping at one part in particular. “Didn’t you say Demi needed her head band?” I asked.

“She’s probably got a spare from one of the girls. I just needed an excuse to drop by in your cabin.”

“Why?” I asked, turning my head to the side to look at him but he seemed way too engrossed in the book to look at me. “Because.. I like it here in your cabin.”

“What? Why? It’s exactly the same one as yours.” I argued. “Yeah, but your beds are softer than ours.”

“You sure it’s not just another excuse of yours just to snoop around, looking for my snacks?”

“And that too.”

I huffed, staring up into the ceiling as I asked the next question. “I had been meaning to ask, how did you meet Danny and Demi? I mean, how did all of you become friends?”

“Well, Danny was my roommate when I first joined here a year ago. I hated him as first because that boy just couldn’t seem to shut his trap, also he always snuck girls over in the middle of the night.”

“Ah, why am I not surprised. So what changed?” I asked, curious. “There was one night when I snuck out with a gir… with a friend.”

And then I remembered, Demi’s old roommate that she mentioned was close to Caleb. There was an unfamiliar tug in the pit of my stomach when he mentioned her, I wasn’t so sure as to why either. “Yeah so anyway, I didn’t know there was a surprise patrol by the officers that night, and when they came knocking on my door, I wasn’t there.”

“So what happened?”

“Danny had fake two voices that night.” Caleb grinned, recalling that memory, “Luckily I had casually mentioned my identification when he asked me, but he didn’t tell me why he did, and I didn’t know there were surprise patrols at that time. So he covered my ass that night, saved me from a whole lot of trouble after. And then eventually, I guess I owed it to him to at least be nice, but who knew we’d become this close some day?”

“That girl you mentioned...” I trailed. “Yeah? What about her? She still here?” I bit my lip the second I asked that question. Was he about to tell me that it was none of my business? Or was he about to ignore me and pretended like he didn’t hear me?

“She’s not anymore. She left about a year ago, went back to school and stuff, never heard from her since then.” Caleb shrugged, he didn’t look like he was the least bit bothered but then I noticed that he was staring at the same page, never flipping it at all.

Great, you just asked the boy something you should have not.

“Uh, what time is it anyway?" I asked, looking around for a clock, mentally slapping myself for another round of awkwardness I just caused.

"It's only a little after 3pm, the bonfire won't start till 5 this evening." He finally looked around our cabin and landed at Demi’s guitar seated quietly in the corner of our cabin. I’ve never heard Demi played it at all, it just sat there since the day I got here.

"In the meantime, I want to show you something.” He said as he got up from lazing around Demi’s bed, placing the book face down on her bedside table and walked over to where Demi's guitar was at.

He lifted it effortlessly with just one hand—his bicep muscles flexing as he lifted it as he held the instrument effortlessly. I rolled over and sat in a seated position as he sat down on the floor next to my bed.

I watched his fingers lightly strummed the nylon strings a couple of times and placed his palm over the sound hole, bringing the strumming to a halt. At least I now know three things that he could do. One, getting on my nerves, two: reading in the midst of a noisy crowd, and three, he could play the guitar.

He strummed a familiar tune which I've always loved, and then, that's when I died of his tone deafness.

Kidding—I was completely speechless at how good he was.

‘You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you.

You'd be like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much.

At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive

You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you.’

Oh my god…….I absolutely loved this song to bits and here I was, having a live concert from the boy who annoyed me till no end.

‘Pardon the way that I stare, there's nothing else to compare,

The sight of you leaves me weak, there are no words left to speak,

But if you feel like I feel, please let me know that it’s real,

You're just too good to be true, I can't take my eyes off you’

I found myself staring at him, smiling from ear to ear. That’s when he looked up, looking right at me and I found it hard to look away.

‘I love you baby, and if it's quite alright,

I need you baby, to warm the lonely nights,

I love you baby, trust in me when I say,

Oh pretty baby, don't let me down I pray,

Oh pretty baby, now that I've found you stay;

And let me love you, baby, let me love you’

By the end of the song and when the strumming came to a gradual halt, I was speechless—like I really couldn’t find the words to say except. "That was amazing."

"Yeah I can tell you loved it with the way you’re staring at me." he grinned. I cleared my throat, rolling my eyes as I leaned back into the bed, on my arms.

