Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gina gets three surprises on the first day at Camp Shallow Lake.

The first surprise was the fact that she had come to camp at all. You could have asked her a million times at any other point in her life if she’d like to go to theater camp, and her answer would have always been the same.

A resounding no.

But the air is light and the sun hits the lake in a pseudo-magical way and fighting with Ashlyn over who is taking the top bunk is wildly wonderful in a way Gina swears up and down she would never enjoy.

And yet. Her smile is so big it can’t even get lost behind the Frankenstein-ed s’mores Carlos has put together and passed her, sticky sweet marshmallow and chocolate already all over her face.

She is good. Every summer before this and she finally has gotten one right.

She belongs here.

As wonderful as it is, its still surprising, since she’s never been an outdoors person. But its hard to be mad about swatting away mosquitoes when she’s got Kourtney’s laugh in one ear and Carlos’s casting theories in the other, a homemade friendship bracelet that matches Ashlyn’s on one wrist and her boyfriend’s hand looped around the other.

Her boyfriend. God. That surprise came weeks ago, and it still thrills her.

EJ’s already looking at her when she meets his eyes, finally able to divert her attention away from the mess of a campfire snack in her hands she’s very afraid is going to stain at least one article of clothing when it falls out of its flimsy graham cracker shell.

“What?” is all she can think to say through her wide smile, because he’s looking at her, in that thoughtful way that again, never ceases to surprise her.

“Nothing,” he purses his lips, shakes his head, runs a thumb across the back of her hand without breaking eye contact.

“I can tell you’re thinking something,” Gina implores, the rest of the conversation dipping to a hum around her, because when she’s this close to EJ it’s all background noise.

“How?”

“Steam comes out of your ears.”

It earns her a small chuckled from him, which he punctuates with a kiss on the cheek and a sweet if you squint hard enough (but mostly patronizing), “You’re adorable.”

“Well,” Gina huffs, self-conscious when her humor falls flat. They have different styles, which is fine, but he’s older than her and cooler than her and if she wants him to keep looking at her like that, she needs to get on his level. She tries to get back to adorable, “Were you thinking or not?”

“I was,” he nods, “Thinking about how gorgeous you’re gonna look in Anna’s coronation dress.”

“Shut up,” Gina feels doubly self-conscious now, when EJ brings up the actual second surprise topic of the night. “Have you seen the people in this place? I’ll be lucky if I get to play a dancing snowflake.”

“You mean they’d be lucky.”

“Shut up,” she repeats, occupying herself with another bite of s’mores. EJ has already taken to raving about her performance as Anna six times since the camp announces (with an unbridled amount of fanfare) that they were going to be doing Frozen this summer. It was endearingly sweet how much faith he seemed to have in her, that he felt certain that out of the dozens of people at this camp that she could snag one of the only 2 female roles in the beloved and camp premiere Disney show.

But it had literally been like, an hour since they found out. They had barely moved from the benches by the stage to their impromptu East High fire pit. It was getting to be a bit much.

“If you keep talking about this, you’re gonna jinx it,” Gina tries to divert the topic once more.

“Luck has nothing on you, Gina Porter,” he says sweetly, lacing his fingers through hers more firmly now, sans s’more, “It has nothing on us.”

“Gonna be a good summer,” and she means it. Two good surprises down and two whole weeks with nothing between her, the summer wind, her three best friends and the world’s sweetest first boyfriend.

“You are going to be either the most gorgeous princess this camp has ever seen or the most gorgeous dancing snowflake,” EJ says, squeezes her hand, “And I am going to have the best seat in the house to cheer you on every step of the way.”

His gaze is so intense Gina has to look away again, before it looks like she’s gotten sunburnt before even spending a full first day here, “Man, is it just me or is it like really hot in here, all of a sudden?”

Her nervous laughter falls flat on Carlos’s bubbling one, “Gina, we’re outside!”

“You know,” she gestures vaguely in front of her, “The fire. Its very hot.”

“Well thank god we just listened to EJ call you gorgeous six times, because maybe scholarly isn’t the highest on your list of attributes at the moment,” Ashlyn teases, turning her marshmallow skewer over the fire that is, as Gina has smartly pointed out, very hot.

“Shut up,” Gina repeats a third time, chucks a stray graham cracker over their small fire and towards Ashlyn, who dodges it. She’d taken the whole “my new pseudo-sister is dating my old actual cousin” thing in stride, for the most part, and her teasing is frequent but never has much bite.

“You know what I think this means?” Ashlyn continues, eyeing Gina and EJ, “I think this means Gina owes me.”

“Oh, she’s going there,” Kourtney giggles behind a s’more of her own, seeming to know where Ashlyn’s train of thought is going.

“If you say you get the—“

“I get the bottom bunk!” Ashlyn yells, “For witnessing that, yeah, I think I’m owed.”

“That wasn’t even bad!” EJ yells back.

“This performance has actually enlightened me to the fact that I’d like our bunk to be boy-free,” Ashlyn continues, undeterred, “And I don’t think there’s any chance of EJ sneaking past me and up the ladder to you in the top bunk so..”

“Oh my god,” Gina shrieks, covering her ears with embarrassment.

“Boy free?”

“You don’t count, Los.”

“No I agree,” Carlos nods, topping off his second s’more with a cracker, “I’m thinking of having an EJ-less summer too.” It earns him a playful shove from the older boy and Gina relishes in the chance to breathe for a minute with some space.

“I still don’t get why you guys are fighting over this,” EJ says, before returning to his seat.

“Because the camp messed up and we got put in a room with 2 bunk beds, but only three of us,” Kourtney takes over to explain because Ashlyn and Gina are still wordlessly sparring over their bunk, the campfire roaring to life between them with a spark and crackle, “And I called dibs on a bottom bed first.”

“Smart.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” she shrugs, “And I’m not getting in the middle of whatever weird sister telepathy these two have going on.”

“We could alternate,” Gina crosses her arms, almost pouts at Ashlyn but a year of living with the girl and she knows she’s not backing down, “I’ll take the bottom this week and you get it next week.”

“You won’t switch.”

She’s right, she won’t, so she tries again, “You can’t ban my boyfriend.”

“You can’t canoodle with my cousin.”

“Canoodle?”

“I could have said something else…”

“Oh my god!”

“Gina,” EJ whispers, “take the top bunk.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“There are no bunks in my cabin,” EJ still leans in closer to whisper conspiratorially, “We won’t need to canoodle in yours when I have—“

“Stop, stop,” Ashlyn makes a show of standing and waving her hands, “I surrender, cease fire, you win, I lose, whatever you want, as long as you never finish that train of thought.”

Nighttime crickets and an acoustic guitar from a campfire over harmonize with the laughter of all her friends. Its beautiful background noise. Gina has long since stopped being surprised that this is her life, that these people love her and she deserves to be loved in one place.

But the universe had not been done with surprises yet.

The beautiful sounds of camp and campfires and her friends being silly and wonderful and embarrassing are harshly interrupted by an ear-splitting scraping noise. Creaking metal and kicked up dust and the slide of gravelly rocks.

Gina likes to think she has a good imagination, but she’s coming up short on what could possibly be the source of this loud and harsh sounding interruption. And yet, not a single thing she might have come up with would have ever been what she turns around to actually see.

Everything comes in threes. So she should have known a third surprise was coming. She’s at summer camp, they’re doing Frozen as their musical, and Ricky Bowen.

Ricky Bowen is here. It repeats in her head over and over again as she watches him from where’s she’s twisted in her seat. She doesn’t have the best view, but its clear it’s him. She’d know that laughter anywhere, could pick it out in the most joyful campfire ever, with everyone giddy and giggling all at once.

Ricky Bowen, floppy curls and beat up Vans and all, is pushing an even more beat up blue pick up truck up the gravelly entrance of Camp Shallow Lake. He looks completely and utterly exhausted, sweat pooling on his forehead that he wipes with a grease stained hand, but not exhausted enough to keep him from full body laughing at the person in the driver’s seat.

It’s like Gina is transported immediately back to the East High gym in that moment. No amount of woodsy landscape or shitty wifi could suspend the illusion of seeing Ricky Bowen unabashedly happy and giggling with Nini Salazar-Roberts again.

The summer wind is sucked right out of her lungs.

Gina can’t look away, not as she hears Nini yell, body half out the driver’s seat window that they almost made it, every word laced with laughter. Gina can’t look away when Ricky’s muscles flex, trying to push the car just a little further, his feet skidding under the gravel and the car not moving an inch and begging, more dizzying laughter to accompany it, Nini to please finally get out and help him. Gina can’t look away when Nini does, when she bumps shoulders with him and throws her head back and screams to the sky when they still don’t move the car an inch, when Ricky’s curls flop onto Nini’s and she yells at him again. Gina can’t look away when Kourtney suddenly appears in her field of vision, having run over to her best friend immediately, swatting Ricky’s calloused and dirty hands away, but eventually giving in to his infectious laughter and letting him join the group hug too.

She can’t look away from him, not for a single second, not even when her real, actual boyfriend tugs her to standing and says something about them going over to say hi with everyone else.

By the time she wordlessly moves through the motions to join the rest of her friends at the world’s most broken down car, she’s still looking at Ricky. Ashlyn is fussing over Nini and Carlos is regaining his footing after being spun in the air in a hug from Ricky and Kourtney is dusting her clothes off from where she made the mistake of leaning on the car and EJ is clapping Ricky jovially on the shoulder, already talking and she can’t do it.

EJ and Ricky shoulder to shoulder and Gina can’t stop looking at him.

“Okay, so who is going to tell us what happened?” EJ is lighthearted when he laughs and asks their two newest visitors, and Gina is envious at how little this is affecting him. She wants him to be paralyzed in rage and awkwardness and unresolved tension too.

“What didn’t happen is probably the better place to start,” Ricky jokes back with him just as easily, and she wants to hit him over the head. Be weird about this, she silently begging him, be as confused as I still am.

Both of her boys are blissfully unaware of her strife for the moment. She sinks into an outer part of the circle they’ve all formed around the back of the truck.

“I really thought this would be a cute surprise but remind me next time, to just surprise you a little earlier and get in EJ’s car,” Nini answers, joining in on the fun and smiles and laughter, “I miss your car, EJ.”

“Rude.”

“This is your car, Ricky?”

“Um, yeah, again, car is probably a loose term for what this is…” Ricky offhandedly pushes the car behind him and the headlight goes out, as if on cue, “More like summer project with my dad.”

“And this is the end result of the project?” Carlos is fixated on the rusting bumper, eyes comically wide.

“Long story,” Ricky shakes it off, and Gina knows that expression, that knit between his brows. He desperately wants to change the subject.

“Ricky we have literally nothing but time,” Ashlyn replies, “And tons of marshmallows. Tell us everything.”

“It’s— uh—“

A night of surprises it seems, because the next words are out of Gina’s mouth before she even knows she’s thought them, “Forget Ricky’s dumb car or not a car, Nini?!?! What are you doing here!?”

There is nothing she will not do for this boy. His shoulders visibly relax.

“Well, I have… a thing in LA next month—“ Nini starts, smiling sheepishly.

“She says ‘a thing’ like its a dentist appointment and not a meeting about signing a recording contract!” Kourtney interjects, ever the world’s proudest best friend.

“It’s just a thing and I’m trying not to make a thing out of it,” Nini’s face is as bright as if she were around the campfire with them, “Anyway, camp was on the way and one of my old counselors had been begging me since January to come back so…”

“So you’re back?”

“Yeah. My Marian may have made me somewhat of a legend around here, but I think I’m gonna be helping the music counselors,” she brushes off, “And my moms needed the car for work so I begged—“

“Bribed me with a Big Mac!” Ricky jumps to correct.

“—Asked so nicely for Ricky to pretty please with a sesame seed bun on top take me to Camp Shallow Lake to spend a few perfect weeks of summer with my perfect best friends,” Nini beams, sinking into a half-side hug with Kourtney once again.

“It’s the best surprise ever,” Ashlyn says, “I’m sorry you had to take a death mobile to get here, but still. Best surprise ever.”

“And this is coming after we found out Corbin Bleu is producing a filmed performance of Frozen here this summer,” Carlos says, seeming to have made peace with the rusty car and is sitting (not comfortably, but definitely just sitting) atop it.

“No way?”

“See, Richard, I told you to sign up,” Nini leans over and swats Ricky in the shoulder.

“You’re not staying, Ricky?”

Gina is glad someone else asked what she was immediately thinking.

“Just here to let Nini use my death mobile,” he shrugs.

“Dude, you have to stay!” EJ says.

“Not like you can leave in this thing,” Carlos supplies.

“I told Big Red I’d help him out at Slices this summer,” Ricky rubs a hand on the back of his neck nervously.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Ashlyn yells, “I know Big Red told you to come here.”

“I actually do need money,” Ricky retorts, “You know, to fix the death mobile.”

“Sell the death mobile Ricky,” Kourtney nods him on, before they both share a laugh.

“Isn’t it like, too late to join now anyway?” He tries to deflect again, and then her stupid, sweet, oblivious boyfriend does the last thing she has ever wanted him to do and spoon feeds a summer full of Ricky to her on a platter.

“Dude, did you forget I work here? Say the word, and you’re in.”

Gina is ready to push the death mobile home herself if it will undo that statement, and give her the peaceful, distraction free summer she had been banking on. No complications, no confusing feelings. She’s got EJ now and everything is exactly as it should be. She doesn’t need Ricky here and she doesn’t want him here either.

But she’s alone in this fact, as everyone is begging the skater to stay.

“I need a bunk mate!” Carlos is offering.

“Didn’t we say boy-free summer?”

“If you recall correctly I said EJ-less summer,” Carlos corrects, and leans to avoid another playful punch to the shoulder from EJ.

“Please Ricky, stay!”

“It’s two weeks. If you hate it, you can always drive me and the death mobile the rest of the way to LA,” Nini says, and its a perfect compromise, a perfect out for him, so perfect Gina knows a few months earlier and she would have been making every perfect compromise in the book for him to stay too.

And even though she has not been able to take her eyes off him since he arrived, Ricky finally looks at her. Ricky looks at Gina and she’s sent spiraling even further back than the East High gym. She is in an ugly orange car, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing, why she’s doing it or even how, since she’s felt paralyzed in feelings for the past 20 minutes. But before she can stop herself she’s looking at Ricky too.

She nods her head up and down, ever so subtly. A little wordless communication that they’ve always seemed to have.

When she looks at EJ, everything fades into pleasant background music. But now, it is silent.

He breaks first, looks at Carlos with a bright smile, “Okay Carlos, I’ll take the top bunk!”

Gina lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

By the end of day two of camp, Gina realizes she misses three things: wifi, name-brand coffee, and Ricky Bowen.

There is little time to think about item number three, so much so that she doesn’t even realize it’s something she misses at all, at first. She misses wifi quickly, because she can’t call her mom or find Ashlyn when she goes missing after breakfast and the sounds of nature quickly grow boring and her Spotify isn’t working in these conditions. Coffee becomes a problem even quicker, because they’re up and starting the day as soon as the sun rises, prepping for tomorrow’s auditions.

The timeline for putting on a Disney-level musical in under 14 days is probably, Gina thinks, categorically insane. The coffee here sucks so bad she barely gets a cup down, and she’s lagging by the time they hit the third chorus of “For the First Time in Forever” they’re supposed to be learning for group singing auditions.

And in between it all, they’re supposed to be having a good, old-fashioned summer camp experience. Carlos literally dozes off with the canoe oar in his hands.

So really, there’s no time to think about Ricky Bowen. Not when her every inhale and exhale has been scheduled precisely for her, and caught on camera by an onslaught of camera crews documenting the experience of bringing this new show to life for the first time. She doesn’t feel thoughts of him, of missing him, start to slip through the cracks until their last rehearsal of the day.

“Remind me again, why we agreed to this?”

“I’m kind of hoping I bomb the audition tomorrow,” Ashlyn offers, as they all gather their belongings after the longest dance audition rehearsal of their lives, “If today was this brutal I can only imagine what it’s like actually being in the show.”

“The music is about to get so old so quick,” Kourtney joins in commiseration.

“Why did they leave the choreography class to the end of the day?” Carlos squints at the clock that reads a couple minutes before 6. They were hoping to get the steps for the dance call on the first couple tries and make it back to their cabins before dinner, but it seems they’re gonna head straight for luke-warm mystery meat immediately instead.

“You two have it easier than us,” Ashlyn points between the co-choreographers, “I think I forgot how to count to eight.”

“What comes after 5 again?” Carlos jokes, wiping his sweat with his canoe towel.

“All I’m saying is EJ and Nini gave us zero warning about the brutality of this place, and I kinda feel bad I ever mocked the integrity of theater camp now,” Gina answers as they gather the last of their things and head towards the door.

