I stumbled down the hill towards the lake, my feet shuffling and tripping over themselves through the tall grass as I tried to keep up with Luke’s dark figure. He had appeared in the doorway of my dorm room only minutes earlier to pull me out from under my covers and drag me down to the little beach at the edge of the Bonnidee - a green, murky lake full of creepy crawly things that campers canoed in during the day. It’s also what gave the camp its name and was where Luke and I met for the first time back in grade school.
“Wait!” I whispered harshly as I began to quickly fall behind his long strides. He only hushed me, grabbed my hand, and continued down the hill in response. I wasn’t having it though. If we were going to break the rules, I wanted to know what.
“What are we even doing out here?” I tried again, moving closer so that I wouldn’t have to speak so loudly. This proved to be a poor decision. He stopped, long enough for me to run my nose straight into his arm, before kneeling down and sticking his arms out behind him and motioning for me to climb onto his back.Â
“Come on,” His deep voice was laced with a sense of urgency. It still seemed to catch me off guard, despite having spent most of the summer with him. You can imagine how much of a shock it had been to be thrown around in a hug by a six foot giant with a lip ring as greeting at the beginning of June. Even more disturbing when every female within a fifty foot radius of Luke visibly oogled, or worse - flirted. He could only ever mutter a few shy phrases under his breath before I had to swoop in and save him from further embarrassment.
I, on the other hand, had left camp one summer and returned the next looking and sounding much the same. Luke was still Luke, though. And we still hung out like old times, wreaking havoc, and playing pranks around the camp grounds that we’d most likely be in trouble for the next day. This was probably just another one of his elaborately planned jokes that needed the cover of night to pull off.
I grunted with disapproval, still unsatisfied with his lack of explanation, but I obliged, bending over to loop my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his waist. Luke stood easily and hopped once, slightly adjusting my weight on his back. It was an odd feeling to be pressed so closely to his body, my chest flush against his broad back and his huge hands holding my ass. Suddenly I was extremely self-conscious about my size and attempted to put as much distance between us as piggy-back riding would allow, but it was of no use.
“What are you doing?” He grunted and threw my weight forward again with a jolt, “If you keep leaning back like that, we’re both going to fall over.” Luke’s back was now thoroughly introduced to my breast size, and if it hadn’t been so dark I would have noticed the red tinge creep up his neck.
“Sorry,” I muttered. Our faces were uncomfortably close. I could hear his breathing increase ever so slightly as we continued down the hill, and the tips of his hair tickled at my neck and cheek with each step. And he smelt good. Really good. Like a mix between his everyday cologne and the camp. Not at all like the other boys that smelt like dirt and sweat after coming in from activities. It was nice. I did my best to breath in his scent without making it too obvious.
Before I knew it, my piggy back ride was over, and I was sliding off Luke’s back to stand at the edge of the lake. The water lazily lapped up on the tiny shore, a bright moon reflecting off it’s black color and illuminating our faces. In the distance you could see the dark outlines of ragged mossy oak trees growing out of the Bonnidee.
“Wow,” I breathed, “It’s beautiful.” It was like a scene straight out of the movies.Â
“…you are,” Luke replied softly. My head snapped in his direction. Had I heard him right? He glanced away from me, “I mean, it is. The lake is.” He corrected. Had he just been staring at me? My heart seemed to skip a beat, but I didn’t stop to question it.Â
“So..?” I began, now wondering why we were out at the lake so late at night.
“Take your shoes off,” He said. He was already peeling off his socks and tucking them into his shoes.Â
“Ah, okay?"I watched him carefully as I tugged my own shoes off my feet. Luke walked behind some tree brush to my right and wrestled with the undergrowth, rustling the leaves and dead branches. After setting the canoe free, he easily muscled the giant piece of metal onto the damp sand, the veins in his arms making an appearance. I watched quietly with the sand between my toes and the cool water running gently over my feet. He pushed it towards the lake before straddling the end and looking back at me expectantly.
"Are we pushing all the canoes out in the middle of the lake?” I asked. That was sure to get us into loads of trouble.
He chuckled slightly, his lip ring glinting, “Haha, just get in."Â
I crinkled my nose, but I trusted that he knew what he was doing. We had, after all, pulled off some of the craziest pranks in camp history together. My hand touched his shoulder lightly as I stepped into the canoe. His grip on the metal tightened significantly, ensuring that the canoe was balanced as I made my way towards the back. Once I was seated, Luke tossed two paddles out to me before slowly pushing the canoe out onto the water. He waded into the lake until the water was up to his knees, the bottom half of his legs disappearing into the blackness before hopping into the canoe, rocking it slightly back and forth. When he sat down facing me I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The noise traveled across the water with ease, startling Luke. His wide blue eyes looking up as I clapped my hand over my mouth in an attempt to muffle it.
"What? What is it?” He asked anxiously, already self-consciously rubbing a hand over his face and through his hair. I noticed the slight stubble on his face.
“Have you forgotten how to sit in a canoe?” I grinned, “You’re sitting in the wrong direction!” For a moment he didn’t react.Â
“Are you seriously questioning my seating position right now?” Luke raised an eyebrow at me, “We’re not even wearing life jackets!” The usual smirk began to play at the corner of his lips again.
I gasped in horror, my right hand coming up to cover my mouth, “We forgot the first rule of canoeing-”
We recited the jingle counselors had drilled into our heads over the years simultaneously, “-always wear the safety vest or find the fish and lay to rest.” We burst into laughter, and it floated across the lake before disappearing into the thick trees.