"Do you want to try playing it?" he asked. I shook my head. "No, I don't exactly know how to playa guitar." I scrunched up my nose and bunched up my lips into a pout as I stared at the instrument I so badly wanted to touch.

"It's simple, here I'll teach you." He patted at the empty space on the floor, gesturing me to sit next to him and I did. He placed the guitar on my lap gently, the wooden part of the neck of the guitar was still warm from his touch when he handed the instrument to me.

"Okay, when you put your fingers here, this is then known as ‘G’ chord." he placed three of my fingers on the strings gently, moving them around correctly. Warmth rushed through my veins as he held my fingers, fixing them where they should be. The proximity of us sitting so close made my stomach swirl with giddiness, kinda made me want to throw up all at once, oh I don’t know, I was feeling all sorts of things right now.

"Try it." he said. I nodded as I strummed the strings. "Nice, now try ‘E’ chord." he moved and lifted my fingers and put it on the first 3 strings on the neck of the guitar.  “Now strum it.”

I strummed the strings, hearing the sound it produced and beamed. "See, that wasn’t so hard." He laughed. "You look really nervous, are you sweating?" he remarked and I looked towards the guitar, eyes darting left and right across the instrument. “Am I? Well, I think the air conditioner is broken.”

“No, I think its working just fine, miss nervous-around-boys.”

“I am most certainly not nervous, it’s just really hot in here” I said, simply strumming the guitar strings now, playing a tune so horrible that made him laugh at me. “Why, you don’t like this tune? Look at me? I’m a pro now.” I said as I continued strumming. “My god woman, you really suck at this.”

“Oh sorry then Mr. Nickelback, I like to play it my style.” As I continued strumming, singing a random tune as Caleb caught my fingers in his, turning to me, his face was awfully close to mine. “Stop that.” He said, staring at me. An amused smile crossed his face and I swallowed hard as I watched, blinking. I think for a moment there, I too, forgot how to breathe.

"What the hell is taking you so damn long just.." Demi barged in the door and whatever she wanted to say next caught in her throat, her lips morphed into a smirk. "Move it woman, why are you blocking the door?"

"Ohhh, hehe." Did Danny just say 'hehe'?

I’ve never scrambled away so fast in my life, knocking the edge of the guitar under my chin as I jerked up in surprised and Caleb looked pretty shocked too. “Uh, I was uh, practicing.” I began

“No no, I’m not here to question what the two of you were up to, but whatever you do, make sure my guitar doesn't see whatever kinky s**t you two were planning." she waggled her fingers back and forth between the both of us.

My jaw dropped and I felt my face getting hot. "Can you not?" I hissed at Demi.

"Demi?" Caleb said. "Yes?" she replied innocently. "Get out."

She lifted both her hands up and took a step back. "Whatever you two do, don't do it on my bed but the table’s fine. Come on Danny, let's get to your cabin and give these two some privacy!" she ran out before I could throw a pillow at her.

"But I wanna watch!" I vaguely hear Danny said as they were out the door.

"Now, where were we?" he asked.

“I can’t concentrate; I’m way too embarrassed right now.” I muttered.

“Are you really having those kinky thoughts that Demi was mentioning?” he narrowed his eyes and I feel my face heat up another 10 degrees.

“No?” was that the right answer.

“You sound really unsure about it.” Caleb said in the lowest voice possible and I cleared my throat.

“Seems to me that you’re the one who’s thinking about it.”

“That’s less likely when you’re staring at me with those eyes in the last 5 minutes.”

“What eyes!” I snapped. Caleb raised his brows, as if to prove a point and I looked away “I’m going to take a nap.”

“No you aren’t, not in a middle of a lesson you’re not.” Caleb pulled me back down and I landed on his landed, the guitar hit the floor board with a thud, and a distorted tune on the guitar played. “I don’t think this is how guitar lessons should be taught..” I trailed, feeling my soul dissipated out of my body right this very second.

“Well, I quite like this position.”

“I don’t.” I said, scrambling off his lap and tripping the bunch of pillows on the ground. “s**t f**k who put those here?” I cursed.

“You did.” He said as a matter-of-factly.

And there was absolutely no way in hell that I was gonna recover from this episode of embarrassment, ever.