I nod, appreciating the safe answer. I could stop this conversation right now. Forget I ever tried to broach this sticky subject.
But something urges me to keep going. “What about the rest? Now that you’ve spent all this time testing your instincts, your life choices, things like that. Is anything—different?”
I need to just shut up. I don’t think either of us has the faintest idea what I’m driving at.
You do. You’re just too chickenshit to spit it out.
Lisa’s expression is guarded, and I wonder if she thinks this is a trick question. “I suppose so,” she murmurs. “A lot of the things I always thought I wanted aren’t the things I actually need.”
“Like what?”
“Perfection,” she says. “The designer wardrobe. Luxury everything. Being seen at all the best events by all the best people.” She makes air quotes around best events and best people, and I appreciate the self-deprecation in her tone. Her expression softens, then, as she strokes a hand down my chest. “Some of that’s necessary for my career, I guess. But what I’ve realized is that those things don’t make me happy. Not really.”
“What does make you happy?”
I hold my breath, waiting for her answer. Not sure I can handle it no matter what she says. She’s quiet for such a long time that I wonder if she’s going to answer at all. When she tips her head back to look up at me, the softness of her smile makes my heart clench like a fist.
“This,” she says. “I’m happy right now. Happier than I’ve ever been.”
“Just in this moment, or?—?”
I trail off, not sure what I’m asking. If I’m trying to propose something beyond a short fling, or just to get a feel for how her priorities have changed. If she’s wondering, like I am, if we could be this happy for a longer term.
Grow some balls and say what you want. Tell her, goddammit. Tell her you want more than a fling.
The instant her expression changes, I know something’s wrong. Did she read my mind, or was it something I said? I open my mouth to apologize when her brow furrows in confusion.
“Do you hear that?” she asks.
“Hear what?”
“That hissing sound?” She’s silent a moment. “There!”
I listen. Sure enough, she’s right. There’s something hissing in the back corner of the tent. I sit up and frown, trying to remember if we left the tent open at any point today. There was that one span of time when we were zipping the sleeping bags together, and then when we had to run back to the car for pillows?—
“Move over there,” I command, pointing to the opposite corner. The one closest to the door and farthest from the corner. “Please,” I add, not wanting to be a bossy asshole, but needing her to get her beautiful, naked butt away from that hiss as quickly as possible.
“Why?” Her voice is shaky, but she does it.
I grab my heavy utility flashlight from beside my pillow and edge closer to the corner. “There are a lot of rattlesnakes in this part of the state. I want to be sure we didn’t?—”
“Snakes?!” The word comes out in a bloodcurdling screech, and Lisa is on her feet in an instant. “OhmygodIhatesnakes!”
She’s failing and jumping and fumbling for the zipper at the tent door. It would be funny if I weren’t afraid for her safety and mine. She’s got it unzipped now, but her feet tangle up in the sleeping bag, which saves her from running naked into the darkness.
It’s then I realize the hissing is getting faster.
I grab her by the arm and yank her back down. “Stop screaming,” I say. “There—is it louder?”
She’s wild-eyed and panting and ready to run like hell the second I let go of her. “Yes—ohmygod, does that mean it’s close?”
I edge past her and move toward the corner, pretty sure I know what’s up. I pull back the edge of the sleeping bag and aim the beam of my flashlight at the corner.
“There,” I say, relieved to be right.
“What? A snake?”
I stretch my hand out to touch it, and Lisa finches beside me.
