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“I don’t know if I’d exactly call it bullying…”
The pair turned around and walked back the way they came, keeping Cisco and Hilly from hearing anything more.
Hilly blinked up at Cisco, and shook her head, scowling.
Cisco backed off, knowing their moment had been broken, and that she had something on her mind.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
A huff erupted from between clenched teeth. “I’m thinking I’d better call a meeting with my counselors,” she glowered. “There’s no way I’m going to allow harassment and bullying of anyone, no matter how innocent, to exist at my camp.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hilly was furious.
At herself.
For letting Cisco kiss her again without coming clean about who she was. She’d pretty much promised herself she wouldn’t let things progress without giving over that info, because she had no doubt he’d be disgusted once he found out. Would he hate her even more for letting him proceed with that second kiss? Hilly felt like the longer she kept things to herself, the more that sword of Damocles hung, sharp and waiting, above her head.
Why couldn’t she just spit it out? Get it over with? Cisco had been very open with her; brave even, to talk about his early years, his adoption, and his OCD. She was chicken-shit. Hilly wished she’d just told him while they were walking, but she’d been enjoying herself too much. Then she’d had every intention of filling him in when they reached the platform, but that epic kiss had happened, and… Lance.
Right. Lance.
What the hell was going on with her normally staunch counselor? It sounded like he’d developed a crush on Bailey—a flirtation perhaps, like the ones that often happened between counselors over the summer—but instead of Bailey rolling with it or telling Lance outright that she wasn’t interested, she was…what? Stringing him along for jollies? Keeping him on the hook to bolster her own ego…?
Crap. That sounded a lot like what Hilly was doing with Cisco.
She cut herself some slack. It wasn’t the same. She really liked Cisco. In all ways. And she wasn’t stringing him along. She simply wanted the smallest taste of him before he discovered who she was and backed off.
As for, perhaps, using Cisco to build up her ego? Hilly didn’t think that was the case, but…maybe? It certainly felt good to have the admiration and attention of someone like him; a male she’d once upon a time drooled over.
Hilly shook off her doubts. The Bailey/Lance situation was an entirely different scenario. It seemed like Bailey had been baiting Lance, only to shoot him down. Hilly certainly wasn’t doing that to Cisco.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
Hilly snapped out of her stupor to find Cisco’s eyes, filled with concern, focused solely on her.
“Yeah. Sure,” she heaved. “It’s just… How am I supposed to keep my young campers safe from bullying, when it seems my counselors might be guilty of it?”
“One counselor,” Cisco corrected her. “One, Hilly. And we’re not even sure that’s what’s happening yet. Don’t let this incident blow up in your head.”
Hilly worried her bottom lip, floundering in this unknown territory. She’d never had an issue with any of her employees before. Now there’d been Nurse Tipsy, and a possible rift in her lower ranks. “What would you do if you were me?”
Cisco didn’t hesitate. “I’d have a talk with Lance and find out what’s going on. If he confirms the fucked up stuff we think we overheard, then you sit down with Bailey and read her the riot act. We can hope that she actually likes Lance, but is just showing it in an inappropriate way.”
“You mean like in grade school, when one kid pulls another’s hair? Not because they hate each other, but just to get attention?”
“Exactly,” Cisco chuckled. “One would think your teens would have outgrown that behavior by now, but sometimes things learned at an impressionable age are hard to dismiss.”
Damn. Once again, Cisco could have been talking about her. Why couldn’t Hilly get out of her own head and move on with her life, confidently?
She shook off her self-absorption—a state she found herself more and more emersed in as she hung out with Cisco—because this was not about her. This was about her camp, her kids, and her counselors. And unlike when she was young—trying to deal with things pretty much on her own—Hilly now had charge. She was there to advocate for her kids and employees, and had a network in place; people whom she could tap into to approach problems such as these. Buffy was a huge part of that equation.
“You’re right. I need to at least talk to Lance first and find out what’s going on. If he’s conflicted as to exactly how Bailey’s treating him, I’ll enlist Buffy’s help to get to the bottom of it with the girl.”
“That’s a good plan,” Cisco agreed, then looked at his watch. “And as much as I hate not to get back to what we were doing before we were interrupted, I’ll sadly inform you it’s time to head down. But Hilly, don’t think that at the first opportunity, I won’t want to revisit what we were doing here.”
Hilly knew her terrible red-headed-blush was making an appearance again. She could feel it. But Cisco, rather than look at her askance, actually ran a gentle finger over one crimson cheek and smiled, as if he thought her reaction was…cute.