“I can’t believe that we’re seventeen now,” I smiled at all the memories we had made together out here and extended the paddle out to him. We struggled to navigate the canoe with half the team facing the wrong direction, and for a few minutes went around in sad little circles before giving up.Â
I laughed, a little crazily, “What are we even doing?” My paddle hit the bottom of the canoe with a thud. He shrugged and smiled the smile that so many girls had fallen for these past few months.Â
“I don’t even know,” His paddle joined mine, and he laughed a little too, “I honestly don’t even know.” We both fell quiet as we took in the surroundings. Everything seemed to be completely still, but I knew better as I heard the small current against the side of the canoe, and the crickets and toads far off in the distance. It was incredibly calming to be out on the lake so late at night.
“Y/N, look up,” Luke instructed me. I did. It hadn’t occurred to me that all the stars would be out, twinkling, and providing a light that could challenge the full moon’s. I was in complete awe, and lifted my face to watch the night sky’s beauty. After a while I glanced down to find Luke watching me.
“Is there something on my face?” I asked, “because you’ve been looking at me weird all night.”
“Remember the first time we ever met?”
“Yeah? We were partnered for canoes.” I wondered where he was going with this.
“Remember how we hated each other at first?”
I threw my head back with a laugh, “Yes! How could I forget?” The first day of camp was a memorable one for many reasons. Luke and I had basically been forced into a partnership because of the uneven amount of girls and boys in our cabin. It would have been an understatement to say that we were upset, but there was nothing to do but accept it.
I laughed, “Of course.” The memories came flooding back to me, “We crashed our first canoe into a tree!” I don’t think we had been sitting in the canoe for a solid five minutes before it happened. Our tiny vocabularies at the time probably wouldn’t have understood what the word cooperation meant, but we definitely weren’t doing it. We didn’t even talk. Not a word was spoken between the two of us as we canoed out into the lake. The lack of communication was the main problem. We just kept paddling, eventually straight into a tree in the middle of the Bonnidee. The tree branches caught the sides of the boat, and Luke, thinking that he was oh-so smart, took his paddle to swat at the tree in a feeble attempt to free us. While this may have worked for any other child out on the lake that day, it did not for us.
When our heads came spluttering up out of the water, Luke had expected me to have been pissed. Instead I came up gasping for air and laughing. And after swimming back to shore, peeling the leeches off our limbs, and changing into a dry pair of clothes, I was still laughing. I think in that moment, Luke and I became instant best friends.
“I don’t think they ever found that canoe again,” I mused, “We just left it out there.”
Luke’s smile stretched across his face, “This is it.” He said proudly as he patted the metal railing lovingly. It took a moment for me to understand what he was saying.
“Wait, what? This-” I gripped both sides of the canoe and shook us slightly, “-is the canoe we flipped seven years ago?”
He bobbed his head once, “Yup.”
“No way,” I couldn’t believe it, “This? This thing right here?”
Luke’s eyes crinkled as he laughed, “Yes! I went and fished it out near the tree we hit a couple of nights ago.”
“Why?” I laughed again. I didn’t think it was too serious of a question, just the most obvious question to ask next. He stopped laughing and looked at me in a way that I knew something big was about to happen.
“I-I uh,” He cleared his throat, “I wanted tonight to be perfect.” Before I could respond he rushed on.
“I wanted you to remember where we started on that first day of camp seven years ago. And I wanted you to remember tonight.” Luke took a deep breath, “That first summer with you as friends was great. And the summer after that, even better. But when we came back for our third summer together… things started to change,” He chuckled, running a hand over his face, “I swear, you got prettier ever year. At first I thought that maybe it was just a crush. That it was something I would get over, but when you started seeing that guy-”
“Matthew?” I recalled Luke’s intense hatred towards my first boyfriend.
“-yeah, that guy in 9th grade. I was so angry. Mostly with myself that I hadn’t made a move by then.”
“You beat him up after he cheated on me,” I interrupted again. Had that been more than just a best friends’ duty?
“I think….I think I may have fallen in love with you back then,” Luke’s eyes wandered down to his hands as he played with the bands on his wrist, “I just didn’t realize it until after John and Adam and Trevor.”
“What about Cameron?” He had been my most recent and most serious relationship.
“No,” He shook his head, smiling sadly to himself, “No, I knew by then.” I was shocked.
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”
He looked pained as he answered me, “You.. You were just so happy with him. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. He made you smile and laugh more than I ever did. He was older and more experienced and seemed to have everything in his life planned out.” His scratched at the back of his head, “I thought that he would be better for you.”
“Luke..” Something crumbled in my chest.
“No,” He held up a hand, “Please.. just let me finish.”
“I fell in love with you, Y/N, over the years. And I can’t keep quiet about it anymore. Whether tonight is a night that you remember as the end of our friendship, or the start of something else - something more, I don’t know. And I don’t know if I have much to offer, but I do know that I would try to make you the happiest girl on earth. Or at least at camp.”
I crawled over the paddles towards Luke, increasing the chances of flipping the canoe by about 99%. It didn’t, and I threw my arms around Luke’s neck and kissed him. He didn’t move at first. Then an arm snaked around my waist to pull me closer. A hand tangling itself in my hair in a way that made my heart soar. When neither of us could breath any longer, we pulled apart.
“You’re breaking so many rules right now,” Luke smirked.
“Shut up,” And I kissed him again, under the brightly lit night sky in the middle of the Bonnidee.
Author’s Note: This ended up being a lot longer than I had intended it to be, but I think I’m happy with it. This was actually based off one of my own experiences rather than my imagination (maybe you’ll be able to tell). During camp I actually did go night canoeing, and it was absolutely beautiful. I hope that you guys enjoyed this. Like, reblog, follow, and leave some feedback for me. If I can improve on something, then please tell me! Thanks again guys:)