“Remind me to beat up your boyfriend, when he joins us for dinner,” Carlos does his best impersonation of a fighting stance, which gets a laugh out of all four of their exhausted forms.

“Think I’m gonna veto that one,” Gina smiles, pushes the door open and waits for her friends to catch up.

“Well then Ashlyn, can I beat up your cousin?”

Ashlyn doesn’t have time to answer Carlos before the man of the hour actually appears, comes running up to the dance pavilion’s door Gina is holding open with a whistle around his neck and sunglasses falling off his perfectly mussed up hair. Day one of camp looks good on him, Gina thinks, much better than 2 hours of “Fixer Upper” choreography looks on the quartet of them, she adds, and subconsciously fixes the hem of her tank and the bow in her hair.

EJ runs the last step or two to the door and Gina smiles, “Hey, EJ—“

—And then he runs a few more steps completely through the door, right past her and everyone else.

Gina’s smile snaps shut almost audibly, and if Carlos didn’t step up and catch the door at the exact same moment, she might have swung it shut.

“What’s his rush?” Ashlyn has the liberty of being outwardly annoyed at the strange interaction, before all of them track their gaze to where EJ has ended up.

Post-ignoring his three closest friends and girlfriend in one fell swoop, EJ has run towards their choreographer, Val, and is smiling intently at her while she tells what appears tp be a very animated story.

The whole ordeal is sealed with him literally lunging forward and spinning her around in a hug.

Gina time travels again for the third time since last night, and sees “Save Miss Jenn” posters and soft blue t-shirts and her favorite laughter in her periphery.

Then she remembers that’s the wrong feeling for the situation, and reminds herself to get jealous, fast.

Kourtney gives her a head start, “I hope someone got that on camera.”

“Shouldn’t he be congratulating us?” Carlos joins, “All she did was yell the steps at us for two hours…”

“At least this answers our question about beating him up,” Ashlyn says, closing the gap between them and finally stepping outside, “C’mon, I’m starving and we deserve three rounds of dessert, at least.”

Gina finally shuts the door behind them, and watches as her friends start down the couple of stairs to the grassy pathway that’ll lead them to the dining hall.

“You know what,” she says, before she can think better of it, “I think I’m gonna wait for EJ.”

It’s clear they all seem unsure about this, but ultimately just smile and wave her off, promising to save her a seat but probably not any ice cream that is available, so she should hurry.

Ice cream sounds good but she’s in no rush to eat it, this is her perfect summer with her best friends, doing what she loves with a guy (she thinks she might love!) so she’s gonna wait for him. That’s what good girlfriends do. Good girlfriends don’t get jealous, so that’s all this is. Gina’s apathy is actually a good thing. She’s a good girlfriend with a really good and mature relationship.

She has about five minutes of sweet summer camp silence on the deck of the dance pavilion to actually convince herself fo these things before poster-child bad boyfriend comes up and bursts her perfect bubble.

“Hey, Gi,” Ricky waves in that awkward endearing half-way as he hops up the steps two at a time.

He’s really the only one who ever calls her that. Her stomach lurches, maybe she is hungry.

“What’s up?” She tries her hand at civil friendship and the words come out easier than expected.

“I’ve been rehearsing how to count to eight the whole walk over here,” he smiles, shoves his hands nervously into his pockets.

“You have dance practice? Now?”

“Yeah, well, when you join the camp a few hours before rehearsal starts you can’t afford to be too picky about the time slots they put you in.”

She smiles in sympathy, “Still, kind of brutal.”

“Oh yeah totally, I think the hot dogs I ate for dinner right before this class might make a reappearance.”

Gina bites her bottom lip to keep from laughing, but his smile makes it clear he can tell she laughed anyway.

“So, any pointers?” Ricky leans back against the railing of the porch directly across from where Gina sits now, “I heard this is worse than anything Carlos made me do, so I could use any advice from the greatest dancer in Salt Lake.”

“I’m not the greatest dancer in Salt Lake…”

“Right my bad, greatest dancer in the country.”

“Ricky—“

“The world?”

“I hope you trip in your jazz square.”

“There’s a jazz square in there? Good to know, I’ve actually got those down.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Gina points back towards the door, shaking her head but endeared all the same.

“Nah, we don’t start until 6:30.”

Gina checks the time on her phone (because the home screen is the only thing that works, thanks Shallow Lake wifi), and notes it’s only 6:08.

“Dude, you’re like so early,” Gina scoffs, incredulously, “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Okay, 1— rude, and 2— this camp is a maze to me. I got lost on the way to Arendelle trivia and snowflake cutting back to back, and dance rehearsal seemed wildly more important so I didn’t wanna take any chances.”

“Good to know there’s a brain up there after all.”

“Okay, don’t you have somewhere to be too?” Ricky punctuates his sentences with what Gina is convinced is the sweetest laughter in the world, “I swear I saw Carlos dragging Ashlyn and Kourtney to the dining hall like, 5 minutes ago.”

“They’re very intent on rewarding their jazz squares with ice cream.”

“Okay then you should probably stay here,” Ricky nods.

“Why’s that?”

“Because they’re about to find out tonight’s dessert is jell-o.”

“Yeah, I think I’d rather do that dance call again than be there for when they discover that tragic news.”

“It’s really that bad?” Ricky gestures towards the dance hall.

“No, no,” Gina tries to reassure him, “The choreographer is just… She’s talented, and she seems super sweet…”

“But…”

“But she says mean things with a smile on her face.”

“I see.”

“She means well, and she really is talented and at times was super sweet,” Gina explains, “She just randomly got like super intense, and never dropped her perky blonde camp counselor attitude to do it.”

“So she’s gonna make me cry.”

“I’ll save you some recovery jell-o,” Gina says, “Last summer Val probably would have been my best friend here.”

“Oh my god it’s Val?”

“You know her?”

“She led trivia with EJ before,” Ricky explains, “I never would have pegged her as the secret mean girl type. Her and EJ were insufferable together, like the singing and making very bad puns in unison every five seconds together kind of insufferable.”

“Really?”

“Wish I got more lost. So corny.”

“Yeah, they’re together inside right now,” Gina nods towards the door once again.

“Oh so you’re—“

“Waiting for EJ, yeah.”

“How’s that uh,” Ricky clears his throat, scratches behind his neck nervously, “That’s going good?”

“Me and EJ? Great, yeah, yes, of course,” Gina nods furiously, “He was really excited about coming here together.”

“Right,” Ricky says, “I imagine it can’t be easy with such different schedules though.”

“It’s—“ Gina tries to think about how to answer this, because at this point she’s spent more time with Ricky today than her boyfriend, and she hasn’t really had a moment to be bothered by it yet, but she can’t let him know that.

Ricky seems to want to answer his own question before she can and takes a step forward to cut her off, “Look, Gina, I’ve been wanting—“

“You shouldn’t finish that.”

“What?”

“Whatever you were going to say there, you shouldn’t finish that thought.”

“But, Gi, I—“

“Because I actually really missed being friends with you,” this is the first time she realizes it, as she says it out loud, “And I think whatever you’re going to say is going to ruin that.”

Ricky swallows.

Gina starts again, “I just want to play stupid camp games and throw away jell-o and make fun of corny theater people with you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she nods, turning to see if EJ is almost done talking to Val and praying any good boyfriend telepathy that exists will get him to come out here immediately.

“Okay,” Ricky repeats, “Truth or dare?”

“What?”

“If I can’t talk about it, then lets play a dumb camp game. Truth or dare, Gi?”

“I meant like, Arendelle trivia.”

“Truth or dare?”

From the window she can see EJ holding Val’s hand to practice a partner dance move she had learned with Carlos 20 minutes ago, and it’s probably not jealousy, but some sort of emotion kickstarts Gina from a year ago and she bravely answers, “Truth.”

“Did you kiss EJ?”

“That’s the question you wanna go with?”

“No one else will give me a straight answer about it.”

“Yeah, I did,” she doesn’t hesitate, saying that part, but averts his gaze when she adds, “He was my first kiss.”

She remembers how she used to think it’d be Ricky, and how she was certain he thought so too.

And for some reason, his response to this is to let out a hollow laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ricky purses his lips, tracing the floorboards with his gaze, “I just remembered this thing you said about not getting things right the first time.”

And that well, that lights something inside her, like a campfire that had been crackling in the distance for a while suddenly brought to life when Carlos dropped his marshmallow in it. She’s in it now.

“Oh so you do remember that conversation?” She lets out an empty laugh of her own, “Okay, Ricky, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he doesn’t hesitate either. They are on fire.

“If I had found you after High School Musical before you found Nini, would you have still told her you loved her?”

“You want me to be honest?”

“The games called truth or dare, Ricky.”

“Yeah I think I would have,” he nods, “I did love her, I do love her. She’s a really important person in my life. I just think the conversation might have ended differently.”

“How would it have ended?”

“Nope, my turn,” he says, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“If you didn’t want me to get back together with Nini, why’d you let me go back into the show with her?”

“Do you really need me to answer that?”

“I wanna hear you say it.”

“Pick a different question.”

“Say it, Gina.”

“Different question,” she insists, settling back into her chair, “And I’ll be brutally honest.”

“Did you think I was good?” Ricky asks, “As Troy, like you said.”

“Not at first,” Gina answers, because she promised she’d be brutally honest, “I’m not sure how you didn’t figure this out on your own but I wasn’t nice when I got to East High. I wanted you to play to Troy, even though you looked like a flailing fish in every dance Carlos put you in, because then Nini would quit and I’d get promoted to the lead.”

“No yeah, I think I pieced that together when there were no small children to babysit at the skatepark,” Ricky nods.

“And you’re not mad?”

“Not your turn to ask a question technically, but I’ll answer,” Ricky starts, then meets her gaze, “Secretly mean dance captain Val would have been your friend last year, not this year. Things are different.”

Gina exhales loudly.

“Truth or—“

“Hold on, you didn’t finish,” Ricky says, “Was I good? Did you like me?”

“Liking you wasn’t the question.”

“Was worth a shot.”

“You were a very good Troy, and I was really proud when you got the lead a second time in a row. Honest truth.”

“Okay,” Ricky accepts this answer, then answers the question before Gina has to ask again, “Truth.”

“Did you call Lily after the show?”

“Really?”

“Me asking EJ to kiss me was hardly the most controversial thing to happen that night,” Gina says, “And you calling our arch nemesis is the biggest rumor to hit East High since we found out your dad started dating Miss Jenn.”

“How dare you bring that up!”

“Answer the question.”

“I did,” he nods, “Not proud of it, but I wasn’t feeling my best at the moment.”

“Do you wanna elaborate?”

“The drama club was like my first real group of friends, and I don’t know what I did or didn’t do during the spring show to change that, but I felt very alone again,” Ricky starts, “But since this is a game of truth, I should admit that’s partially a lie, because I know when things started to feel different.”

Gina nods, hoping he’ll confirm it.

“Lily was no you.”

Gina clears her throat before she gets lost in his eyes again, “Your turn to ask me. Truth.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?”

“That’s not how the game works, Ricky, you ask me a question and I’ll—“

“No, I mean, why didn’t you ask me to kiss you? Like you asked EJ?”

Gina bites the inside of her cheek to keep from instantly blurting something she’ll regret.

Ricky takes her silence as avoidance, “You already got a skip, so you have to answer.”

“Okay fine,” she says, feeling braver than usual, “I didn’t want to have to ask.”

“Truth,” he responds without missing a beat, and they’re starting down a very dangerous path Gina cant stop (and yet, doesn’t know if she’d want to.)

“If I had asked you instead—“

“Yes.”

She stands up suddenly. Ricky has migrated a few steps forward during their game and all Gina would have to do is take two small steps forward and their noses would be touching.

She doesn’t know what to make of it all, their proximity, the feeling in her gut, the lack of jealousy, the way he answered before she could even get the whole question out.

The fact that she could ask him. Right now. And she knows his answer.

She doesn’t know what to make of it all, so she just continues, “Truth.”

“Say it.”

“Ricky—“

“Gi, I swear I will leave you alone for the rest of the summer after this if that’s what you want—“

“I already told you that’s not what I want—“

“But I need to hear you say it. Because I have spent every week since I heard a rumor about you and EJ with this knot in my stomach that I cannot for the life of me untangle, and I feel like I’m going insane trying,” Ricky says without so much as a breath, and Gina steps forward without thinking before he continues, “And I know how we work Gina, I know there are things we get about each other and things we can say to each other without saying anything at all.”

She nods.

“But this, Gi? I need to hear it. This is something you say out loud.”

“I can’t, Ricky, and you know why I can’t anymore—“ she gestures absently towards the door.

“I’m not quitting.”

“What?”

“I know why you had to quit on us, I get it. I screwed up,” he reaches a hand out, his pinky brushing against the back of her hand, “I screwed up the first show, and I was too late to try again by the second. But you know what they say about the third time?”

She does a horribly stupid thing and links her pinky around his, “Quit while you’re ahead?”

“Third time’s the charm,” he smiles, “I’m not quitting.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

“I know.”

“I’m happy with him.”

“You deserve to be,” he nods, “I want camp games and jell-o and making fun of Val too.”

“Camp games and jell-o and making fun of more people than just Val.”

“Fine, I’m willing to compromise on that point,” he says seriously, and she can’t help but laugh, “As long as we agree she is the worst.”

“The worst!”

“Who’s the worst?” Gina and Ricky jump apart at the sudden inclusion of EJ’s voice on the deck, the door swinging shut behind him with a thud.

For a nice summer night, the air quality is suddenly horrendously thick.

“You, for making us miss first dibs on the good jell-o flavors,” Gina says emphatically, reaching out to grab his hand and pull him down the stairs.

“There are no good jell-o flavors,” Ricky coughs under his breath, and Gina laughs.

“Good luck in there, Ricky,” she says, before she can hear an answer over EJ insisting jell-o is a really under-rated snack, but he can’t join her for dinner that long because Val didn’t get a dinner break between rehearsal times and he promised he’d grab her something.

When she joins her friends at the dinner table with red and orange jell-o and without her boyfriend, she is reminded what a good girlfriend she is. Not jealous at all, barely even misses him.

Just misses her wifi and cell service that’s preventing her from texting Ricky about the whole thing.

There are three parts to a standard Camp Shallow Lake audition: the group audition, a solo song, and line-reading. Somehow, Ricky Bowen makes his way into all three parts for Gina.

The group audition is nothing Gina isn’t expecting. They line up with their rehearsal groups from the day before and take turns singing the ensemble parts of the song they learned, and then perform the dance combination a few times.

Gina makes sure to stand front and center when her group is called for the dance audition, and enjoys every millimeter Val’s smile drops every count Gina dances. She can’t find EJ in the crowd, but Ricky is on his feet clapping as soon as the music stops.

It’s highly embarrassing, because no one had clapped for the group before, but she skips off happily past Val and enjoys the rest of the groups turns until their lunch break.

Lunch is rather uneventful, everyone exhausted after what everyone has agreed is the most brutal dance audition they’ve ever endured, and since the dining hall isn’t big enough for every single camper to sit in at once, an exception for audition day, the East High crew finds a shady spot under a tree outside to settle for a half hour.

They’re prepping for the solo portion of the audition, where the campers read some lines for the character they want, and then sing a song.

Various scenes from the beloved Disney movie echoed around Gina as everyone practiced in between bites of their grilled cheeses. Ricky was staying quiet though.

“So good you don’t need to practice?”

“Would it surprise you to hear I had a huge Frozen phase as a kid?” Ricky answers her with a smirk.

“Not at all.”

“I can recite the entire movie,” he continues, “So I’m feeling a lot better about this one than the rest.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Oh please, you’re going to be amazing,” Ricky sing songs to a flustered Gina, “What are you singing?”

“Best song in the movie…”

“You cannot expect me to pick only one favorite song from my favorite movie.”

“You hate musicals, huh?”

“Frozen isn’t a musical, it’s a work of art!”

“‘Love is an Open Door’,” she finally answers his question, smiling.

“That’s a great answer for best song,” Ricky says, “And gonna be a great audition. You doing it with uh… Carlos?”

“That’s funny,” Gina laughs at the thought of Carlos playing sinister prince Hans.

“So solo?”

“No, uh, EJ said he’s gonna do it with me.”

“Really?”

Frozen is unique in that other than Elsa, a lot of the characters don’t have solo songs. Because of this, and what Gina assumes is a cheap documentary trick to create more drama, they’re allowing people to sing in pairs if they want.

