Wesley shakes his head. “Not even going to respond to that.”
“You just did.” I try to sprint away before he can get the last word in. “Last one home has to clean out the gutters!” This is a terrible threat. The gutters have saplings and who knows what else growing in them.
“Have fun with that. I’ll just be over here, then.” He juts a thumb. “Going the right way. See you in a week.”
I veer left. Check his expression. I veer right. He laughs, dispelling some of my unease about waking up to business as usual. This isn’t anything like last night, but it also isn’t anything like any other morning. We’re off the map.
“Ready to see what the fifth treasure is?” he inquires when I circle back.
The brown envelope weighs heavily in my pack, waiting to be opened, but I’m still not ready for this to end. “When we get back. It’ll be our reward for not getting eaten by bears.”
“Bears are solitary creatures. If we meet one, we’ll outnumber it. Meaning no bears will be running after me when I outstrip you.”
“Hey!”
“You snooze, you lose.”
“I can see why they didn’t like you at camp.”
Wesley laughs again—I’ve got to start counting them, comparing numbers to yesterday’s best score. “No, they didn’t like me atcamp because I wouldn’t dothis.” He stops short in front of me and leans backward.
“No!” I cry, but it’s too late, he’s already tipping back. My arms reflexively snake around his middle as if I have a prayer of holding this enormous specimen up, but he’s stopped tipping. Wesley locks his arms over mine, holding me to him. He turns so that I can see his grinning profile.
“Gotcha.”
“Thank goodness,” I sigh. “You’re too much man for me.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he replies, releasing his hold after another beat. I can’t tell if he’s wistful or joking.
This is the trouble with crushes. You begin to doubt whether they’re reciprocated, even if on paper the signs are all there. If I ever get married, I think I’ll be wondering all the way down the aisle if the wedding’s an elaborate prank and the groom will sayGotcha!at the end. I can’t trust my own judgment here.
The hike home flies by much faster than the hike out, since we’re not stopping to hunt for treasure, and we’re making good enough time that I don’t think the lunch I packed for today will be necessary. We stop mostly for my benefit, my poor legs and back aching. Wesley makes me reapply that minty green goop every two hours.
I can’t resist. “You missed a spot,” I say, dabbing more on his nose.
Wesley smiles, eyes crinkling. “So did you. Here, I’ll help you out.” He presses my forehead, leaving a green handprint.
“Thank you so much.”
He winks. “No problem.”
Tree canopies blocking the sunlight throw off our sense oftime, and when we saunter into a clearing the sky looks more like late evening than noon. Dark clouds gather ahead, rolling our way.
“That doesn’t bode well,” I mutter.
Wesley grabs my pack from me, leaving our shovel behind. “We’ve gotta hurry.”
“I am physically incapable of going any faster. My shoulders are still angry that they didn’t get a mattress last night.”
“I’m kind of used to the sleeping bag by now,” he replies, calling to mind the image of his sleeping bag in the loft, and the colored-pencil Maybell I discovered there. “You need me to carry you?”
Is he serious?
He is. Of course he is.
Wesley’s offering a fantasy and doesn’t know it. If I say yes, forcing this poor man to carry a fully grown adult on top of everything else he’s already carrying, I truly will go to hell.
I spend a handful of seconds considering it anyway. “You’re strong,” I sigh, relinquishing this opportunity, “but not invincible. That’d kill you.”
