In true New England fashion, the dry weather streak didn't last long.

I roam the camp after dinner, eyeing the dark gray color of the accumulating clouds above. A droplet of rain plops onto my nose, but I try to convince myself it's just sweat. It's kind of hot...?

Earlier this afternoon, Axel initiated our first session in the camp's pristine gym. For the most part, the air conditioning and lack of uneven terrain rendered the workout less arduous than I thought it would be, with most of my struggles coming from figuring out how to use the many novel machines. I hadn't seen Axel so annoyed since our first workout on the beach, but it wasn't my fault for not knowing the difference between a stair climber and elliptical.

Right?

In the distance, I make out Axel, Austin, and Isla. Austin says something that makes her drive her elbow into Axel's side, but instead of looking offended, he laughs with them, the sound faint yet pleasant from where I'm standing. Austin switches gears and leans in for one of those bro hugs with Axel before heading back inside.

Realizing how creepy I'd look if Axel caught me, I try to find an open bench to rest my tired legs, but they're occupied by Adriana, Willow, and Natalie, apparently Joanna's replacement for the day. She lays her hands daintily on top of pink shorts, laughing with a little too much amusement at whatever Willow says.

Her doe-like brown eyes fall on me as I walk by, and she reaches her hand up for a wave. Adriana's pointed glare intimidates Natalie enough to shyly look away, and I arch a confused brow. In turn, Adriana turns her head my way, silky long hair bouncing against her back.

"Whitney, hi," she says, beaming as if we're long lost friends. "You should come sit with us. There's some room here." She pats the empty bench space next to Willow, still smiling.

I take turns staring at her and then at Natalie, wondering where the bubbly girl from the first day of the camp went. "Thanks for the invitation, Adriana," I begin wryly, "but I'd hate to make Willow uncomfortable. Some of us have a little more surface area."

At the sound of her name, Willow snaps her blonde head up, affronted by my calculated words, even if I was just insulting myself. Curling her fingers around the edge of the bench, she opens her mouth to respond, but my attention disappears when I hear a call of my name. Turning around, I see Axel beckon to me.

On the one hand, I'm relieved to be freed of this high school drama, but on the other very related hand, I can only wonder what the three will think of Axel's smirk, somehow visible from several yards away.

I stop in front of his waiting form, propped up against the back wall of the trainers' dorm. He's traded in his typical T-shirt for a gray sweatshirt and smells like a fresh shower.

"Uh, I'm not missing a workout session, am I?" I ask nervously.

"It's past seven, Whitney," he says, stating the obvious. He glances up at the clouds, then back at me and then he dips his head a little closer to my ear. "Get a head start on those airheads over there and go back inside. It's gonna rain any second now."

I open my mouth to thank him for the warning, but the sky responds to Axel no more than five seconds later, sending the first wave of heavy rain. Moments later, a standard summer rainstorm morphs into a biblical deluge, rumbling thunder and all.

"Oh crap, oh shit, oh crap." I duck down and hide my tame hair with my hands as I try to figure out the quickest way back to my room without destroying my spotless white sneakers. Natalie and company squeal in fright and disperse like city rats.

With the speed I can only attribute to the guy behind me, I begin to sprint away, but for once, Axel doesn't care about how fast I can run. He takes me by the elbow and pulls me through the rear entrance of the building, almost shoving me into the dry indoors. As I wipe the water from my face with my sleeve, I notice the interior is much more modern and spacious than our building's.

A perk for putting up with all of us, I guess.

"God, I should check the weather more often," I say, watching him discard his damp sweatshirt. I glance at the lining of glass on the door, blurred by droplets of rain. "I guess I'll just wait out here until the storm calms down a bit. Thanks."

"You'll probably be here for two hours," he says, checking the radar on his phone, "but if that's good with you, I'll get going." He pulls out what looks like a key card and heads to the door about five feet down the hall.

I stay in place, wondering if he's going to go in. Sure enough, he unlocks the door and holds it open with his elbow, turning his head to the left to observe my expression.

I cross my arms over my water-speckled shirt. "This isn't an invitation to your room, is it?" I keep my voice down in case anyone is listening.

He smirks and leans against the wooden door. As his eyes trail from my wide eyes to my folded hands, I note something in him that I've let go over my head all this time: experience. Surely, he's done this before in an actual romantic setting, with some girl far more mature than I am.

Heck, what if he really does have a girlfriend, and I just made a fool of myself for even asking that question?

"I'll leave my door open."

With that, he disappears into his room, leaving me confused about the exact intention behind his words. Sighing, I slide down to the floor and pull my phone out of my back pocket, hoping to find a few notifications to keep me occupied.

My empty home screen mocks me.

I groan softly and rest the back of my head on the hard wall, staring at the fluorescent ceiling lights. After two minutes of thinking about nothing, I begin to fight the urge to fall asleep, somehow soothed by the intermittent cracks of thunder. When my heavy eyelids finally give in, I shoot up to my feet, terrified of someone finding me here.