Gina had been very prepared to sing on her own, like she’d been doing most of her life in theater, but EJ insisted that they perform together. It took a bit (a lot) of convincing, but she was pretty excited at the prospect of getting to perform one of her favorite Disney love songs with her actual boyfriend. It was adorable, she knew it would help her sell herself, and thought it overall would be fun and make the performance memorable to the counselors in charge of assigning roles.

Ricky seems less convinced, but offers his support anyway, “Gonna be awesome.”

“Thanks,” Gina says, “And you?”

“Oaken was my first choice.”

“The sauna guy?”

“But then Corbin Bleu marched up to me with a camera crew and put the Kristoff script in my hands.”

“Well if Corbin Bleu tells you to play the ice guy, you have to let go of your sauna guy dreams.”

“That is the unfortunate reality of the situation, yes,” Ricky leans back against the tree behind him, “So either he thinks I’m gonna be amazing, or he’s hoping they’ll get me being a royal let down for good ratings on the documentary.”

“He doesn’t know he’s dealing with a Frozen super fan.”

“He does not.”

“I’ll be rooting for you,” she says softly, as they start to gather their things to head back to the dance hall for the rest of auditions.

“Same,” he nods, and starts walking with Nini and Kourtney ahead of her.

The thing about these auditions is the stakes are exponentially higher. At East High, the whole cast sat in the audience and watched the other performances happen, and it never bother Gina in the slightest. But today, they’ve packed the dance hall, the biggest room on camp property, with every single camper, counselor, and member of the documentary camera crew, and the room suddenly feels a lot smaller. All eyes are intently focused on the camper auditioning and however many other eyes will be on the other side of the cameras one day.

Gina doesn’t get nervous, but she bounces on her feet a little with the jitters while she waits in the makeshift “wings” for her turn, three people ahead of her.

She feels a hand on her shoulder and almost jumps out of her skin but still insists she’s not nervous at all.

“How’s my favorite dancing snowflake?” EJ’s voice soothes her back to standing still, a comforting hand on her shoulder and a smile on his face.

“Gonna be a lot better when this is over and we go take the celebratory jump in the lake.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” EJ soothes again, glances between where Gina stands on the sidelines, now only 2 people ahead of her, and the row of counselors sitting and judging the auditions.

“You all warmed up? I know you couldn’t have lunch with us, but it’s fine as long as you’re ready—“

“Actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about.”

Gina quirks her head to one side, perplexed by the sudden mood shift, just minutes before she’s going to do a huge audition, “What do you mean?”

“So, apparently, there’s a rule I didn’t know about,” EJ dances his fingers nervously where they rest on Gina’s arms, “Counselors aren’t allowed to audition with campers.”

“What?”

“I know, I’m confused because obviously I’m not auditioning, I’m just performing with you for your audition, but apparently it would give you an unfair advantage or something.”

“And they made this rule five minutes before I went on stage?”

EJ expertly avoids answering that question, “Look, its gonna be fine.”

“Don’t tell me its gonna be fine. I told you I was gonna sing alone, heck, EJ, I didn’t even wanna audition for Anna in the first place. You begged me to!”

“I know—“

“And I trusted you, and now I’m going to make a fool of myself in front of this entire camp and oh yeah, Corbin Bleu’s Hollywood camera crew!”

“Look, you said it yourself, you wanted to audition alone and now you can!”

Which is entirely not the point.

“Just,” Gina huffs, looking at the performer in front of her, ready to go on and signaling Gina has barely any time before its her turn, “Let me think about how I’m going to get through this.”

“I can wait with you, for moral support, and—“

“Leave.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says, and leaves her, sitting down next to Val and mumbling a sorry to her that he couldn’t fathom giving to Gina in the wings.

Time somehow moves as slowly and as quickly as possible at the same time, and before Gina can think too hard about how awful her boyfriend just was to her, she’s walking to the center of the makeshift “stage” in the dance hall, campers surrounding her on all sides and a row of smiling counselors in front of her.

“Hey there, what’s your name?” An older man Gina recognizes as the head counselor but cannot for the life of her recall his name speaks up, and Gina smiles, trying to fake it til she makes it.

“Hi, I’m Gina Porter,” she starts, “I’m auditioning for Anna.”

“Anna, awesome,” the head counselor answers, “What song you got in mind?”

“‘Love is an Open Door’.”

“Just you?” Gorgeously evil Val has the audacity to speak up at that moment, a perfect smile on her face when she asks the million dollar question.

“Uh…”

“No, no, sorry, she’s singing with me,” Ricky runs up to the center, seemingly appearing out of thin air.

Wouldn’t be a true audition without Ricky Bowen showing up late to the party.

He’s almost breathless when he settles a few steps away from her, with what Gina knows are Kristoff lines and sheet music hand delivered by the Disney Channel star running the show in his hands. He shoves them behind his back and says with a perfect smile to rival Val’s, “Ricky Bowen. Singing for Hans.”

“We have you down for Kristoff?” Another counselor whose name Gina doesn’t know says skeptically.

“Yeah, well, I’m actually a huge fan and couldn’t decide between the characters I wanted,” Ricky starts rambling, “So if it’s okay with you, I’d like to sing for Hans, with Gina, and then I can read for Kristoff.”

“Bold, creative, I knew I liked you, kid,” Corbin stands up and points to Ricky, a proud and excited smile on his face, then gestures to the cameras, “Someone get a close up on them!”

“Okay, we’ll cue up the music,” the director says, “Let us know when you’re ready.”

Gina quickly turns to face Ricky and whispers harshly, “What are you doing?”

“Not quitting,” he answers, also in a whisper, “Remember, I can recite the whole thing. We got this. Just pretend I’m EJ.”

When Gina nods Ricky gives the panel a thumbs up signaling for the music to start. The familiar melody comes in and Gina tries to muster every ounce of professionalism she can. She’s been doing theater since she could walk, she knows she’ll survive this.

She has the first line of the song and sings it no problem. She stands mostly still, a little more stiff than she rehearsed but not altogether bad. She tries to do what Ricky said, and pretend the guy singing next to her is EJ, but that seems to make the situation worse. Her “but with you…” comes out more flat than in love, and she knows she needs to pull it together, quickly.

But she turns her head and catches a glimpse of EJ sitting next to Val, and thinks of how quickly he broke all the rules of the perfect summer he had planned for them, and can’t help how her face falls.

Her and Ricky are supposed to sing the last line before the chorus together, but she’s so thrown by the events, the words evade her. That’s when she feels a hand grab hold of hers, and she turns and faces the guy it belongs to.

Ricky looks at her, and suddenly no one else in the room exists.

She doesn’t know how it happens, but suddenly she’s singing the song much better and more convincingly than she had in any rehearsal with EJ. The chorus goes off without a hitch, as they trade off “with you’s” with adorably palpable chemistry and real smiles and giggles in-between the harmonies on the “love is an open door” lines. It turns out its a lot easier to sing this without pretending he’s EJ, and maybe without EJ at all. She’s pretty sure they’re killing it.

They start to move around the space too, when the second chorus comes. Subconsciously Gina knows they had been stopping most people after a verse or two, and it was weird their song kept going, but she doesn’t pay attention to that thought. All she can pay attention to is the easy way Ricky slips charmingly around her to one side and her head follows as he sings, “I mean it’s crazy!”

“What?” She answers in song.

“We finish each other’s—“

“Sandwiches!”

“I was gonna say jell-o…” he finishes the line, and Gina marvels at how easily Ricky sacrificed the line just to make a stupid joke he knew would make her laugh.

It does, make her laugh, and their joy permeates the space around them in a palpable energy as they approach the second chorus.

At one point he seems to abandon all decorum and professionalism to link an arm in hers and spin them around in a circle with a skip, throws in a few dance moves Gina knows she nor Carlos ever taught him, all while singing impeccably.

It is, on all accounts, the best audition Gina’s ever had.

“Can I say something crazy?” Ricky gets to the last line, more spoken than sung, but still hanging onto their musicality and chemistry.

Gina nods, facing him.

“Will you marry me?”

Her stomach flips again, and this time she knows she’s not hungry, because they just came from lunch.

“Can I say something even crazier?” She continues the bit.

But before he can answer, the music shuts off.

There’s a split second of silence between the time the counselor stops their music and when the entire room erupts into thunderous applause. And in that split second, Gina is sure she hears Ricky, barely above a whisper, mumble, “Say it.”

The applause fills in quickly and louder than it had for any other audition, even when Ricky was leading the crusade after Gina high-kicked in Val’s face.

“You said you’ll read for Kristoff?”

They are cast as Anna and Kristoff the very next day.

There are a few different ways you can end up having to do a confessional for the camera crews making the documentary. It surprises no one that in any of the scenarios, they almost always ask Gina about one of three things: the camp, what its like playing Anna, or Ricky Bowen.

The first way is the most natural. A camera or two is always set up in the most frequented places, hoping to catch either b-roll or unexpected action. There’s always both in the rehearsal room, and Gina’s never been too bothered by their presence, documenting her practicing her dance steps or songs with the other campers.

If they like what they’re seeing though, they’ll prompt you with a question. And since most campers here are decent people and don’t ignore someone talking to them, they’ll answer, and it becomes a sort of pseudo-confessional situation. The camera is focused on you, and you answer questions.

They’re rehearsing the “For the First Time in Forever” reprise early on the Wednesday morning, right after they were cast, and it’s going well. No ensemble involved so the room isn’t super packed, making the cameras a little more noticeable than usual, but not enough to be an issue.

Ricky is in the scene, but barely involved, so he’s sitting on the side of the room with Carlos, who’s playing Olaf, while Gina and Kourtney, the formidable royal duo, work with two other counselors on blocking the song. Once they feel comfortable enough with where they’re supposed to be standing for each line of the song, the counselors call Ricky and Carlos back over to add them in, which is just to say stand in these two places. They pick it up quickly.

The counselor says they’ll run the song as they’ve blocked it once, then pick up with the lines after, which sounds like a plan to everyone involved, so they get into position.

When the song comes to a close, Kourtney hits the most beautiful belt on her final line, and Gina hits the ground in a well-rehearsed fall.

She’s ready for their counselors to let them know they did a good job. She’d been working on how to best dramatically clutch her heart and fall to the ground when Kourtney/Elsa hit her with ice at the end of the song for a few rehearsals now, and she knows Kourtney had been working hard on the song too. The counselors in charge of the number do congratulate them on a good performance, especially for the first full run-through with blocking, as Gina expected.

What she’s not expecting is two strong arms just a second later trying to pull her up to standing.

“Gina, are you okay?”

“What?” Gina’s head snaps around quickly when she hears the worry lace Ricky’s voice.

“You fell, are you okay?” Ricky runs a comforting hand over her shoulder and down her arm, “Do you need water? The fan’s not working great in here, maybe you overheated—“

“Ricky—“

“Do you wanna stand? I can help you up! Or did you twist your ankle? I can bring ice over—“

“Ricky, I’m fine,” Gina hops up to standing with inhuman speed, “See?”

“What, how—“ Ricky looks her up and down,  “But you fell.”

“Thought you were the Frozen expert here,” Gina says pointedly, “Anna gets a frozen heart from her sister and falls at the end of the song.”

The worry visibly unfurls from his brow and he lets out the tension with a loud sigh, “Right, yes, you’re right.”

Gina laughs, pulling her rehearsal skirt up to prove her ankle is not bruised or twisted or broken in any way, “All good here, ice guy.”

“Sorry, sorry, that was stupid of me,” he shakes his head, “I should have realized, I just, you know… whatever, it was stupid.”

“Hey, no, it was sweet,” Gina says, before she feels the camera on her back.

The camera operator looks at them expectantly over the top of the camera, then asks, “You feeling okay Gina?”

“Yes, yes, perfectly fine,” Gina answers, looking directly at the camera, “I’m glad my acting was that convincing.”

“I am going to start sticking to the instructions I’m given,” Ricky laughs nervously.

“Have you always acted this way?” The camera operator looks at Ricky now.

“What do you mean?” Ricky asks for clarification, shifts his weight nervously next to Gina, their shoulders touching, squared ahead of the camera.

“Method acting.”

“Hah,” Gina lets out a loud and pronounced laugh at that, “We’re calling it method acting now? Because ice guy Kristoff offered me some ice?”

“No, because he cares about you,” the camera operator answers.

“Oh, well, uh,” Ricky stutters to start his answer, “I’ve always cared about Gina.”

He’s nodded on to continue but he crew, the sound mic getting closer above them.

“I just mean, uh, I didn’t just start caring about Gina suddenly today because we’re playing love interests. I’ve cared about her for the better part of a year, in which time we’ve been in three shows together, and this is the only time we’ve played love interests, so…” Ricky’s train of thought trails off, and he looks at Gina for only the briefest second, “I just don’t think it’s considered method acting. Maybe it’s, what’s that saying, like, art imitating life, or something?”

“Its the other way around dummy,” Gina nudges her shoulder into his playfully, “Life imitates art.”

“Yeah but that’s not true,” Ricky scrunches his brows, looking down at Gina.

“Neither is your weird saying, it doesn’t make any sense,” she banters back.

“So nothing in your life seems to relate back to your Frozen characters?” the camera operator steers them back on track and prompts them with this question.

“I have a boyfriend,” Gina says, then feels like justifying herself, “He’s a counselor here, and is always busy, which is why you haven’t really seen us together.”

“What does he do here? Lifeguard? Choreography? Costumes?”

“That’s a good question,” Gina answers, tries to laugh it off, “I actually don’t know much about what he does here.”

“And Ricky?”

“No, I have like, sworn off love, for the time being,” Ricky says, a lighthearted chuckle.

“But you care about Gina?”

“Yeah, we’ve been friends a while, and we’re going on this crazy Frozen journey together.”

“Sounds a little more like life imitating art than you both realize.”

Kourtney calls them back over to run the scene from the top again, and they don’t speak about the impromptu confessional again.

The second way to do a confessional is in the confessional booth. In a very reality-tv fashion, the crew has set up a booth that the campers always have access to, where they can talk to the cameras about their day, their feelings, the show, anything that’s on their mind.

The first time they did it was fun. Their whole cabin, her, Ashlyn, Nini, and Kourtney, piled into the very small booth after curfew and laughed until there were tears in their eyes over absolutely nothing, the best kind of friendship humor, of course.

But then they never really wanted to use it again. It was only fun to use ironically, not for real. And when they stopped getting footage, the staff made it a requirement for the leads in the play to do at least two confessionals in the booth a day.

Gina likes to get them out of the way earlier in the day if she can, pops in just to say something quick about breakfast or what they did in rehearsal that morning, and then gets on with her day. She’s just heading to the booth to tell the camera set up about the reprise they just worked on, omitting the story about Ricky rescuing her after her fall, when she bumps into EJ.

“Hey!”

“Gina, hey, where have you been?”

“Uh, my crazy rehearsal schedule is posted in just about every building in this place,” Gina shrugs, “So I should really be asking where you’ve been, since you’ve never told me.”

“I’m with the junior campers this week, working on the dance they’re going to do during intermission,” EJ answers cheerily, like if he notices Gina’s tone it doesn’t bother him.

“Wow, they have you in charge of teaching kids how to dance?”

“No, Val’s doing all that, obviously!”

“Obviously…” Gina nods, “I uh, I actually have a break right now, if you wanted to hang out a little. I was gonna do a confessional, but it can wait, I really hate those things.”

“What? They’re so fun, I feel like reality TV star!”

“Exactly why I hate them,” Gina grumbles, “So, you free right now? I can get us some snacks—“

“Right now? I have this thing, with some of the guys.”

Ginas eyes widen, waiting for a better explanation than that.

“We’re filming some footage for the show.”

“They don’t get enough of that already?“

“I don’t know, they asked us to come to the dance pavilion at 2, so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“We haven’t hung out together since we got here.”

“I know, I know.”

“This is literally the most time we’ve spent together all week.”

“And that’s my fault, this job is so much crazier than I expected,” EJ runs a hand through his hair, “But I am crazier about you.”

Gina manages a small smile.

“You wouldn’t know it,” Gina says, “The camera crew doesn’t know about us. They think me and Ricky—“

“Tonight,” EJ cuts her off, “I’ll take you on a very special, one of a kind, perfect campfire date tonight. Just us. As long as you wanna spend with me, I’m yours.”

“That sounds nice,” and it does. It’s what she signed up to come here for.

“Perfect,” he leans over and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek, “I really gotta run. But I’ll pick you up at your cabin?”

Its the smiliest Gina has ever been in a confessional.

There is a spring in her step the rest of the day, especially as she heads back to her cabin after dinner with Kourtney, which was later than everyone else because rehearsal went overtime, as usual.

“What’s gotten into you?” Ashlyn says from her top bunk when she spots Gina run into the bunk smiling, heading for her duffel bag of clothes.

