“Do you get many tourists?” Jack asks, as we get out of the car and make the short walk to the edge of the pool.
“We get some RVs passing through in the summer that stop off on the way to somewhere else. It’s a steady trail that bolsters local business a little. But the falls still feel like they belong to the people of Star Falls. It’s still the place where most of the town had their first picnic, their first kiss, recovered from their first heartbreak. There are far more spectacular falls in the state of Colorado, so people naturally gravitate to those. I’m kinda pleased we get to keep these for ourselves.”
He turns to me, a warm smile on his face. “Sounds like these falls have seen plenty of stuff.” He slips his hand around my waist.
“I’m sure of it.” I toe off my shoes. “I’m not swimming, but we have to get our feet wet. I mean, it’s the law around here.”
“Wouldn’t want to break the law, now, would I?”
Jack rolls up his jeans. I wore a skirt, knowing this is where we’d end up. Jack follows me as we round the edge of the pools that the falls create. “This is my favorite spot,” I say, coming to the large, flat stone near the entrance to the creek. “It’s the perfect position to take in the falls.”
The surface of the stone is just big enough for us to both sit. So we sit down and put our legs into the water.
“Shit,” Jack says. “The water is freezing!”
I can’t help but laugh. “Gilded cage, Jack. Gilded cage. If you can’t even endure the Star Falls pool in October, then I don’t know what to do with you.”
He dips his hand into the water and then flicks it at me, and I can’t help but think how differently we grew up.
“I don’t know what I would have done as a kid, if it wasn’t playing in this pool and messing about in the creek. If I was at home, Dad would always rope me into something at the farm. Some of it, I didn’t mind. Fruit picking can be fun.” I laugh atthe memories of those summers when Dad would send us off to pick. “Bray and I would always make ourselves sick eating strawberries at the beginning of each season. Dad would be furious that we were eating more than we picked, so he’d send us off to do something else. And then by the end of the season, you couldn’t pay us to look at a strawberry.”
“Strawberries are your favorites?” he asks.
“Yeah. Always. When I was a kid, I had strawberry-covered sheets and even a lamp shaped like a strawberry. For six years straight, I dressed as a strawberry for Halloween.”
“That’s adorable,” he says.
“I was twelve the last time. My classmates didn’t think it was so adorable, let me tell you.”
Jack lets out a deep belly laugh. “An adorable little geek. I love it.”
“Says the guy who knows the set ofTwilightlike he lives there. What about you?” I ask. “What was your go-to Halloween costume?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “Superheroes probably. My parents always threw a huge party at the house. The nanny would take me trick-or-treating when I was little. And then I got too old—or too proud—to go with the nanny once I hit eleven or twelve. I wasn’t allowed to go out on my own, so I just stopped going.”
I lean my head on his shoulder. “That sounds so sad.”
“I don’t have a therapy bill for it. Life’s different in New York for a kid. That’s all.”
I’d take another six years as a strawberry over staying in my bedroom on Halloween. “Halloween is huge in Star Falls. Everyone goes down to the park and the diner sets up a barbeque. Usually there’s a band playing.”
“What about trick-or-treating?” he asks.
“The kids do that first and then we all head down about six.” I try to think if I’ve ever seen a flyer or any ad for it. “It’s kinda just become a tradition.”
“Sounds nice,” he says.
I want to say he can come to this year’s Halloween—it’s only a couple of weeks away, but I don’t want to dip my toe into talk about the future. If I do, I might burst this bubble that we’re in.
“My toes are numb,” Jack says grimly. “I actually think they might have fallen off.”
I laugh. “Oh, Jack. You’re such a New Yorker.”
He pulls his legs out of the water and stands. “Guilty as charged.” He pulls me up and I lead him over to the start of the creek, where the water from the pool gently runs over rocks and stones on its way to wherever it’s going.
“You have to try and find the sparkly stones,” I instruct him. “I actually have found some beautiful ones over the years. I have quite the collection. I even thought about doing a geology course there for a minute.”
Jack follows me as I move from rock to rock, peering at the bed of the creek.
