The intense aroma of pine swirls around us as we jaunt from our cabin to the front of the lodge, where Steve instructed the team to meet at 7:30pm. Normally, I would be fretting over how many hours they plan to keep us and calculating the hours of sleep until our ungodly wake up time, but tonight, all I feel is a static of excitement crackling throughout me.

Alex hooks me with his eyes from across the way, and as I draw nearer, I see him survey me from head to toe before flicking his glance to the ground. He occupies himself with organizing some papers and digging through a large mesh bag of items, which Steve holds in a tight grasp.

"Gather around," Steve commands in an even voice.

"Are we gonna sing, Coach?" Holly jokes.

"Group therapy session?"

"Truth or dare?"

"That boring game where we have to say the other person's adjectives?"

Alex and I peek at each other at the same time, and his face turns a shade darker as he smirks; his blush is a rare and delightful occurrence. From my peripheral vision, I catch Shelly staring at me. When I turn my head, we share a quick, conspiratorial half-smile.

"If everyone could close their trap for two seconds, I will explain what we're going to do. Take a seat." A practiced layer of tranquil neutrality barely covers Steve's irritation, and I have to swallow the laughter bubbling from inside me.

Alex is still shuffling through the bag, which Steve has yet to release from his clutches.

"What in God's name are you doing?" he snaps at his assistant coach.

Alex lifts his head in surprise. "Looking for the envelopes."

"I already have them over there." Steve points with impatience at the ground a few feet away.

"My bad." Alex grimaces with insincere remorse, causing all the girls to bust up laughing, then attempts to tug the tie string from Steve's hands, presumably to search for something different.

"Stop it!" Steve reprimands, pulling the bag towards himself. "Be still! Sit down." He gestures to the ground where the rest of us are seated. Alex, unaffected as always, throws his arms in the air in a swift gesture of defeat and leaps down from the step. I giggle heartily with the rest of the girls when he trips over a large pine branch and stumbles to the ground (which I'm certain he does on purpose just to screw with his coaching partner).

I can tell Steve is fighting the urge to laugh with the rest of us, but he forces his face taut, rolls his eyes and rubs his temples for effect. "You are worse than the sixteen-year-olds, Coach Alex."

Sixteen. Many of the girls here are so young. I don't mind hanging out with them, however. I've grown up spending most of my time with cousins who are either older or younger than I am.

"In pairs, you are going to complete a scavenger hunt. Coach Alex spent the last hour sprinting all over this property hiding the items you are to find, and God knows how many hours prepping these elaborate clues." He holds up the envelopes Alex was previously hunting for, revealing the slips of paper inside one of them. "So take it seriously, because a lot of unnecessary time and effort went into this."

Knowing none of his insults have the power to hurt Alex's feelings, I'm sort of loving Steve's dry and cutting humor tonight.

Alex, unable to sit still, hops back to his feet. "There is an A-MA-ZING prize for the winners. I mean it."

"What is it?" Holly calls eagerly.

"It's a surprise. I just said that. Prize—surprize. It's in the word." He's so cute I can hardly stand it.

"Each pair gets an envelope," Steve explains, passing them out. "Do NOT open them yet." The seriousness with which these two adult coaches are taking the game is endearing, and I think about the fact that they are spending their weekend here mentoring us.

Of course, this thought causes my brain to crack an inappropriate joke about Alex mentoring me.

I realize everyone is pairing up, and I'm just standing around, lost in my private thoughts. "There are an odd number on the team, so one unlucky person gets to be with Coach Alex."

My heart stops.

"That's not fair!" one of the junior girls whines. "He hid the clues!" She sounds genuinely distressed.

"Calm down," he assures the other girls. "I won't help with the clues."

Before I can process the situation, Alex is by my side, nudging me. "I'll be with Nati. She's in college, so she's smart enough to figure out the scavenger hunt on her own," he states with humor. "I'll just be there for moral support."

Don't react, don't look at him, I chant in silence.

No one comments or protests, and before I know it, the game is afoot. I attempt to calm my nerves as I remove the stack of paper clues from their envelope, but instead they slip from my shaky fingers and scatter to the ground.

Alex helps me collect them without snarky comments, using the opportunity to touch his fingers to mine as we work together picking up the mess. He hands me the scrap with a number one at the top.

When you're really tall, you can block this volley______.

Find it behind the sign for Spruce cabin and snap a photo.

It becomes apparent that Alex has prepped the rhymes, which match the items we are supposed to discover, ahead of time. He clearly rushed to add the second sentence indicating the location at some point after we arrived, because the writing is nearly illegible and full of missing words or spelling mistakes. I find the entire thing terribly adorable.

"I didn't know you were a poet," I tease him.

"I'm a man of many hidden talents."

"Volleyball, juggling, computer programming, scavenger hunt design, poetry... what else?"

I panic the moment the last two words leave my mouth, unsure if the conversation is taking a suggestive turn, but Alex simply chuckles and continues his quick pace next to me towards the cabins.

I locate the miniature Styrofoam volleyball partially buried in twigs, leaves and pine needle debris, take a picture with my cell phone, and hold out my hands to Alex for him to pass me the envelope.

He extracts clue number two, stepping nearer and reading it to me. "You're not there yet, until you find this ____."

"Net? Wow, that one was deep." I can feel my sarcasm sizzling hot tonight, feeding off Steve's earlier roasting of poor Alex. Teasing boys is the only way I know how to flirt.