“She’s going on a date!” Kourtney answers, sitting on her bed.

“Ooh! Get it, Gina!”

“Ew, Nini, I know you weren’t here for our debrief on the Gina/EJ situation day one, but let me remind you,” Ashlyn looks down at Nini, who is also sitting on Kourtney’s bottom bunk, “He’s my cousin.”

“And he’s my ex,” Nini says, unbothered by Ashlyn’s attitude, “Your point?”

“I swear, your love lives get more and more convoluted by the minute,” Kourtney laughs.

“Sorry we cannot all find perfectly nerdy pizza delivery boys!” Ashlyn yells down again.

“You do literally have a nerdy pizza delivery guy, though,” Kourtney says, and Ashlyn just shrugs.

“Anyway, more important things to discuss,” Nini settles back on Gina, who has pulled out about four different outfit options, “What are you wearing?”

“No idea,” Gina shrugs.

“Well, where is he taking you?”

“Also, no idea.”

“Well there’s not that many options,” Kourtney tries to reason.

“This place is huge, what are you talking about?”

“No she’s right, there’s not many places you can go after dinner and before curfew,” Nini says, “We spent most of our short-lived romance in a stolen tent, in the trees on the right side of the lake.”

“Specific.”

“They check there last when they do the sweep to make sure everyone’s in by curfew, so the date gets to last a little longer if you go there,” Nini explains.

“So I shouldn’t wear a nice dress?”

“Well, he’ll probably do something completely different for you. We were just a summer fling and I can tell he really likes you,” Nini says, earnestly, “I ruined my favorite shirt because he stole these bright red cherry popsicles from the kitchen and I was so distracted by how scandalous and romantic I thought that was, I dropped it all over my shirt. Stained bright red forever.”

Gina holds up a floral sundress triumphantly, “A cute sundress that I don’t care too much about incase the date snack is messy.”

“We have a winner!”

Gina steps to the side of the room and gets changed out of sight, but keeps thinking out loud, “Do you think I should bring a jacket? It gets cold by the lake at night.”

“If he’s a good boyfriend, he’ll give you his jacket!” Kourtney yells back, and she hears Nini laugh.

“Sorry, that’s just reminding me of just how corny EJ was sometimes,” Nini continues her laughter, “Its like a classic move, to give a girl your jacket when its cold, but he went on and on about how its his favorite jacket so it made me super special that he was letting me borrow it, and I made it look better than he did.”

“I’m glad we skipped Arendelle trivia, I heard that was one of his corniest moments,” Ashlyn says.

“Yeah, Ricky said—” Gina starts to say, joining in on the Arendelle trivia slander, but thinks she probably shouldn’t be talking about how another guy made her laugh just minutes before meeting her boyfriend at the lake for a date.

“What’d Ricky say?” Ashlyn asks for clarification, as Gina emerges back towards the center of the bunk.

“Nothing,” Gina shakes it off, smoothing out her dress “So no jacket?”

“No jacket, you look so cute!” Nini squeals, and the other girls animatedly add their gushing right after.

“Okay, I’m supposed to be meeting him by the lake in like 10 minutes, so I think I’m gonna go,” Gina grabs her things, no jacket, and heads towards the door.

“Have fun!”

“Make sure he knows to have you home by 10 o’clock sharp!”

“Yes mom,” Gina exaggeratedly drawls, then swings the door shut behind her with a soft, “Bye guys.”

As soon as the door swings shut, she’s face to face with none other than Ricky Bowen.

“Oh, hey Gi.”

“Hey, what’s up?” Gina says, as Ricky sways on his feet nervously a few steps away from their bunk door, like he’d been here for a while, contemplating knocking. His left hand is hidden behind his back.

“I uh,” he starts, clears his throat, and then laughs, “You know what, this was a dumb idea.”

“No, no, what’s up? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong I just wanted to uh, let you know,” Ricky starts, uneasily, “There’s actually a very small, hidden rehearsal room at the back of our bunk.”

“Really?” Gina nods, “Thank you for the architectural update…”

“No, no, I mean, rehearsal during the day has been, I don’t know, a lot. How they kind of swarmed us after you fell and I very embarrassingly followed you today… The cameras and all the different counselors and weird schedule.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“So I booked the rehearsal room in my bunk, so I could practice. With like, less pressure and no cameras.”

“That’s actually a great idea, yeah,” she says, because yeah, it’s a great idea, but it still doesn’t explain why he’s standing here, telling her about it.

“And well, I just wanted to know if you wanted to join me.”

“Oh.” Oh.

Because yeah, she does, she really really does, which is a thought to overthink later, but— “I’m actually on my way to meet EJ.”

“Right.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, “Kourtney’s still in there though,” Gina gestures towards the door.

“Oh yeah, of course, I totally came to ask both of you, since we’re all leads,” Ricky nods, indicating that had not been the plan at all, and Gina’s heart leaps out of her chest and all the way to the lake, “Carlos might join me, too.”

“Sounds fun,” Gina says, passing him and starting in the direction she’s supposed to be going. To EJ. “I really wish I could join.”

“You should come, after your date,” he says, excitedly, “I mean, if it ends, or even if he wants to come. Give us some counselor pointers, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she nods, then notices his left hand he’s still hiding from her view, so she decides to ask with a playful smile, “You hiding something from me?”

“No, uh,” he reveals what he’s holding. It’s a small cup of chocolate ice cream. Her favorite. “They were only giving out vanilla tonight, which I knew you’d be upset about, but I saw where they had the chocolate stashed, and thought I’d steal you some.”

Her stomach flips in a weird way she can’t name. She vaguely remembers Nini saying something about EJ stealing her ice pops feeling scandalous and romantic.

“Enjoy it for me,” Gina forces herself to smile and nod, and start backing away, “I’ll text Kourtney when I’m on my way back to see if you guys are still rehearsing.”

“We’ll miss you,” Ricky says, stepping up to the door, “Have fun though.”

She hears the whole bunk erupt into excited squeals as they let Ricky in, and Gina really tries to want to be on this date more than in that bunk.

Gina has exactly 7 minutes on the walk from her bunk to the lake to put Ricky completely out of her mind.

She’s mildly successful. Not completely though.

“Hey, my gorgeous dancing princess,” EJ says, scooping Gina up into a hug that makes her giggle and also makes her a little more successful in her mission to stop thinking about the boy she left on the porch of her bunk.

“Hi, I missed you,” she smiles, regaining her footing after the sweeping hug.

“I saw you a few hours ago!”

“Not what I meant,” she says, looking around the lake, “So, what’s the plan?”

“Walk with me?” EJ points to the path leading to the right side of the lake.

Gina’s not thinking about it, and not thinking about Ricky either.

“How was your video thing?” She tries to make conversation.

“It was actually so cool, so Chris, one of the other counselors, was…” EJ launches into some long rambling spiel about his day that Gina only half focuses on. They walk around the whole side of the lake and EJ’s only gotten halfway through the story of his day. Gina catches parts of it, finds the rocks at her feet more interesting than what color uniform shirts EJ and his counselor friends picked to wear in the confessional today.

“Are you cold?”

The question snaps Gina out of her trance, and she realizes she’s running one hand up and down the side of her arm absently. Weird nervous habit she does without thinking, but it does in fact, make it appear as though she’s cold.

“No, I’m okay,” she says. The sun has barely begun to set, it’s a nice night. She drops her hands, makes a mental note to keep them at her sides, and is hoping that’s the end of it.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” she affirms.

“Here, take my jacket anyway,” EJ says, already slipping the jacket off his shoulders, “Just to be safe.”

“EJ, I’m fine—“

“I insist, c’mon it’s my favorite jacket, this is a big deal,” he makes a show of chuckling at his own joke, before draping it over her shoulders.

She shrugs it on until it’s more comfortable, but really, she wasn’t cold, so it’s helping nothing other than his need to be corny.

“Yep, I knew it,” he says, a punctuated pop on the p.

“Knew what?” she takes the bait, feeling like she knows exactly where this is gonna go.

“I knew you’d look better in it than me, as usual,” he smiles, dazzling pearly whites flashing at her in the setting sun, “And now I’m never gonna be able to wear it again, because I’ll never look as good as you.”

It’s a good line, she’ll give him that. Only it’s her second time tonight hearing it, so maybe that’s why it falls a little flat.

She decides to move on if he won’t, “This place is really beautiful at night, better than you had described it to me.”

“Wait until you see the stars from where I’m taking you,” EJ says, “Best seat in the house.”

This gives her hope, Nini had mentioned a tent, and you can’t stargaze with a tarp over your head.

“What do you think?” EJ asks, as he stops dead in his tracks, on the right side of the lake, in front of a tent, right after giving Gina his jacket.

Gina has no words for it, just stares at the situation unfolding in front of her and the pit in her stomach, and remains wordless.

EJ, of course, expertly misreads her speechlessness as stunned, and excitedly grabs her hand and walks to wards the tent.

“I have blankets and pillows, and the top opens up for stargazing, and for snacks, I brought—“

“Cherry popsicles?”

“Snuck them out from the kitchen, how’d you know?”

“Wild guess,” she nods curtly.

“I really— hold on,” EJ cuts himself off mid thought when his phone rings with an alert. He drops Gina’s hand and pulls the phone out of his back pocket, his eyes scanning over whatever message he’s reading.

“What’s up?” She asks, when the silence seems to drag on.

“Nothing, nothing, uh,” EJ pockets the phone again, and stares at her intently, perfect smile plastered across his face, “How would you feel about a raincheck?”

“It’s not raining,” Gina says, looks up at the sky, “It’s like one of the most beautiful days we’ve had here.”

“Right, I know, figure of speech.”

“You wanna postpone?”

“Yes—“

“You want to postpone the first date we’re having here, a date I had to beg you to take me on after you blew me off four other times this week,” Gina says, anger rising, “Only five minutes after we arrived at said date?”

“I know how it looks—“

“Do you?” Gina balks at him, “Because somehow I knew exactly how this date was gonna look 20 minutes ago when Nini described the entire thing I just experienced in exact detail, when recounting the date you took her on last year.”

EJ seems stunned at the sudden outburst.

“So much for my very special one of a kind date, huh?”

“Look I can explain—“

“I don’t want an explanation,” Gina throws her hands up, exasperation from the week finally spilling over, “I just wanted to go on a date.”

“I want that too, but something came up—“

“What came up?” Gina demands, and after a beat of him not answering, she asks again, “If you’re gonna leave me stranded in the middle of the woods, you owe me at least that. Who are you ditching me for?”

“There’s a counselor thing.”

“A counselor thing?”

“Val invited a couple of us to hang out in her bunk. It’s low-key.”

“Yeah, low-key hangout in Val’s room sounds exactly like something you ditch your girlfriend for.”

“It’s not that simple, Gina.”

“What do you mean?” Gina asks, “I know all the counselors you hang out with, they’re not assholes. All you’d have to do is tell them you’re with your girlfriend, and they won’t care you can’t make the hangout.”

“Yeah, but—“ EJ starts, stutters over his words, sighs, “I can’t say that.”

“What?”

“I can’t say that,” he repeats, louder this time, almost angry, and it makes Gina jump back a step, “I can’t say I’m with my girlfriend because they don’t know I have a girlfriend.”

Gina’s jaw drops.

When she doesn’t answer, EJ continues, “Look, you don’t get it. The first day here, I was gonna mention it, but then they all started talking about the girls they met in college, and—“

“Oh my god.”

“Gina—“

“So you didn’t wanna tell them you got rejected from every college except the one your dad paid to get you into and that made you upset so you started dating your cousin’s sophomore roommate?”

“That’s not—“

“You know what?” Gina claps her hands together, a sense of peace washing over her now that all the cards are on the table, “I’m done having my time wasted. I’m gonna go hang out with people who actually wanna be seen with me.”

“Gina, please, wait, let’s talk about this!”

She’s already storming off, leaving her pathetic boyfriend behind her, paying his pleading no mind, when she stops just for a split second to turn around and say, “I hate cherry popsicles. I like chocolate ice cream, you’d know that if you had bothered to, I don’t know, acknowledge my existence every once and a while!”

She flips him off and storms the rest of her way back to the main camp, the sun almost entirely set and the path to Ricky’s bunk dark.

The whole way to her date with EJ she had to talk herself out of even thinking about Ricky. The whole way back to Ricky, she lets her mind wander. And it doesn’t wander, not even once, to the guy she left on the lake. In any other universe, she’d be heartbroken, trying to push EJ and his horrible behavior out of her mind, and fail miserably. But its so easy to not think about him at all when she’s searching for Ricky.

She’s never been to the random rehearsal room behind Ricky and Carlos’s bunk, but it’s easy enough to find. She knocks on the door without a second thought.

Ricky appears within seconds, and she smiles.

“Short date,” he says, leaning on the doorframe.

“No date,” Gina corrects, purses her lips to one side, peeks behind the doorframe, “No Carlos or Kourtney?”

He shakes his head.

“But you’re still here?” She doesn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but it does.

“Which answer do you want?”

“Both.”

“I needed to practice ‘Reindeers are Better than People,’” he says.

“And the truth?”

“I was hoping you’d show up.”

Gina smiles her first genuine smile all night.

“You still got that ice cream?”

“Melted before I even stepped into your bunk to talk to everyone else,” Ricky smiles his first genuine smile back, “But I know where they keep them, now.”

“Are you gonna break the rules for me, Ricky Bowen?”

“There are no rules when it comes to us, Gina Porter.”

The air is dizzying and light as they run from Ricky’s bunk towards the dining hall, laughter ringing between chirps of crickets and dying campfires from other groups of friends. Gina peers through the window as Ricky sneaks in, her laughter fogs up the window as she watches him delicately open the lid of the ice cream freezer stashed at the side, she runs up to meet him at the door when he exits, two chocolate ice creams in hand. He yells at her to move quickly because he thinks he was spotted and it only makes the whole thing more wonderful.

They throw themselves onto a grassy patch in what feels like the middle of nowhere with all the giddy bliss that surrounds them following their brush with the law, but they’re really only a few steps away from most of the camp’s main buildings.

Gina peels the lid off, pulls out the small wooden spoon that’s inside, and then realizes…

She forgot her second confessional of the day.

“What’s wrong?” Ricky reads her like a book, asks the question before she’s even had the thought fully herself.

“I only did one stupid confessional today.”

“I hate those things,” Ricky sighs, opens his ice cream too, settling on the grass beside her.

“I know, right?” Gina huffs, defeated.

“What happens if we just…” Ricky ponders, “Don’t do two of those pointless things every day?”

“I don’t know,” Gina hums, scooping some ice cream onto her small spoon, “But do we really wanna find out?”

Ricky seems to consider it a moment, has a scoop of ice cream, then another, swats at a firefly, looks at Gina like he’s in love, and then—

“Race you to the confessional booth!”

“Woah, hey, no fair!” She yells, trying to get her footing while Ricky is already off and springing over to the booth.

She slides in after him, laughing, the sides of their bodies pressed together so they fit in the small booth.

They face the camera and are still laughing when Ricky starts, “Let the record reflect that I just beat Gina in a foot race to the confessional booth!”

“Let the record also reflect he cheated, to get that win,” Gina snaps back pointedly, “And also that they totally served these cups of chocolate ice cream in the cafeteria today.”

“Totally,” Ricky confirms, “It’s been a good day.”

And by all accounts, for Gina it shouldn’t have been a good day. But she’s sitting here with her favorite guy, eating her favorite ice cream, and the worst date in the world is so far in her periphery that she has no problem lifting her styrofoam cup, and clinking it in a haphazard cheers, and truthfully saying, “Yeah, it’s been an awesome day.”

Correction: this is the smiliest Gina’s ever been in the confessional booth. It’ll be hard to beat.

Gina is in the lake three times before the end of the last day of the first week of camp. Once for the world’s stupidest dance rehearsal, once for fun and a little rebellion, and once with Ricky Bowen.

If they thought that their audition prep day was bad, they were wholly unprepared for the storm that is the rehearsal schedule at Camp Shallow Lake.

They’ve been promised one off-day, Sunday, and today’s Saturday, so of course, it’s going to be the worst day they’ve had yet.

Gina is woken up at 6:30 for costume fittings before breakfast, then barely has time to scarf down a blueberry muffin before she heads to vocal rehearsals with the trolls. Which, is surprisingly, the least weird thing she’s said she’s done all day.

She knows she’s made a silent enemy out of Val when she finds out today’s dance rehearsal is going to be in the lake. Literally. Gina tries to combat the weird logic of rehearsing a dance number that take place entirely in the snow in a hot and sunny lake, but Val insists its tradition and its going to strengthen their core, or teach them multitasking, or something Gina doesn’t buy.

