“Consider this a gift,” he continues, the tips of his mouth curled up.
“Oh.”
“But not for you,” he says. “Spending the day with you is a gift to me. Treat yo’self, and all that,” he grins.
It turns out I have no idea how to deal with a flirtatious Nico, so I decide the best course of action is to grumble at my plate in self-defense instead.
“Eat,” Nico demands, with a laugh in his voice.
I won’t look a gift horse in its mouth, but these are the best bacon and eggs I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.
TWELVE
Annie
Back on the road,we settle into our appointed car roles. Nico drives and blasts music with the occasional podcast thrown in. I don’t mind in the slightest—because my role is to read, and when I read, it’s like stepping into a soundproof room and locking the door behind me.
As a kid, my parents never minded that I loved books. What drove them bananas was the way I disappeared into them. TheAnnie has turned into an inanimate objectpart. I’d sink so deep into a story that the real world ceased to exist—chores forgotten, homework abandoned. It would take several attempts to get my attention. I wouldn’t come when called. I became a living gargoyle, curled in a ball in a corner somewhere, unblinking, unmoving, and utterly gone.
It seems that Nico doesn’t mind, though, because when I finally hear my name and look up, his eyes are laughing and his hand is on my knee, and it’s clear he’s been trying to get my attention for a while now.
“We’ve arrived at the flat little forest walk,” he says, squeezing my knee once.
This I feel like lightning shooting up my spine, and for a reason entirely unknown to me I feel almost heartbroken when he removes it. My nipples go on strike and start a picket line.Nico’s hands are a basic human right!their signs say.
I distract myself by looking around. We’re in a small lot at the trailhead in the middle of a thick forest of evergreen. There are no other cars around.
“The location you’ve chosen for my murder is tragically beautiful,” I announce. “Fitting for someone like myself.”
He laughs as he gets out of the car. “As someone who deserves to be murdered or as someone who is tragically beautiful?”
“Yes.” I climb out and take a deep inhale.
He gazes at me from the front of the car, eyes warm and alight. “Nice, right?”
I guzzle it all down, over and over again. “I don’t leave the city very much, but I’m getting addicted to this smell,” I tell him.
We start towards the trailhead.
“What smell?” he asks.
I take several more samples. “The smell of cool, dark, damp earth. Life,” I say. “We’re both city kids, so you get it. I’ve always defined ‘life’ by the hum of traffic, the crush of people, the constant movement of millions of lives intersecting.” I glance around, feeling something shift. “But this… this is life in its rawest, most primitive form.”
I glance over, and Nico is looking at me, one corner of his mouth tipped up in a way that makes me want to lick it.
“Pretty,” he says.
Our flat little forest walk takes us deep into the trees, and I suddenly feel like a wolf with the way the scent deepens in here. My head is clear, my heart rate a little elevated (the forest floor is not entirely flat, mind you, not to mention a little spongy, meaning it takes a little more effort than walking on pavement).I get the urge to walk across a log like those Pacific Northwest influencers on social media with the beanies and the long and loose hair that seem entirely inappropriate for aerobic activity.
I find a suitable log and walk across the length of it. When I reach the end, I suppress the urge to squeal and throw my hands in the air. The smile gets out anyway, and Nico’s matches mine.
However, that was enough adventure for one day. Luckily, the trees take this moment to part like a secret unfolding, revealing a sun-drenched clearing with soft beds of moss and tiny purple wildflowers. I lean against a tree to take it all in. The air is thick with the scent of earth and pine, the quiet only broken by the distant trill of birds and the rustling of leaves in the breeze.
It turns out there is truth to the trite captions under those aforementioned Instagram posts. I think of an overused one, “nature is healing,” right before blurting out some more truths to my worst enemy.
“I’m a hurricane of serious issues,” I tell Nico, who’s standing maybe twenty feet away in the middle of the clearing, drinking water and looking right at me, the brown of his eyes lighter in the sun.
He caps his bottle. “Annie?—”