"Let me guess, you are an actual poet?" he ventures, placing the clue into my palm with more contact than is necessary.

"Hm?"

"Do you write poetry?"

"Uh, yeah, I actually do."

"I thought you might." He grins at me, catching his lip in his teeth for a moment. "Proceed!" Breaking the trance he created, we move along to the next location, following the rudimentary instructions.

"Interesting spelling of cafeteria," I jab.

"Spelling is not one of my many talents." He winks at me.

"You don't mind everyone making fun of you, right?"

He appears surprised. "No, of course not. If someone teased me for something I was actually self-conscious about, that might bother me, I guess."

"What are you self-conscious about, by the way? You always seem like nothing affects you."

"Hm," he replies, tilting his eyes towards the top of the fir trees we're passing. "I'll have to think on that one."

We continue on our path, offering brief greetings to other pairs we pass along the way. Everyone else is sprinting through the grounds with an extreme sense of urgency.

"Is the prize actually something amazing?" I inquire with peeked curiosity. Normally, I am quite competitive at games.

Something changes in Alex's expression; his face brightens, or darkens—I can't tell which—and mischief dances on his lips along with seriousness and hesitation.

"What?" I pry.

"I'm trying not to make a corny and inappropriate comment about having a special prize... just for you." He laughs, high and light, pulling off that unique mix of embarrassed and carefree blended together.

"Oh my God," I joke back with him. Then I feign innocence. "What is it?" I don't realize that we have weaved into a secluded dirt trail amongst a maze of pine trees, their myriad shades of green still vibrant in the summer pre-dusk light.

As if he hasn't exactly planned the response and is making it up along the way, he replies: "One of the hugs you love so much." The tips of his fingers trace from the backs of my hands up my arms, like he wants to touch all of me and doesn't know where to begin. Energy radiates out of him, and I think he is about to make out with me, but instead he glances around us with swift, alert motions, grabs my wrist and pulls me along the trail. "Come on."

"What?" I protest. "You just said you were going to hug me."

"That's the prize," he chuckles, focusing on the ground. His tan face glows. "You have to complete the scavenger hunt."

"What a tease," I giggle.

"You're one to talk. What was that skirt you wore to dinner?" He blinds me with the glittery colors of his eyes, holding the contact longer than I can stand. "And why did you change?"

I'm now wearing yoga pants and tennis shoes. He runs his gaze up and down my legs.

"I didn't want to be cold. It's chilly here in the evenings."

"Hm. Well, you actually look even sexier now, if that's possible." He clears his throat, inhales and exhales dramatically, and proceeds to lead me towards the cafeteria. I find the little volleyball net, which is now stained in dust, inside a flower pot in front of the building.

"This is going to take all night; that was only the second clue," I complain. "You are very distracting."

"Oh, yeah?" His tone releases a flock of tiny birds in my abdomen.

"What happens if we don't finish the game?"

"Then you don't get your prize," he says somberly.

"Shut up."

Alex laughs. "There's no penalty, Nati. Besides the humiliation of losing."

We continue with clue number three.

It's not a cockroach, he's just your awesome ___________.

"Good Lord, these are terrible." I cover my face in my hands, cringing exaggeratedly. But I have to give him credit when we uncover the next item, which is a bobble head figurine he has gone to the effort of decorating to represent Coach Steve, complete with a blue "Genius" shirt.

"Impressed yet?"

"This is hilarious, Alex. When did you do all this? And you don't have time to take me on a date?"

"Hey!" he defends. "Speaking of that, let's go on Tuesday evening? I work late Mondays. How's bowling?"

"Oh my gosh, I love bowling! I'm really good, too."

He smirks at my exuberance, and we continue meandering along the pathways of the campgrounds as an exploding orange sun sets among pink smudges of clouds. The air is turning crisp, and I'm grateful I changed into pants.

"Since you're losing anyway, we can take another detour," Alex says suddenly, tugging my wrist in his gentle yet excited manner. Our fingers mingle together like breeze-blown grass as our long synchronized strides propel us forward. We snatch our hands away from each other's at the same time as a group of my teammates sprints our direction. I doubt they would have noticed the subtle caress of our fingers, however, as I now realize they are barreling towards us with giant water guns, screeching unintelligible sounds.

"There he is!"

"What the hell?" Alex mutters, immediately activated into decision-making mode. He pulls my arm; we make a sharp turn to the right, sprinting past a building. They girls chase after us with shrieks of delight, the long spray of cold water barely reaching us as a light mist. We run harder, hang another right around the building and duck behind a dumpster. We hear them intersect with a new set of victims, and soon the blur of their sneakers rushes past our limited line of vision from the gap between the recycle and trash bins.

"Come on!" whispers Alex, as if we are on an urgent military mission. We weave throughout more buildings and trails, the howls of water gun warfare echoing in the background, until we come upon a random greenhouse filled with flowers.

"That was close," I exhale as we duck inside.

Disappearing into the canopy of tangled plants, Alex pulls me to him at last, and I melt into him. Leaning against his chest, I feel his heart beating and breathe in the intoxicating scent of his cologne.

"I think the scavenger hunt is officially over," he says, the timbre of his voice different, less solid.

"All your effort," I lament, my lips quivering in amusement and nervousness.

"Worth it," he breathes. Alex holds my waist in his overheated palms, and there is almost no space between our bodies. His eyes are pulsing and changing color like a spinning pinwheel as he stares into mine, specks of bronze and copper gleaming sharply.

Our lips meet, and it's not quite what I expected.