After an hour of the hottest hell in freezing cold water, Gina climbs out and onto the dock, and wraps a towel around her waist to dry off.

“I’ll see some of you guys in the dance hall for team bonding in ten minutes!” Val waves to the campers taking their time getting out of the lake, before skipping off, having never touched the water herself.

“Excellent performance in there, Anna,” Carlos laughs, making his way down the dock to meet Gina with the rest of their friends in tow.

“Yeah, I didn’t know Frozen had a synchronized swimming component…” Ashlyn says, holding her phone up to snap a picture of Gina’s dripping form and icy scowl.

“Please tell me you’re going to delete all of those,” Gina says, grabbing for her best friend’s phone.

“I hate to break it to you Gina, but my iPhone is really the least of your worries right now,” Ashlyn answers, making her point abundantly clear when a camera appears behind he shoulder, and she turns to wave directly into it.

“You look cute actually!” Ashlyn continues, “I don’t know how we all got lucky enough to get out of it…”

“Yeah, isn’t Ricky literally supposed to be in this number?” Kourtney asks.

“I’d rather not speculate,” Gina says curtly, smiling at the camera, because exactly why she’s the only one who got subjected to this and it has everything to do with her choreographer, “Can I at least see what I look like?” Gina concedes, holding a hand out for Ashlyn’s phone.

“Sure, it’s—“ and there’s barely a second after the phone is safely in Gina’s hand that she pushes Ashlyn into the lake.

“Oh my god!” Carlos gasps, but joins in on Kourtney and Gina’s satisfied laughter.

When Ashlyn splashes up, she grins, “That wasn’t very royalty-like of you.”

“Hey, I’m just the annoying little sister,” Gina shrugs, “Queen Elsa, on the other hand…”

“Don’t look at me.”

“What was that thing you say again? About the cold?” Ashlyn says, hands on the edge of the dock.

“The cold never bothered me anyway,” Kourtney supplies the answer.

“Right, so I’m sure you’d love to join me in this very cold lake!”

Kourtney doesn’t had time to protest before Ashlyn grabs her hand and pulls her in too.

Carlos shrugs a “what the hell” and joins them, laughing and splashing each other under the most gorgeous summer sun.

“C’mon, Gina!” They each yell in succession, begging her to join them.

Gina sighs, hugging her towel around her waist, “I have team bonding in ten minutes.”

“Booo!”

“Why do you have team bonding?”

“Is that Val again?” Carlos snarks and Kourtney hits him to shut him up.

“I really don’t want to go,” Gina says, looking between the miserable dance hall and the fun and inviting lake (that was miserable the hour prior, but that is entirely to do with its occupants.)

“So blow it off!”

“What’s the worst that happens if you skip?”

Gina thinks about it, and really, she’s been to team bonding with Val before, and all they do is sit in a circle and write ‘anonymous’ compliments that somehow wind up 90% being written about Val, and none of the performers.

What would really happen if she skipped it?

Nothing.

It wasn’t an important rehearsal by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a thirty minute ego boost for one of her counselors before dinner.

This is still her perfect summer, so to hell with it, she thinks, and drops her towel on the dock and jumps in with a resounding cheer from her friends.

Gina isn’t sure how much time passes. Its one of those perfect summer moments where time ceases to exists, and its just you and your favorite people doing something so simple and having the most fun doing it. They tease each other and splash each other and enjoy the breeze and cool lake water that their very hot bunks do not provide.

“I heard Ricky stopped by your cabin a couple nights ago…” Carlos says, floating on his back but still side eyeing Gina, “Thought you had a boy free zone?”

“You said yourself, Ricky doesn’t count, just EJ,” Gina answers, pushing some water at him when his smile grows teasingly, “And trust me, we’re going to have no issue with that rule anymore.”

“Oh, are we finally gonna talk about it?” Ashlyn perks up, swims over to Gina.

“Talk about what?” Carlos asks, puzzled.

“Gina came home from her date the other night and wouldn’t tell us anything about it,” Kourtney starts.

“Okay...” Carlos says, because this is a pretty normal statement, Gina’s always kept a lot to herself.

“The only thing she mentioned is she came home from a date with a different guy!”

“Okay, for the seventieth time, it was not a date—“ Gina tries to start defending.

“Ooh, scandalous, Porter!”

“No, it wasn’t—“ Gina huffs, leaning an arm against the dock, “It wasn’t a date. It was rehearsal.”

“I know we didn’t have rehearsal scheduled,” Kourtney counters.

“Okay fine, I’m only gonna explain this once, so pay attention,” Gina concedes, and her friends float closer to listen intently, “Ricky asked me if I wanted to rehearse in a room he found by his bunk, so we could practice without the pressure of cameras, but I blew him off to go on my date with EJ. Only when I got there, I realized I didn’t need to waste my time with a guy who had been blowing me off for days to try to impress his college friends by pretending I didn’t exist.”

“Oh my god!”

“He did what?”

“So whatever, if he wants to pretend I don’t exist, two can play that game,” Gina shrugs, “I went and hung out with Ricky, who actually wanted to be with me, and have been pretending EJ doesn’t exist ever since. Just like he wanted.”

“Can we revisit the idea of beating him up now?”

“What happened on the date?”

“He couldn’t even bother to put the effort into planning a date, it was exactly the same thing he did for Nini the year before. Literally, down to the corny things he was saying.”

“God, not the jacket line…”

“And it’s not even just the date. He never apologized once for leaving me hanging during the audition five minutes before I went on, he never apologized for all the times he blew me off to hang out with Val, and he never apologized for lying about me because its embarrassing, apparently, to talk about your high school girlfriend when everyone else is hooking up with college girls!”

“What a jerk,” Carlos says, wrapping a comforting arm around Gina, “I think you’re the coolest person I know.”

“We’re disowning him,” Ashlyn says, “You’re my sister actually. And that trumps cousin, any day.”

“Who knew the oldest guy here could be the least mature,” Kourtney offers, “I’m sorry he did that to you. Did you have fun with Ricky, at least?”

Gina bites her bottom lip and considers her answer. But these are her best friends who have proven they are nothing if not fiercely loyal, so she decides to tell the truth, “See, thats the other problem. I love being with Ricky.”

“That’s a good thing!”

“No, no, we—“ Gina starts, shakes her head, “We keep getting the timing wrong. And it would be exhausting if—“

“If you didn’t care about him so much,” Kourtney finishes for her. And when Gina stares at her, Kourtney gives a knowing look, “I know you might have forgotten, but I was in the room the other day when your knight in shining armor had to rescue you.”

“He’s ridiculous.”

“He’s the kind of guy you deserve,” Carlos says, “He talks about you all the time.”

“Really?”

“There’s no room for guys who think they’re too good for you,” he answers, “Only guys who think you’re too good for them.”

Gina sighs, looks around at her friends in the water and opens her arms, beckoning them in for a hug, “I love you guys. Like so much.”

They’re squeezed into a haphazard hug in the lake, which is difficult to do when you’re still trying to tread water, and are only broken up when they hear Nini’s voice from the docks.

“How’d I miss the group hug?” She pouts.

“Feel free to join us!” Carlos says, stretching an arm out and deliberately splashing her in the process.

Nini jumps away with a laughing squeal, “No thank you. I was just looking for you guys to grab lunch. Ricky’s saving us a table. Did I miss anything good, other than the gross, freezing cold lake?”

“Why do you hate the lake so much?”

“Because it’s gross and freezing cold,” she says, by way of clarification, as the rest of the group climbs out of the water to join her on the dock.

“Gina finally gave us all the details on the EJ situation,” Ashlyn says, wringing her shirt out.

“No, I missed it!?”

“It’s nothing too groundbreaking, just rediscovered he’s an asshole,” Gina is the only one lucky enough to have a towel, and uses it quickly before passing it off.

“Typical,” Nini hums, “I’m still sorry though.”

“You know what?” she smiles, looking around at her friends and realizing even without a boyfriend, this is still the perfect summer she always wanted, “I think I’m gonna be okay.”

“Of course you are!” Nini says, “You know what they say about the third time?”

“Not you too!” Gina yells, playfully.

“This is only the second time we’ve had feelings for the same guy, so it was doomed from the start!” Nini teases, as Gina flushes and rolls her eyes.

“I’m so glad you guys can joke about this,” Ashlyn mumbles, definitely not completely dry and hugging Nini from behind against her will.

“You and Ricky are getting along again?” Nini asks Gina.

She nods.

“Third times the charm,” Nini winks, succumbs to her friends getting her wet with lake water and envelops Gina into the hug too.

The bliss of the perfect summer moment only lasts thirty seconds longer, because EJ comes stomping down the dock, obviously annoyed.

“Where have you been?” EJ demands, no time for formalities.

“In the lake,” Gina answers simply, extracting herself from the group to stand directly in front of him.

“You had team bonding,” EJ says.

“If Val had a problem with me missing, she could have come to get me herself,” she crosses her arms.

“If you’re doing this to get back at me for the other day, you should take it out on me, not her.“

“God, EJ. Not everything is about you!” Gina sighs, over this conversation already, “I just was having a good time in the lake with my friends.”

“Team bonding is an important part of the rehearsal process—“

“Oh please, we all know team bonding is code for compliment Val on her subpar choreography!”

“And last I checked, we’re part of the team too,” Kourtney chimes in, “So this was probably more useful.”

“Still, Val really cares about this show and she has nothing to do with our relationship so you shouldn’t just ditch—“

“Hold on, she knows about our relationship?” Gina interrupts him, and EJ stares at the wooden slats of the docks at his feet. She takes this as answer enough, and adds, “Then I owe her nothing.”

“Can we talk about this privately?”

“No, because this really shouldn’t take very long, and like I said I don’t feel like wasting more of my time for your benefit,” Gina huffs, crossing her arms, “Don’t worry about telling any of ‘the guys’ about us, because you got what you wanted. You know longer have a high school girlfriend.”

Carlos leans over and gives Gina a hi-five.

“I’d say have fun with college girls, but… you turned down the only offer you got so,” Gina shrugs, “Have fun spending your gap year with junior campers, I guess.”

Gina grabs her towel, and starts heading down the dock, Carlos, Kourtney, and Ashlyn in tow, “Ricky saved us a table?”

“Yeah,” Nini nods, stopping in front of EJ, and waves for them to start leaving without her, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

But with the way she’s looking at EJ, their feet are all glued to the docks.

“EJ, I realize this might be your third time looking for a girlfriend that’s more talented than you,” Nini says politely, pointing between herself and Gina, “And you know what they say about the third time?”

“Third times a charm?” He offers, skeptically.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” she smiles sinisterly, before pushing him swiftly into the gross and freezing lake.

Nini runs to catch them, throws an arm each around Gina and Kourtney, then starts on their walk with a happy sigh, “I love team bonding! We should do this more often!”

The day passes by quickly after that. Val says nothing about Gina skipping team bonding after lake rehearsals, and there is a weight lifted off her not having to worry about EJ anymore, and how that fits in with her confusing feelings for Ricky that never really went away.

There are rapid fire rehearsals back to back after lunch, straight through dinner, as they literally take bites of pizza between verses of “What Do You Know About Love?”, until the sun has set and it’s nearing curfew. It’s the eve of their first and only off day and the counselors thank them for cooperating so diligently all week in the crazy rehearsal schedule by giving them a sneak preview of the snow machine for the show.

It is finally the perfect summer day Gina has been trying to have.

By the end of the night, a bunch of the girls cabins have gathered together for a game of “truth or dive”, where you either have to answer the terribly personal and embarrassing question the group asks you, or sneak out and jump in the lake to avoid answering. The guys bunks are playing separately.

A perfect stupid camp game. Gina is buzzing.

She’s having a blast, that is, until they ask her a question she swore she would never ever answer.

So. The lake it is.

The wooden boards of the dock squeak beneath her feet and she tries to make her way to the end and jump in. But she knows how cold the water was the first two times she was in there today, and now it’s dark, and technically against the rules to be out here after dark, so there’s not a lot motivating her to do it.

Except the thought of answering the question.

But when she makes it to the end of the dock, it seems someone is having the same predicament as her.

“What was it?”

Gina’s smile grows at an impossibly quick rate when Ricky turns to see her, and his smile appears just at the sight of her.

“What was what?”

“The question that made no fear Ricky Bowen come running out to the lake?” She says as he scoots over an inch, invites her to join him where he sits on the edge of the dock. She does.

“I’m pretty sure the whole reason I came out here was to avoid talking about it, so…”

“Yeah, but I don’t count, you can tell me.”

“You don’t,” he smiles lightly, as she settles into her seat, “Maybe later, if you wanna tell me your question…”

“Yeah, you know what? Never mind!” Gina shrugs, her feet kicking in the water.

“How long do you think we can get away with being out here?” Ricky asks, “I’ve already probably been out here too long.”

“As long as we want,” Gina says, “It’s their own fault for giving us mean questions. If I had to come out here, I might as well enjoy the view.”

“Yeah, it really is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Gina watches the reflection of the moon dance across the lake for a moment as she says it, and when she turns to look at Ricky, she finds he’s already been looking at her.

“I wanted to ask something,” he starts timidly, “But don’t wanna overstep.”

“You can ask me anything, Ricky,” she says, earnestly, “If I seemed a little petty the other day, that had nothing to do with you. We can talk about anything, like always.”

“Okay,” he settles his gaze back on the lake, “I’m sorry about EJ.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“Carlos told me, I hope you don’t mind, and I think EJ’s a real jerk for treating you like that, but I really wish he didn’t,” Ricky says, “I wish you got your perfect summer.”

“You want the truth?”

“Oh, are we playing a dumb camp game again?”

“I like this game.”

“We’re literally put here avoiding a version of it.”

“I like our version of the game,” Gina smiled sheepishly, bumps her shoulder into his, then finally responds to his earlier statement, “I am having the perfect summer.”

“Really?”

“He started ignoring me on day two, when you found me outside the dance hall,” she elaborates, “The only reason it took us the whole week to break up was because on that first night, when I should have already been starting to get pissed, I could barely find it in myself to care.”

“Why?”

“Because we had just become friends again,” Gina says, “And that high carried me through at least the first three days of his terrible behavior.”

“That’s—“ Ricky starts, a breathy tone to his voice, then seems to think better of whatever he was going to say and asks his question instead, “I just wanted to know if you were feeling okay. After everything.”

“I’m okay, thanks,” she smiles, “Your turn, truth or dare?”

He throws his head back with a groan, “Gi!”

“C’mon, we still have so much catching up to do,” Gina leans in to him, playfully, “I haven’t even asked about the death mobile yet!“

“We’ll be here until sunrise,” he deadpans, but concedes, “Truth.”

“Tell me about the death mobile.”

“Okay, fine. You weren’t the only friend I lost last semester,” Ricky look over at her for a brief moment, playing nervously with his hands in his lap, “You know my dad and I have always been close. But I started taking out a lot of my feelings on him, since he was the only one around, and especially with the Miss Jenn stuff, I don’t know.”

“So the car…”

“Was supposed to be our big fun bonding experience to get us close again,” Ricky explains, “But I’ve been only marginally less moody all summer, avoided working on it with him at all costs, and still drove it, in horrible condition, all the way here.”

Gina giggles, remembering the sight of the car on the first night.

“I think I’m ready to stop being a jerk to him about things outside of his control,” Ricky says, “Spend the rest of the summer fixing it up, like he planned. Telling him about my perfect summer getting my best friend back, while playing the coolest Disney prince.

“You’ll pay for that pun,” she starts, “Also will be crossing my fingers you can actually get it back to him…”

He shrugs, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” she shrugs back.

“Do you think you’ll come back to Salt Lake?”

“Well, besides camp, I’m spending the summer with my mom.”

“Right.”

“And she seems to think I’m going back go Ashlyn’s in the fall.”

“But you aren’t so sure?”

“I wasn’t,” Gina starts, “I wasn’t sure about a lot of things related to my life in Salt Lake, and it would definitely have been the easy way out to ditch and let all of those problems go. But I was reminded this week of how many good things I have in Salt Lake. How I deserve the kind of happiness East High brought me that no where else did.”

Ricky smiles at that.

“Forget lead roles or boyfriends, or even a regulated weather climate,” Gina says, “I’ve got a home there. So I wasn’t sure, but now I am.”

“You’re coming home?”

“Coming home,” she sighs contentedly. She has aches to have been able to say those words most of her life. She’s got a home now.

“My turn?” Ricky says “Should I switch it up and say dare?”

“I dare you to tell me about the question you’re avoiding from your bunk.”

“Never mind, truth.”

“You’re no fun!”

“Like I said, maybe later,” he implores, “Ask me anything else.”