I creep down the hall, wincing at the squeak of my sneakers on the polished linoleum. I peek into Axel's doorway, finding an organized room with a mostly dark-blue interior, aside from the white walls. He's crouching by his side table, thumbing through a stack of papers.

"Hi."

He rises to his feet at the sound of my voice, corners of his lips just lifting. "Giving in already?"

I shove my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt, stepping over the line that separates his room from the hall. "I'm kind of terrified of someone finding me. Isn't this—you know—against the rules?"

"Sheltering you from a violent thunderstorm?" He cocks his head to the side and clucks his tongue. "Nah, I don't think so."

Well, that's one way to interpret it.

"I mean, you could have just asked me to stay out there."

"And you could've done just that," he says, walking towards me and leaning forward so that I feel just shy of trapped, "yet you're here right now." He points his chin over my head. "Door's still open, by the way."

Once again, his teasing muddles my thinking, but I don't want to concede just yet. I duck into the foot of space between his desk and the wall to conceal myself from any passerby. In the meantime, I get a good look at the first few hints of his personality outside of work. Decorating the corner of the wooden surface are two picture frames and a couple of plaques, appearing to be awards from college. I'm only interested in the photos, but I tear my eyes away from them when Axel catches me creeping.

"Your room is..." I trail my gaze from the wrinkle-free double bed to the aligned notebooks on his desk. "It's quite neat. I like it."

"Thanks," he says, crumpling a piece of paper into a ball. "Bob assigns twenty push-ups for each unmade bed found on room checks, so there's no messing around."

My head snaps up. "Wait, really? That's insane."

"God no. He never even enters this building." He chucks the ball of paper into the small recycling bin and takes a seat on the edge of his bed. "The true story is my roommate during my first two years of college was an absolute fucking pig and put me off dirty laundry and trash that's not in the trash can for good."

"You know what, that makes much more sense," I laugh, hoping that I'll be spared from those kinds of roommates during the next four years. "So, can I ask? Is Bob as intimidating as we all think he is? Or was that persona on the first day just an act?"

He racks his brain for a few moments. "It's hard to say. Once he gets to know you better, he lightens up, but some part of him thrives off destroying the enthusiasm of new trainees, so the introductory speech is probably never going to change. But he is a lot more lenient on the female trainers than he is on us guys."

Well, color me surprised.

"Is it because he thinks they're less competent, or does he just want to avoid a lawsuit?"

He snorts. "Probably the latter, but it's mostly the former military officer in him. He thinks women are soft and delicate beings."

I go back to staring at his photos, noticing one is of him in a cap and gown with a woman who shares his same eyes. His mother? Probably. The other picture is much older, slightly wrinkled in the frame, of him, a preschool version of him, and someone I can only assume is his father, given the ages of the boys in the photo. They sit on a bench in a public park, in front of buildings the remind me more of those in Boston than the skyscrapers of New York.

"Is that the Common?" I ask, trying to subtly introduce my interest in this photo—in the man in this photo. "I go there every summer."

"Correct," he says, stopping in his tracks. He places his hands on his hips and eyes the photo from a distance, something I imagine he's done a hundred times before. "Kid on the left is James, my brother. The man in between us is my dad."

"Your whole family looks so much alike," I say warmly. "That hazel eye gene must be strong."

"I've heard that one before," he says, his bright expression fading. He picks up the picture himself, reconfirming that fact for himself. "To tell the truth, I used to like when people told me I looked like my dad, until I realized they mostly told me it out of pity. No one really knows how to act around the kid with the dead father, I guess."

"Oh, I didn't say that out of pity," I say, looking down. My voice falls to an uncontrollable whisper. "Your eyes are just really pretty."

They meet mine, and he puts down the photo. He takes a step forward, and I take one backwards, so that there are only a couple inches between my back and the wall. I notice a small smile has wiped any discernible sadness, smoothing out the lines in his face. The rain still pounds outside, pelleting against the windows, and beats almost as strongly as my heart.

"Has anyone ever told you you're really fuckin' adorable?"

I shake my head. "The honest people in my life aren't quite as nice."

His laugh overpowers the sound of torrential rain. "Maybe you spend too much time around the wrong people."

After that, I don't know if I tilt my head up first or he lowers his. Either way, eye contact is no longer the only thing that connects us, as his lips hover above my own, waiting for just the right moment.

It never comes, supplanted by a crack of thunder and a flash of white light. At first, I think the glitch is just lightning, until I notice the spotlights on the ceiling have gone black. Every few seconds, we can make each other out with the help of the intermittent lightning flashes. In some odd way, I find this scenario romantic.

Axel does not.

"Can you stay here for a couple minutes?" he asks. He grabs his phone and room key, grumbling, "I'm gonna go see what to do about this."

"Yeah, sure," I murmur, sinking down into his desk chair in the dark.

When he leaves and shuts the door behind him, I have to remind myself that at end of the day, this is his job and I'm just a part of it—the only way it should be.

Too bad "should be" is never any fun.