“Did you know I had feelings for you?” she feels braver than usual, their east friendship restored and the wind whipping around them off the lake, “Because I thought you might have known, but then when you were with Nini, it felt like the fall never existed.”

“That’s fair, I wasn’t acting my best spring semester, and I owed you more answers if I expected our friendship to remain the same,” Ricky begins, “But if I’m being totally honest, in the fall? I don’t think I actually knew.”

“Really?”

“I know that sounds like a lie, but hear me out. You flipped my entire world upside down, Gi.”

That statement flips her entire world.

“Can’t say that wasn’t the goal.”

“The way I felt for you was different than feelings I ever had anyone else. They weren’t how I felt about Nini, so I just assumed they weren’t romantic.”

She shrugs, fair enough.

“But things with Nini weren’t at their best when my feelings for her were romantic. They’re so much better when we’re just, two idiot best friends trying to push my death mobile up the camp driveway.”

She smiles.

“So yeah, I know now, and it wasn’t right of me to gaslight you into thinking I never knew they were there.”

“Did you just un-ironically use the word gaslight?”

“Is that not how you’re supposed to use it?”

“Moving on, give me a truth.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I needed to break up all the feelings dumping we were doing,” Ricky quirks, “And I’ve never asked you this very important mark of friendship.”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “I like pink.”

“Unconvincing.”

“Orange kind of grew on me, if i’m being honest,” she starts, “I watched your ugly orange car back down my entire driveway, then replayed the moment in my head about a million more times before I fell asleep that night of Homecoming.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Ricky shakes his head, leaning back on his hands, “You kissed me.”

“I’m glad you noticed.”

“I was so oblivious.”

“Glad you noticed that too.”

“Red asked me what happened and I honest to god didn’t know what to tell him,” Ricky laughs, “You’d have thought it was my first kiss, the way I was acting.”

“Tell me about your first kiss.”

“Can that be my skip?”

“You already used it.”

“Yeah, but if I talk about mine, you’re gonna have to talk about yours and honestly, thinking about you kissing EJ Caswell is the last thing I want to do right now, like even less than telling you about my question, or jumping in the lake” he rambles, then looks over at her, “Besides, we already established your kissing me counts as good as any.”

“For someone who just started drama club last year, you’re very dramatic.”

“Thanks,” he grins.

“Whose turn is it?”

“I lost track.”

“Mind if I just ask another one then?”

Ricky nods.

“The other night, you mentioned the conversation with Nini would have ended differently, if you had found me first,” Gina says, because it’s been eating away at her all week, imagining every scenario, “What would have happened.”

“Well I think you made your feelings for me abundantly clear, and I would have been able to tell that difference I was talking about. About the difference between loving Nini and loving—“ he cuts himself off before he can finish, and Gina’s kind of grateful. She already feels like she can’t breathe.

“Anyway,” Ricky starts again, “I would have been able to tell her I love her, because she deserved to hear it after everything we’ve been through, but I would have been able to specify that I’m not in love with her. I would have given her my gift and cracked a lame joke neither of you would have laughed at, hugged her, and then ran to find you to try again to convince you not to quit on us.”

“I really thought you forgot about that whole conversation.”

“I remember it all,” he sighs, “I sucked at long distance with Nini, but I would have moved mountains to have made it work with you. Wherever you and your mom ended up.”

She looks at him, hopeful.

“It would have been worth it. A million times over.”

“The girls in my cabin, the question they asked that I’m avoiding,” Gina whispers tentatively, eyes on the lake, “Was asking how long I’ve liked you.”

Ricky doesn’t answer right away, but she hears his sharp inhale.

She continues, “I could have lied, and said those couple months between homecoming and the show, and mostly everyone would have bought it.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“The games called truth or dive,” she exhales, “And that’s not the truth.”

“So truth,” he says, “How long have you liked me?”

“Ricky—“

“Please, Gina,” He turns and faces her more squarely, and echoes what he said the first time they played this game, “I need to hear you say it.”

She takes a deep breath, traces her finger along the boards of the dock, rests her hand directly beside his.

“The whole time.”

“Even—“

“The whole time, Ricky.”

“Ask me.”

“Ask you what?” she thinks because there’s a million things she wants to ask.

“It’s later. I’ll tell you about my question.”

“Okay,” she steadies herself, braces for impact, “What question are you avoiding?”

“Same as yours,” he hovers his hand over hers, and Gina takes the leap and laces their fingers together, “They asked me how long.”

“And why couldn’t you answer?”

“Because I didn’t want the first time I said it to be during a dumb game of truth or dare.”

“So if I asked right now, during our dumb game of truth or dare, you wouldn’t answer me?”

Gina isn’t sure how her voice remains so calm and steady during the whole ordeal, asking Ricky about feelings she held onto with a tight grip for over a year the same way he asked about her favorite color.

But he’s looking at her like that and it happens again. The rest of the world ceases to exist. Not even any background music, just her and Ricky.

“Because you shouldn’t have to ask.”

He says it so quietly, repeats what she’s said to him at the start of the week, and if Gina’s gaze weren’t totally locked in on his, she might have missed the subtle way his eyes flit down to her lips.

“So don’t make me.”

And so he doesn’t.

Ricky leans forward, one hand on Gina’s cheek, and kisses her.

It is, without a doubt, the greatest feeling in the world.

He feels, she realizes, when he laughs on her lips and runs a hand down her side, that this feels exactly like coming home.

She’s only been kissed a few times in her life, but everything feels different this way. She revels in the feeling of his calloused hand on her cheek, the way he parts his lips just to smile, like he absolutely cannot help it, before kissing her again. He tastes like s’mores and his eyelashes tickle her cheek. He is a good kisser. And the fact that he doesn’t stop kissing her leads her to believe she’s not so bad herself.

“The whole time?” He rests his forehead on hers, and whispers this, still out of breath, and their lips almost touching.

“You know its basically a rite of passage to have a crush on Troy Bolton,” she giggles.

But he repeats, “It was the whole time for me too. Minus maybe a couple days where I thought a kiss on the cheek was platonic.”

And so because she’s pretty sure she can now, she kisses him again. And it’s so fun that it doesn’t have to be on the cheek this time.

At some point, they’ve somehow moved closer, and when Gina tries to get an arm around his waist, they lose balance, and Ricky falls backwards. He smiles up at the stars, up at her, and she wishes there were a way to bottle up his laughter and keep it on a shelf. Save it for rainy days or long Salt Lake winters.

“You know what I’m just realizing?” she leans down towards him, not paying the stupid grin on her lips any mind, the bliss of not having to hide it anymore.

“That if I had been a little smarter we could have been doing this the whole time?”

She’s sure her giggle ripples over the water, twinkles with stars in the sky, probably flutters Ricky’s eyelashes too.

“That we can’t go back to our bunks looking like we didn’t go in the lake.”

“We answered the questions!”

“They won’t know that!”

“Gina, I swear, there are so few things that could motivate me to stop doing what we’re doing right now,” he huffs, “And I can promise you jumping into that lake is definitely not one of them.”

“What are they?” she says, “The things that could motivate you?”

He shrugs noncommittally, “Jell-o, probably.”

“Oh my god,” she sits back on her heels, “I’m gonna push you in the lake.”

“No, no, no,” he shrieks away from her grip, “Do we really have to?”

“C’mon,” she says, holding out a hand to him as she moves to standing, “It’s method acting.”

He glares at her, but stands up too.

“You know, freezing cold lake… frozen…”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” he huffs, grabs her outstretched hand, “You know, I don’t think this falls into that jell-o, make fun of Val, play corny camp games thing I was promised.”

“We’re so past that.”

“Yeah?” and his eyes are so hopeful, so pretty and intent in the moonlight. The coldest lake water in the universe couldn’t quell how wonderful and warm she feels in every bit of her body right now.

She leans in and kisses him on his cheek, and likes that even though she spent so much of this week flashing back to the better times with Ricky, this moment doesn’t send her reeling back at all. This is real, right now.

And it is perfect. It is hers.

“Yeah,” she repeats, and then yells a very rapid, “1, 2, 3, go!” before jumping them both into the lake.

She’s excited to get back to their respective bunks, and to get back to camp in general, and even get back to her mom and then back to Salt Lake. But it strikes her that maybe the fact that home has never been a permanent place for her might not be as bad as she always thought.

She is home wherever Ricky moves.

Through the lake water, through a love song, to Salt Lake and back in a death mobile.

All theater kids must have committed some terrible acts in a past life to have to endure tech week. And since hell is a little hotter in the middle of summer at Camp Shallow Lake, the traditional hell week that is tech rehearsal gets condensed to three excruciating days.

The madness occurs as follows:

Day one of the tech trifecta, which is just three days out to their first performance of the show, starts with costume fittings.

“You know what, I’m gonna say it,” Gina stands behind Kourtney, looking at their reflection in the long mirror in their cabin, “Hell week might be worth it, just for this.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far before we do the three back to back dress rehearsals but,” Kourtney smooths out the fabric of her coronation dress, beaming, “Yeah, this is checking off about twelve different childhood dreams.”

Gina twirls in agreement, marveling once more at their opening costumes. The sun has barely come up before they were told to get dressed in full hair, makeup, and costumes then head to the outdoor stage, but it’s hard to be too upset when you’re wearing Anna’s iconic green coronation dress.

“I’m thinking nightmares is more like it,” Ashlyn steps up beside them, head to toe in mossy green fabric as a troll. It’s definitely not the most flattering but, Gina is nothing if not supportive, and lies through her teeth.

“Shut up, we all look amazing!”

“Says you, queen one and queen too,” Ashlyn huffs, blows a leaf off her forehead with it.

“Ashlyn, green is not a good color on you,” Kourtney says laughing at Ashlyn’s envy, then realizes her poor choice of words, Ashlyn fully decked out in a green troll costume, and sighs, “It could be worse.”

“You guys!” Nini squeals, running in from outside. She’s sporting her official music director t-shirt and had been down at the stage at an even more ungodly hour than they had woken up to get dressed.

They turn to smile at her while she pouts, “I’m gonna cry.”

“Stop it,” Kourtney warns, her literal tiara sparkling in the sunlight that filters through the window.

“I can’t help it, you guys look so good,” Nini joins them as they fix their appearances one last time in the mirror before they leave for rehearsal, “So regal, so royal,” she looks from Gina, to Kourtney, then settles on Ashlyn with a plastered smile, “So… earthly?”

“Okay, that’s it, let’s just go,” Ashlyn throws her hands up in defeat, then starts to head towards the door.

Nini protests though, yelling back, “No, no, no, c’mon, picture before we leave!”

There is a collective groan. Nini has been mom-friending them for days.

“You are simply not going to look this happy again the rest of the day, which I know is so hard to believe with the beautiful smiling faces I’m looking at right now,” Nini finishes with a deadpan, her phone already in position, “So let me document this. Please, for me. I’m gonna hang you up in my room in LA.”

“Oh because that makes it better!” Ashlyn throws her mossy sleeves in the air, but assumes the position with an arm around either side of Kourtney and Gina anyway.

“Say let it go, on three!” Nini beams, focusing on them with her phone camera, and for as silly as it feels to be practically posing for a Christmas card photo in a very hot cabin dressed as Disney royalty, their smiles are far from fake. (No one humors her with saying ‘let it go’ though.)

Stepping outside of their cabin feels like entering a different world. Practically overnight the stage crew has started transforming the place into a true Arendelle. There are flags and streamers and snow machines, people are buzzing around everywhere you look either in some combination of a staff t-shirt or a troll costume or a snow suit. Gina silently hopes first aid is on standby for all the heatstroke those fuzzy coats are going to cause in this unbearable summer heat.

“Does anyone know the plan for today?” Gina thinks out loud as they walk down the path to the outdoor theater. She’s been living minute to minute this past week, and hasn’t thought about anything in the future until it arrives.

“Not a clue,” Kourtney joins the sentiment, possibly the only person busier than her.

“They always forget how time consuming costume fittings are. So they plan to do a run through of the show, but they end up making the whole cast stand on stage and critique and fix the costumes for what feels like hours,” Nini explains, the only one of them with this experience under her belt, “So then you take it off, hand it to the suddenly very overwhelmed wardrobe campers and counselors, and then haphazardly do a couple scenes before lunch.”

“So that picture really was the last time we’re gonna smile today?”

“When will you learn I never lie to you?” Nini laughs, and skips down the first couple steps that lead to center stage. She waves to someone in the wings before turning to look at the costumed girls behind her, “I have to go—“

“Aye, aye, captain,” Ashlyn salutes.

“We’ll try not to blame our misery on you later, madam music director,” Gina waves her away, and for good measure, Kourtney takes out her phone and snaps a picture of her climbing up on stage to give her a taste of her own medicine.

There’s a few steps between them and the stage, Gina holding the back of Kourtney’s long coronation dress train up because no one seemed to clean the wooden walkway. She’s so busy looking down and trying not to trip that she hears him before she seems him.

“Wow, you look…” Ricky starts, struggles to find a word to finish.

Gina snaps up at the sound of his voice and smiles. His fuzzy, ice guy jacket is untied, hanging off his shoulders like he’s putting off the heat stroke for as long as humanly possible, but his boots are laced perfectly. His hair is unruly, but it’s mostly covered by the lopsided hat that’s on his head.

The heat waves goes up a degree or two when he smiles.

Ashlyn seems to take his drawn out and ultimately unfinished sentence as more grief over her ugly troll costume, and throws her hands up in defeat and she climbs the stairs to join him on stage, muttering a very exasperated, “Don’t start with me, Bowen.”

“I wasn’t—“ he tries to defend as she points her gaze at him, then rushes back to warm up with the rest of the trolls. Once Kourtney is up the stairs, Gina follows suit, and swings the train around so she’s standing next to Ricky. He finishes, “I really wasn’t talking about her. Gi, you look so…”

“I know,” she smiles, then calls ahead to Kourt, “All good up there your majesty?”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and get all your flirting out before my big day,” she teases, and heads to the other side of the stage.

Which reminds Gina of how horrible of a secret they’re keeping.

It was easy enough to run back to their respective cabins after their moment down by the lake, chasing each other and their laughter while trying not to trip over old campfire logs and kayaking oars. It was as easy as breathing to squeeze his hand before dramatically parting ways, to blame her adrenaline when she sat back down in her cabin on the cold lake water, to dream about Ricky and wake up to a sweet good morning text.

It was an entirely different thing to stand next to him in rehearsal 20 minutes after reading that text and act like nothing happened.

Which is all to say, Kourtney had figured it out 21 minutes after Gina read that text.

The days leading up to tech week/three days were so busy it was hard to have a conversation with Ricky about what happened at the lake and what that meant for them. But Gina slipped into the easiness of picking the seat next to him at the bonfire without needing an excuse, of holding his hand a second longer than the choreography tells her to, of going to the secret rehearsal room and totally forgetting to invite Kourtney and Carlos by complete accident. Totally.

It should be confusing but it isn’t. Its just Gina and Ricky.

They’ll have to talk about it eventually, but for now though, nothing has to burst their blissful bubble yet, and getting to blush when Ricky is at a loss for words at how she looks in her princess dress is a luxury Gina doesn’t think she’ll likely ever get over.

“Sorry about her,” Gina shrugs.

“For Kourtney? Please, that was nothing,” Ricky says, lightheartedly, “She was never that nice when I was dating Nini.”

He seems to realize what he’s implied a moment after he said it.

“Not that we’re— or that I assumed— it’s not—“

“No, no, I know what you mean,” Gina cuts off his rambling, and the energy fizzles out around them.

“Anyway, yeah, you look—“

“You gonna come up with a word this time?”

“A whole thesaurus full of them actually,” He teases, leaning into her space, “Amazing, incredible, wonderful, show-stopping—“

“Ricky…”

“I can keep going!” He faces her with a determined smile, “Awesome, jaw-dropping, stunning, unbelievable…”

“Any time you wanna stop now, Ricky.”

“Any time you wanna shoot back some compliments of your own,” he fiddles with the hem of his fuzzy jacket, but keeps up the bit, “Sensational, spectacular—“

“You look okay,” she shrugs, trying to come off as cool and unbothered, but it’s so hard when he really looks so much better than okay. She’s sure if anyone were listening in her ‘okay’ would have sounded like ‘I love you’.

“Gee, thanks,” he nods, “I risk my health and safety in five layers of snow suit in the middle of a heatwave, and all I get is okay.”

“You’re so dramatic,” she says, fondly.

“Easy for you to say, just in that pretty dress—”

“You think my dress is pretty?” She teases.

“That wasn’t the point.”

“But you said—“

“I think you’re pretty,” he says, “The dress has an easy job.”

“And that hat you’ve got on is working overtime.”

“Wow, you really took that method acting thing seriously, huh?”

She giggles.

“Can it wait until they start the snow machines at least, because it’s starting to hurt.”

“You know I think—“ she steps even closer to him, their bodies just inches apart.

“I know.”

“So then stop being so whiny.”

“Make me.”

Gina’s heart jumps in her chest.

“Alright, everyone line up!” Their director shouts from his seat a few rows into the stands, and the magic of the moment dissipates, and redistributes into good old-fashioned Disney magic, if Disney magic were made of a mediocre camp budget.

Ricky and Gina jump apart at the instruction, and line up with the other principal roles, side by side across the front of the stage.

They wait for a moment in the quiet for further instructions, and for right now just feel acutely watched by the dozens of counselors filing into the theater to get a look at everyone in costume for the very first time. A beat passes, then another, and then—

“Does anyone know where Hans is?”

Gina looks up and down their row, and notices for the first time the camper playing her original love interest is missing. Being in a Ricky bubble will do that to you, completely unaware of your surroundings while you’re in it.

She shakes her head, and the rest of her friends in the row follow suit, mumbling their ‘no idea’s and thinking out loud about where they last saw him.

“We have a schedule for a reason!” The director starts to yell, when a counselor in training runs up to him, and looks terrified to whisper something to him. He grumbles, then turns back to gesture the campers on stage, “Apparently he’s got the stomach bug. Don’t leave the stage area, but you guys can all relax for five minutes while we find him a temporary replacement and thank the theater gods this happened now and not on opening night.”

Kourtney exhales loudly at Gina’s left, “Nini wasn’t kidding about not smiling for the rest of the day.”

“Yeah, that was intense.”

“I hope he’s okay,” Ricky has staggered forwards a few steps to form an impromptu East High lead roles semi-circle to talk, “You think he’ll be better by Friday?”

“I’d gladly change roles at this point,” Carlos steps up too, and Ricky and Gina get their first look at his Olaf costume and puppet. Which is a very generous phrase for what he is holding.

“What happened to you?” Gina asks, peering over at her snowman friend who appears, well, semi-snowman-less.

Ricky leans over to look around Gina too, and quickly throws a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. He whispers to Gina, “Okay I’ll stop complaining about my hat now.”

“Someone apparently had the bright idea to make ‘steal a snowman head’ worth 20 points in the color war,” Carlos grumbles, flailing his sad and dejected snowman puppet body, “And whoever stole it did such a good job we’re having trouble locating it to un-steal it.”

“If only Big Red were here, he loves to paper mâché now,” Ricky says, smiling, but it doesn’t earn him the laugh from his bunk mate like he intended.

“This is humiliating.”

“Okay, you and ice guy over here can go commiserate with troll matriarch Caswell someplace else,” Gina sighs, “Let the royalty enjoy our moment in our gorgeous gowns.”

Kourtney grabs Gina’s hand and squeezes with a smile.

“Well if you guys are gonna have a moment, so will Los and I,” Ricky says, defensively, before reaching across the girls and grabbing Carlos’s hand and spinning him and his sad, sad, snowman puppet under his arm. It does, finally, get the snowman to crack and his laughter takes over.

“How chivalrous of you,” Gina crosses her arms and says flatly, but her smile is fond.

Ricky stops in front of Kourtney and offers an exaggerate curtsy, “Your majesty?”

She bows back, perfectly in character, before also accepting a royal spin from the ice guy with a giggle.

He finally stops in front of Gina and smiles, “Last, but certainly not least…” He holds out a hand to her.

“What, no curtsy for me?”

“And I’m the dramatic one!” He scoffs, but takes her hands and spins her under his arm.

He does it so quickly that Gina cant hide her totally lovesick giggle, yes, but also she loses her balance with the fast motion, and has to use her free hand to hold onto Ricky’s other shoulder to balance herself.

This position is how EJ, decked out head to toe in Hans costume, finds them.

He clears his throat from behind them, directly in between.

“Apparently I’m the closest in size to the guy playing Hans so…” EJ trails off, flits his eyes angrily between Ricky and Gina.

The costume looks so ridiculous on him, the shoulder pads, the pointy shoes, the shiny buttons, and this is coming after that Gaston look that Gina had spent months convincing herself looked cute. (The freedom of saying prince Ricky looked so much better that night is another luxury she relishes in.)

“How long you filling in?” Gina asks what is clearly on everyones minds.

“Until he’s better, which they’re hopeful will be tomorrow,” EJ explains, still standing tensely in the space behind and between Ricky and Gina, “He ate something bad from the kitchen, apparently.”

“A deviled egg?” Kourtney mumbles under her breath.

“What’d you say?” EJ points.

“Hoping for a speedy recovery!” She replaces, with a tacky, cheery smile.

“So until then, it’s an East High takeover,” he says. Gina thinks this is his attempt at dissipating the tension, and getting everyone to join in on the Wildcat spirit that is failing them, now that he’s arrived. But it doesn’t work, and the best he gets is a small laugh from Kourtney and Ricky.

“EJ, Hans usually lines up over here by me—“ Carlos says, starts pointing to the space on his left, which would position EJ at least three people removed from Ricky, who he’s been glaring daggers at since he arrived.

But EJ doesn’t budge.

“No, yeah, totally, tons of room for you right here, dude,” Ricky says, shuffling to his right and apologizing to the townsperson ensemble beside him for taking up some of the space, as EJ slides into line directly between Ricky and Gina.

EJ clasps his hands behind his back without another word, and Kourtney moves over too to try to make more space for Gina, shrugs as if to say ‘what the hell is happening?’ Nini’s jaw is comically dropped when she sees what has happened form her spot in the audience with the other music counselors. Gina just bites her lips together and takes a deep breath. After that first night here full of surprises, nothing is too much of a surprise here anymore.

“You know dude, you just missed this thing we were doing, where I gave everyone a good luck twirl,” Ricky says to EJ, sounding serious and genuine, “If you wanted to join in, since you know, you’re part of the East High takeover now.”

“I’m sorry?”

“A spin, you know, like in dance,” Ricky tries to explain, sinning under his own arm to demonstrate.

“And you’re spinning people on this stage, before rehearsing the biggest thing you’ll ever perform in outside of your own shower, where cameras can get the whole thing?” EJ asks confused, brows creased together, “For some made up luck?”

“And because it’s fun,” Ricky shrugs, and then Gina is sure the whole point of Ricky bringing this up was so he could add on this last bit, “And Gina’s dress looks pretty when it spins.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You don’t think Gina looks pretty?”

“No, no,” EJ looks obviously flustered, “The spinning. You’re unprofessional, Bowen. Always have been.”

Ricky sucks in a breath through his teeth, “You sure got into character quickly.”

“Stop speaking, now,” EJ bites back, eyes trained on the audience in front of him, as the director comes back into view after crisis aversion meeting.

But Ricky leans back just a but to catch Gina’s eye out of EJ’s view, and whispers, “Method actors, huh?”

Gina giggles behind her hands when the director yells at them to take their places again, to have their dresses scrutinized and their shoes polished and their morale broken for a fun filled first day of tech.

Nini lied though. Gina smiles plenty every time she catches sight of Ricky.

Day two of tech starts even earlier, if you can believe, because costume appraisal went so horribly, even without the snowman puppet head hunt underway for the better part of an hour. (Ricky finds it, triumphantly, in the freezer they keep the secret stash of chocolate ice cream in which he has no way of explaining to counselors why he knows where it is, so he can’t really argue that they should win the 20 points for the blue team.)

And since they got so behind, they’re forced to start with a sunrise sitzprobe, which is a fancy way of saying they’re singing through all the songs in the show with full music for the very first time, while the sun rises over the stage by the lake.

They start off slow with “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?” No one’s heart is really in it before a sip of even the really bad Shallow Lake coffee, but they take five before “For the First Time In Forever” and it goes much better. Gina nails the characterization of Anna, twirls around in her rehearsal skirt while they make their last minute changes on the official costume from yesterday, and that last note? Standing ovation.

That gets everyone moving and the rest of the sitzprobe is off to a fantastic start. No “Love is an Open Door” comes close to the pure euphoria of the audition rendition she did with Ricky, but she likes having her normal Hans partner back and revels in the permanent scowl on EJ’s face as he watches from the audience, sitting with Val and ‘the guys’. Singing alongside Kourtney is a dream every step of the way, and Gina is first on her feet when Carlos finishes “In Summer”.

An ensemble member comes up to Gina after “What Do You Know About Love?” and asks her how long she and Ricky have actually been in love. (Gina knows how she wants to answer, the whole time, but laughs and says they’ve been friends for a while, and is glad they play their roles convincingly.)

This thought sticks with her as they line up with their sheet music on music stands for “Hygge”, the Oaken Act II opener that’s original to the broadway production. It’s one of Gina’s favorites because she and Ricky are barely in it, just get to laugh and dance and laugh some more with each other in the background of the ensemble’s amazing shenanigans. They look a 10 minute break after Kourtney’s powerhouse “Let It Go”, leaving them to leisurely set up for their next song.

“I’m telling you, I would have crushed this number,” Ricky says, pulling his music stand up to height next to Gina’s. Neither of them need the book for this one (or any of the numbers at this point), but everyone does it anyway.

“I think you’re crushing your own starring role, just fine, Kristoff,” she looks at him over her sheet music, “I’ve gotten a ton of compliments on your behalf.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know why anyone seems to think I want to hear about how wonderful and amazing they think you are but,” Gina rolls her eyes affectionately.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Our duet was especially a hit.”

“Of course it was,” Ricky says, holding a hand out for a hi-five, which Gina takes, “All that extra rehearsing we did.”

“Yeah, tons of it,” she laughs again, because every ‘extra’ rehearsal they scheduled on their own accord for that song was never much of a rehearsal.

Ricky leans forward on his music stand, closer to her, “My dad’s gonna flip when he sees the show. He’s a huge fan.”

“Of mine?”

Ricky nods, “He’s gonna be running up on stage with the trolls begging us to get married.”

Gina flushes brightly, then says, “Did I ever tell you my brother was at the Beauty and the Beast opening, and found EJ in a hallway?”

Ricky shakes his head, so Gina continues, “Well, he did, and he told EJ, to his face, that my whole family was so glad EJ was around to be a big brother to me.”

“Oh my god, he got brother-zoned?”

Gina nods, “I was unaware my feelings were that transparent in every phone call and FaceTime I made last semester, but I think its safe to say if my brother shows up this weekend, he’ll be right there with your dad.”

“A whole fan club, for little old us?”

“Makes me wish we had actually practiced a little more.”

“We practiced tons!”

Now it’s Gina’s turn to eye him intently as she leans over her own music stand.

“If all else fails, we are gonna nail that finale kiss,” Ricky boasts, and Gina would hit him if he didn’t look so entirely kissable this close up, in the morning sun.

“I wish we could kiss right now,” she whispers.

“Why don’t we?”

“Ricky—“

“Because personally, I’d love nothing more than to see EJ’s head explode once and for all.”

“Then who will lead those seven year old campers in that gorgeous intermission rendition of ‘Into the Unknown’?”

“Gi, my headache from listening to that just went away, do not remind me,” Ricky drops his head dejectedly onto his music stand.

“Want me to kiss it better for you?” She hums sweetly, and he lifts his head an inch at that. She looks at the imaginary watch on her wrist and adds, “In approximately 56 minutes when we get to the finale.”

“You’re the worst,” he drops back down.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gina waves him off, stands up and adjusts her music stand as the director calls for them to start up again, “I love you too.”

Shit.

It’s such an offhanded comment, its a phrase she uses all the time. She says it to Ashlyn when she’d grumbling about taking out the trash and to Carlos when her choreography choices got picked over his and she thinks she’s even said it to Nini at some point this week, probably after another group photo she was forced into.

So really, it’s not her fault it just slips out like this, like a complete and total accident in a tone that she uses for her friends when she only half means it as a witty response to something she doesn’t like.

She starts to stammer over an apology as Ricky sets up for the song too, “I’m sorry, that just slipped out, I didn’t mean—“

Only the thing is she totally meant it. She loves him. Has for quite sometime.

And he’s finding this out before they sing a song about dancing in a sauna on the morning of day two of summer camp hell week. And he thinks she doesn’t even mean it.

He doesn’t get a chance to answer verbally before they’re starting the music, but the song turns out to be a better answer than Gina had expected.

The director actually has to give Ricky a note to dial it down next time, and remind him Kristoff is supposed to be a little grumpy still in this scene, and his epiphany about loving Anna doesn’t come until his solo after “Fixer Upper”.

“Really?” Ricky asks with a shrug like he didn’t know any better, “Because I feel very in love right now.”

He takes the note and then Gina’s hand and they giggle until they’re bringing their stands up for their next song.

The third and final day of the Shallow Lake abbreviated tech rehearsal week goes smoother than the first two, which isn’t saying much. The bar was on the floor and it only gets marginally higher when they finally get through a run through without stopping, but with a million other mistakes instead.

They’re done for the night though, camera crews gone until they start getting ready for opening tomorrow, but the fun never sleeps at Shallow Lake, apparently, because they’ve all been dragged to the lawn to watch the animated Frozen with s’mores and snacks. Gina thinks having to watch the movie after living and breathing it for 2 weeks straight is a step away from torture, but she also thinks the counselors are just looking for a way to keep their eyes on everyone in one place, lest they lose another snowman head hours before opening.

Besides never wanting to hear some of these songs ever again, Gina has little to complain about. The stars look beautiful, they’ve got chocolate ice cream they didn’t have to steal, and she’s sitting on a lawn blanket with Ricky, their friends dispersed around them.

It’s a good summer night.

“You see, this,” Ricky gestures around to all the campers and counselors, laughing and snacking and enjoying (er, tolerating) the movie, “This is the kind of wholesome, quality content the cameras should be getting footage of.”

“Get over it, Ricky.”

“I wanna see you have your pants fall down in front of Corbin Bleu and get recorded doing it for a documentary, and then tell me to get over it,” Ricky huffs, recalling a mishap from earlier today.

Gina tries her best not to giggle in his face, but its a funny memory, “They won’t use it.”

He gives her a look.

“They won’t use a lot of it,” Gina corrects, “Kourtney’s quick change failed 2 out of the three times we tried it, Carlos’s puppet was winking at us for half the show, and I—“

“Did everything absolutely perfectly.”

“I sounded a little flat.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Ricky leans back on his hands.

“Yes, you do.”

“There are just some theater terms I refuse to learn so that I never become a complete drama kid.”

“I think you’re past that point, Ricky.”

“Shhh, let me dream,” he hushes, “Let me still believe I’m super cool.”

“I’m gonna remind you of this conversation when ‘Let It Go’ comes on,” she teases.

They lapse into comfortable silence (read: Ricky sings along to every song and tries to quote every line under his breath too) for a bit before Val comes over to their group.

“East High crew,” she says, just as perkily as ever, “Great job today in rehearsal.”

There is a mumbled thanks from a few people in their group.

“Most campers crumble under the pressure here. I know it’s not ideal, but you guys were really great. Like none of our disasters bothered you in the slightest.”

“We have had plenty of our won disasters, trust us,” Ashlyn says, and everyone hums in agreement.

“If there’s ever a fire here, feel free to call in East High for backup,” Nini laughs.

“Well, you were all pros, especially Gina,” Val smiles directly at her, “Anna is a really demanding role.”

Gina shrugs, “I’ve got an awesome team. We really bonded and it made a big difference.”

Val definitely notices her tone, but remains smiling, “Well anyway I just came over to hand back your character study sheets.”

“I totally forgot we did these,” Carlos says starting at the paper he’s been handed. On day one after casting they filled out sheets in their character’s persona with little prompt phrases, to help them get into their characters more.

“It’s tradition to look them over the night before opening, see how far you’ve come in two short weeks,” Val answers, handing out the last couple sheets she has, “And like I said, you guys should be especially proud.”

Gina gets her paper, and then Ricky, and they start to glance over them.

“Also, I know you guys are friends with EJ, and he’s sitting down in the front with us. You guys are always welcome to join us!” Val says, cheerily.

“Nice invitation on the very last day we’re here,” Ashlyn smiles.

“Well, you know where to find us. Break legs tomorrow,” Val smiles politely before turning and making her way towards the next cluster of campers with papers to return.

“I don’t know what I was thinking with some of these answers,” Carlos laughs as he reads over his sheet, “For the question ‘what’s your character’s favorite food?’ I said carrots.”

“My character’s biggest fear,” Ashlyn reads from her paper, “Erosion.”

“I think I win for worst answer,” Kourtney starts reading, “I said my character is afraid of the cold.”

“I didn’t know someone could get answers to a subjective worksheet wrong, and yet…” Nini giggles, looking over her best friend’s shoulder.

“Well, according to me two weeks ago, Anna’s New Years resolution is to use more salad plates and… learn to speak reindeer?” Gina laughs.

“How thoughtful of you!” Ricky cheers, before reading from his own page. He starts excitedly, “Kristoff hopes that in the future he will…”

“Will what?”

Ricky’s face falls when he cuts himself off, but with all eyes on him, he seems to know he has to finish he statement, “He hopes he can tell Anna how he really feels.”

“Ricky with the best answer of the night!” Carlos says, surprised, and Gina vaguely registers Ricky teasing him back but it’s hard to focus when little blips of this very big things that’s going on with Ricky keep swimming their way to the surface like its no big deal.

When conversation dissipates again, and everyone resumes either talking in smaller pairs or watching the movie again, Gina refocuses on her proximity to Ricky, and asks lightly, “Any other good answers on that sheet?”

“No that was probably my best one,” he shrugs, placing the sheet in his lap.

Gina leans closer to him to read it, and they were already close to begin with, but now her head is but an inch away from resting on his shoulder, “Kristoff’s favorite outfit is his hat? I thought you hated that hat.”

“I’m more of a hat guy than I think you might realize,” he says, tucking his chin to laugh, “If I had known I was staying I would have brought it.”

“Brought what?”

“My hat,” he says, “My hat you made me for Thanksgiving.”

“You still have that?”

“Of course I do,” he says, like its the most obvious thing in the world, “It’s my favorite hat. It would have been Kristoff’s favorite too.”

“I wish I had been braver then,” Gina admits softly, “I had been psyching myself up to say something to you that night, and had convinced myself to do it when we walked home from the party, if I didn’t stay for the sleepover Ashlyn was supposed to have.”

Ricky thumbs with the edges of the paper in his lap.

“I wish I had just said something a little earlier, like when I gave you the hat. Things would have been so different.”

“Well, to be fair, I think the hat said plenty. We established I was a bit oblivious back then,” Ricky starts, “But I don’t know, I also kinda don’t wish things were so different.”

Gina turns to look at him.

He continues, “Besides the fact that I really do wish we could have been together a lot longer, I don’t wish we were different. I think things worked out exactly the way they were supposed to.”

So Gina finally gives in, and rests her head on his shoulder.

“Best answer of the night.”

“I thought the world was ending when my parents split, and then Nini and I split, and then without ever even being together you and I split,” Ricky says, “But we found our way back. And that makes me believe in a lot of good things.”

“You’re a very good thing, Ricky Bowen,” She hums, content and warm and peaceful.

“You’re okay,” he says, in the same effect of a love confession. Then there’s a heavy pause, a deep huff and a,”But—“

“I knew there was gonna be a but,” Gina huffs, sitting up.

“But just because I think it’s okay we messed up a million things to get us perfectly to where we are now, doesn’t mean I want to keep messing things up,” Ricky says seriously, “I have a really awful track record with making bad decisions around show time. Before, during, and after.”

“So?”

“I’m not willing to risk it by saying or doing something that doesn’t tell you how I really feel the right way,” he says, “You’re my good thing, Gi.”

“I know.”

“I’m sure everyones bugging you as much as they are me about what’s going on with us, but I’m so nervous to do anything the wrong way— to mess everything up, or—“

“Hey,” Gina reassured softly, grabbing one of his hands with both of hers, “We’ve already messed everything up.”

“That makes me feel a while lot better, thanks.”

“I mean, think about this past year. Our friendship was literally formed in the midst of you plotting to get your ex back and me plotting to get the lead role. I handed you back to your ex on a silver platter during opening night, breaking my own heart in the process because I was leaving and more importantly I cannot stand the sight of you being unhappy.”

She searches his eyes for a sign he’s hearing her, then continues, “The second show was probably even worse. You kept getting closer and I pushed you further away. I was holding things against you without ever mentioning them to you directly and you were being almost too direct and too oblivious. I got you your girl and you still ended up heartbroken, which was never what I wanted, and I had the wrong first kiss. But do you know what happened during the third show?”

He nods her on, eyes glistening and hopeful.

“During the third show we found each other again. We found a shared hatred of jell-o and love of chocolate ice cream. We relearned that weird thing we do where we look at each other and have full conversations without saying a word out loud. We put on ugly hats and pretty dresses and jumped in lakes and slept in top bunks against our wills. I texted you so late into the night while laying in my awful top bunk that I missed Arendelle trivia.”

“You’re welcome,” he quips.

“And we had our first kiss,” she smiles so brightly its hard to remember it’s night time, “So you know what they say?”

“Third times the charm?”

“Seems to be,” she nods, squeezing his hand, “So if you wanna wait, that’s fine by me. I will wait the very many days its gonna take you to push that death mobile home and then some. As far as I’m concerned, this is the time that counted, and everything went so right you couldn’t mess it up if you tried. We did everything wrong the first two times, this time is ours to get right.”

“Did you mean it?”

She hears the words he says and even the ones he doesn’t. Did you mean it during rehearsal yesterday morning, yeah, I love you too.

“Never meant it more.”

“And you’re okay if I wait—“

“Kristoff’s gonna tell me tomorrow, so that’ll hold me over,” she shrugs, but she really is sure she can wait as long as he needs.

“I do, you know,” he says, his own way of getting around his superstition.

“I know,” and she does. Part of her thinks, getting a vision of the discarded purple yarn around her room the night of thanksgiving, that she always knew, in some way.

Method acting, huh?

Gina kisses Ricky three times on opening night.

She’s standing in the wings in her opening dress, having smiled to death for Nini’s incessant yet endearing picture taking and fussing over the bow in her hair enough times to drive even herself crazy, let alone everyone around her. There is an electric buzz already as guests start filling in the many rows of their theater. Campers and counselors are running around backstage, trying to get every last minute thing done and ready for the curtain to go up (figuratively speaking, since their outdoor theater has no curtain) in less than 20 minutes. Gina stands still though, trying to take it all in and calm her insides that are as chaotic as the happenings around her.

And of course, because the craziness of opening is never enough on its own, the camera crews are catching every last bit of drama they can before the show.

She sees Ricky run by in her periphery, wrestling with his opening snow jacket he still can’t seem to get to sit right on him, but he is stopped by one of the film crew members.

“Hey, Ricky, how you feeling about tonight?” He is called out to by name, and he almost comically skids to a stop.

“How am I feeling? You should probably ask how I’m not feeling, that might be a shorter answer for you,” he smiles brightly, charmingly. The cameras love him, everyone who watches this documentary is going to fall in love too.

“Anything specific you’re worried about?”

“Um, normal things like forgetting my lines, standing in the wrong spot, stuff like that,” he says, “But I also think the food here was so inedible I lost weight and my pants are gonna fall down when scale the North Mountain with Gina in Act I again, so…”

“How are you and Gina doing?”

“Well I can’t speak on her behalf specifically, but I think everyone here has some of the opening night jitters, yeah.”

“And the method acting?”

Ricky laughs loudly, looks up and over the camera to the man operating it with an accusatory point and a smirk that goes with the laughter, “Channing, my favorite camera guy, how’d I know you were gonna hunt me down and ask that.”

“I’m you’re favorite camera guy?”

“Not if you make me answer that.”

The camera pans in closer.

Ricky laughs again and tries to hide his smile physically behind a hand, but he must think better of it after a second, and drops it. A smile that big was never getting past this camera crew, “It’s actually going great, thanks for asking.”

The way he banters so breezily with the crew is a sight for sure, and Gina’s soon fighting a smile just as big.

“I was rooting for you, kid. I didn’t like the other guy.”

“So I’m your favorite camper?”

“I’m not allowed to have favorites,” the camera operator says, to Ricky’s mischievous smile, but adds a cheeky, “But between you and me, a lot of Caswell’s confessional booth footage will end up on the cutting room floor.”

“Okay, you can stay my favorite,” Ricky laughs, shrugs together the ends of his jacket once again.

“Anything you wanna say to the lucky lady before opening?” Channing asks.

“I’m sure I can just find her and tell her myself, without telling the people in there,” Ricky teases, pokes a finger at the camera lens, “But sure I’ll humor you.”

Gina steps closer and hold her breath to hear his answer.

“Like I said I’m usually afraid of doing all the wrong things on opening night,” Ricky says, smiling at the camera softly, “But Gi, she makes me feel like I’m getting it all right for once.”

She could kiss him.

“Yeah, she really doesn’t need any luck from me,” Ricky finishes, less serious than his last statement, getting back to his battering state with the crew, “She’s the greatest dancer in the world, did you know?”

“I do now.”

“So, no need to break legs, but if you do hear any obnoxious cheering coming from the wings when she’s onstage, I can almost certainly guarantee you it’s me,” Ricky finishes.

“Good luck out there, kid.”

Ricky thanks him and spins on his heels to leave (and Gina is so focused on how quickly he can spot her and get here so she can kiss him that she doesn’t even realize how Channing swoops the camera in her direction right after Ricky finishes.)

Ricky spots her quickly, and crosses the few steps towards her even quicker, “Hey, Gi, did you see—“

She grabs him by the snow collar and kisses him.

He blinks his eyes open slowly after, shaking his head in surprise, “What was that for?”

“I liked your answers,” she smiles, swinging back sweetly on her heels. Its so fun that she never has to hide her smiles around him again.

“Is it bad luck to not wish you good luck because I don’t think you need good luck?” Ricky asks earnestly, “Because then If I wish you good luck because I’m afraid if I don’t its bad luck, then I might have jinxed it and given you bad luck anyway by wishing you good luck when you dont need—“

“Ricky,” she cuts him off by grabbing his hand, “It’s gonna be okay. You said all the right things.”

“Really?”

“I was actually kinda panicking back here over the fact that this is my first time playing a lead role in like, over a year. But like I said, you had good answers.”

He shrugs.

“I feel invincible,” she admits, “And you look way better than okay in this costume today.”

“Gee thanks.”

“C’mon lovebirds, we’re huddling up,” Carlos interrupts them, walking by.

Ricky flushes a bright red and Gina shoots him daggers as they collect themselves and start following him.

“I meant it in character, Anna and Kristoff are lovebirds,” Carlos says as they circle up next to him, in a way that means thats not how he meant it at all, “I’m so glad you guys are rehearsing kissing now!”

Gina whacks his snowman head.

“Okay guys, I’m very honored to have been the counselor picked to lead the pre-show cast huddle this year,” Nini yells to get everyones attention, and the cast circles up, holds hands, before she continues, “This has been a crazy year for me, and I know it was for a lot of other people in this circle right now too.”

“You can say that again!” Someone shouts.

“I can’t tell you how much it means to be starting the next chapter of my life here, where my dreams all really started to come to life,” Nini smiles, “You all are so talented, I don’t know how you all ended up in the same place at the same time like this.”

“I believe it has something to do with what’s in the lake water,” Ashlyn jokes.

“Which explains why since I’ve refused to go near that lake in all my years here, why I’m not in the show tonight and all you amazing people are.”

There is some laughter around the circle.

“I’ve already made history and cried the first ever happy tears during hell week— I mean tech week— the past few days and I dont wanna start again, so I’m gonna keep this short and sweet,” Nini says, “I want you all to forget about the cameras out there tonight, and forget about all the people watching, even forget about the counselors, that includes me! This is your show, and you all are so amazing in it. You are going to have the best night this camp has ever seen.”

Gina looks around he circle and marvels at how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time. She didn’t think it was possible to do this so quickly, but the show really is just that: theirs and amazing.

“And then we can remembers and celebrate the fact that you all are movie stars? And the whole world is gonna love you!”

The cast cheers at that, and that seems as good a time as any to try to put their hands in the middle (though its a large cast and a tight squeeze in the wings.)

But they manage it, and on Nini’s count of three, they all shout a very enthusiastic, “Frozen!” followed by much more cheering and hollering, everyone clapping and hugging each other for good luck.

Gina doesn’t even realize it, but Ricky has never let go of one of her hands, and brings it up to his lips. He places a soft kiss on the back of her hand, and holds onto it until he cannot anymore, backing away to cross to the other side of the stage where he makes his first entry.

“See you out there, Gi!” He yells over the crowd, before he is lost to it, laughing at something Carlos is whispering to him as they walk together.

The third time they kiss that night is on stage. To the rest of the world, Anna and Kristoff are kissing for the very first time.

They don’t know that for Gina, it is just like coming home again.

He spins her around in circles, her feet kicking off the ground, after they take their final bow and the lights on the stage start to dim in lieu of a curtain closing.

And it is such a perfect moment, Gina says screw the camera crews definitely getting this, screw EJ’s pout in the audience and her friends screaming on either side of her, and most importantly screw the rule of threes.

She kisses him a fourth time.

Gina asked three people to accompany Ricky home in the death mobile so that she didn’t have to.

Three people declined.

“You don’t even have working AC?”

“Did you really think this thing would?” Ricky yells at her over the loud grumble of the engine as they slowly chug along.

“This is worse than the orange car,” she huffs, sitting back in her seat with her arms crossed.

“I thought you liked the orange car!” Ricky seems personally offended.

“I have one good memory in the orange car,” Gina sighs, “That one good memory can’t undo it’s ugliness.”

“You can walk home, if you’d prefer.”

“I’d get home faster, yeah,” and she can only keep it serious for a minute before she’s look at Ricky and laughing.

“You signed up for this.”

“I absolutely did not,” she says indignantly, though still giggling.

“I didn’t sign up for camp and look at all the good things I got out of it,” he glances away from the road to look at her, flash her that endearingly charming smile of his.

“That’s not gonna work on me,” she dead pans.

“Not even a little?”

“Maybe a little,” she offers.

“Yes! It’s a good day!” Ricky cheers, right as… the engine sputters to silence.

Gina lets out a long deep breath as she watches the car come to a standstill just in time for Ricky to have pulled it over into the shoulder. “Please tell me this is somehow someway a good thing.”

Ricky is silent, and Gina lets a few giggles escape when she yells again, “Please, tell me—“

“I love you!”

Now it’s her turn to be silent.

But how silent can you be when the guy you’ve been in love with for the better part of a year says he’s in love with you too.

“Now? Now is the time you choose?”

“I just figured if I was waiting for a sign from the universe, this was as clear as it was gonna get!”

“Mind explaining it to those of us who are not seeing clearly through your filthy windshield?”

“This is hands down the most messed up car in the universe,” Ricky starts, squaring his shoulders to face her more fully, “And yet somehow, you’re in here with me, still laughing with every other word that comes out of our mouths. I think whatever I say, we’re gonna be okay.”

“So say it,” Gina echoes, “Say it again.”

“I love you, I’m in love with you,” Ricky doesn’t let a millisecond pass between when she asks him to say and when he actually does, “I think Kenny Ortega himself wanted us to be together.”

“What?” She is endlessly perplexed, but unabashedly giggling on the tip of Ricky’s nose in his messed up death mobile is so, so wonderful, that maybe his comments that make no sense make perfect sense.

“If he hadn’t picked that school to film his movie in, we wouldn’t have put on the show years later and I wouldn’t have been jealous enough to audition and we wouldn’t have become friends and we would have never fallen in love!”

His weird logic still makes little sense, but she leans into the crazy optimism.

“I’m different than I was when we met, and I thought that was bad, but it’s not, its exactly right,” Ricky continues, “And if it took me three tries to get it right, I’d do another three and another three to keep getting it right. Because I may be different, but my feelings for you have never been.”

Gina smiles, and brings her hands up to either of his cheeks, and says “The whole time?”

“The whole time.”

“I love you more than jell-o.”

“Not saying much.”

“I love you more than my coronation dress.”

“Saying a little bit more.”

“I love you, exactly the way you are, exactly the way we found each other.”

“Yeah, I’ll take it,” he leans forwards and kisses her softly, sweetly, just the right way.

“Looks like I got one good memory in this car now, too.”

“Okay,” Ricky claps his hands together with enthusiasm when they separate, now looking at his steering wheel, “I believe the power of love is going to bring my car back to life!”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

“Okay, here we go!” He says, and turns the key in the ignition once, to nothing. He tries a second time, nothing.

“Third times a charm?” She whispers skeptically, but trying to remain hopeful because his face looks so sweet and determined to make this work.

But he tries a third time and…

“I’m calling my dad,” he huffs.

Gina laughs runs a reassuring hand over his shoulder. It’s such a strange concept to be stranded so far away from home, and yet, feel like you’re not the slightest bit lost.

She can’t believe she ever used to mock theater camps. This one gave her every single thing she has ever wanted.

“I know a great way we can pass the time while we wait for him,” Gina leans in close to Ricky and says sweetly.

And Ricky only groans again.

“Truth or dare?”