“Cold.”
“Frisbee golf?”
“Freezing.” She shakes her head at me as she continues to walk ahead of me, as if Frisbee golf is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I was going to, but this is kind of fun. Keep guessing.”
I run a few steps to catch up to her and grab her hand. She stops us directly in the center of the small park, next to a little fountain with three brass frogs spurting water. Sidney tugs my hand and turns us around, the water dribbling noisily at our backs.
“You asked me what I did with all of the rocks. And where I sneak off to sometimes.”
I wait in silence, wondering if she’s going to tell me she spends her time sitting in parks. I’m not sure how I’d feel about her thinking that’s a better option than having to be around me all these years. “And this is it?”
“Kind of.” She fidgets next to me, like even now, in the midst of her confession, she’s not sure she wants to make it. “It’s stupid.”
“I bet it’s not.”
“You tell me a lot.” It’s such a weird change of topic that it makes me look at her. But she’s right, I’ve been pouring myself out to Sidney the last few weeks. It’s almost embarrassing, how much I want her to know the stupidest stuff about me. “And I sort of suck at that a lot of the time. So…” She fidgets with the hem of her shirt and takes a deep breath, like she’s psyching herself up for something. “Anyway, this is what I do with my rocks. I hide them here—and at other parks—so people can find them. It’s mostly moms and kids.”
I think about the skull rock she painted once and imagine it sitting on some six-year-old’s dresser.
“You have ten minutes to find as many of my rocks in this park as you can.” A smile spreads across her face and melts away the trepidation that was once there.
“You want me to find rocks…” I look around me, at the sprawling grass and the benches and the bushes. The little gardens that dip out of the woods and circle around the little sittingareas. “… outside.” But if I know Sidney, this is a competition, and I’m determined to find at least one. I take a hesitant step forward and she tugs back on my hand.
“For every rock you find, I’ll answer one question.”
I stop in my tracks, but when she lets go of my hand, I sprint away. Because one rock is definitely not enough.
Sidney
Asher is racing around the park like his life depends on it. Like I just told him there are hundred-dollar bills hidden in the bushes. My heart is a rock in my chest at the thought of what questions would be worth it to him. He starts at a row of bushes, getting down on his knees and brushing away mulch and leaves, running his hand over the area blindly. I look at the stopwatch I’ve started on my phone. It’s been less than a minute as he pulls a shiny black rock covered in little flowers from its mulchy hiding spot. Oh god. This was such a bad idea.
He holds the rock in one hand as he stands and runs his eyes across the park from left to right. His gaze settles on a large tree about twenty feet away from me. It’s huge and the base is a tangle of roots that jut above the grass and then plunge back down. Little clusters of flowers are sprouting up out of some of the little crevices. He runs his hands over sections of root, and under little plants, as he works his way around the tree systematically. Asher is usually a frenzy—a haphazard burst of energy in everything he does, but right now he looks like he’s done this a million times. Like he’s been planning this out for weeks, exactly how he’d search every nook and cranny of this park. He looks like one of those police search parties you see on TV, working in a systematic grid, not missing a single inch. He looks like… me.
His hand plucks out another rock and I glance at my phone again. “Three minutes down!” I yell it across the park, and amom standing by the play set darts a look at me.Lady, I’ve got bigger problems than you.My eyes are back on Asher before I can care. He darts from the tree to one of the black metal benches, and I bite my lip, knowing what he’s going to find when he gets to one of the back legs. Three rocks in as many minutes. Holy crap. It’s mostly moms and kids who hide rocks and come to public places to find them; there are sites online where you can find locations where rocks have been hidden. I bet they don’t get half this excited.
Asher sprints around the park, plucking rocks from what feels like every square inch of the place and shoving them into his pockets. When I call time, his pockets are bulging and my mind is already racing, wondering what he will want to ask me. I should have gone with five minutes. I didn’t anticipate Asher’s zeal for making me miserable. No, it’s not that. I feel traitorous even thinking it. Letting myself slip back into that old mind-set. He’s myboyfriendnow. What is wrong with me that I can still think something like that about him?
He’s grinning wider than I’ve ever seen as he closes the distance between us, and even in my current state of panic it makes me smile to see him look at me like that. He stops in front of me, his eyes practically glowing with delight. And triumph. He looks like a guy who just won a big race. Whose photo will be in the paper tomorrow morning.
I roll my eyes and let out a dramatic breath, trying not to let him see how unnerved I am right now. “Okay, let’s see them.” I wag a finger at the bulge of his pockets and he turns them out, letting the stones clink against each other as they hit the ground.Nine.Apparently I said it out loud, because he laughs before dropping two more rocks he had in his hands.
“Eleven.” Maybe he senses the dread in me, because he doesn’t taunt me, he just smiles and starts to pick the rocks up. “Should I put these back?” His brows hitch up. “Or are yougoing to make me turn them in for each question to keep me honest?”
“Did I say one question for each rock, because what I meant was—” Asher cuts me off by grabbing my hand. As he does, I watch him slip a rock into his pocket. I wonder which one it was.
We crisscross the park, putting stones back in all the places they were taken. When we’re done, Asher grabs my hand again and kisses me on the cheek as we walk back toward the car.
“Remind me never to challenge you again.”
He laughs. “Never underestimate how much I want to pry your brain open, Sidney Walters.”
The second part of our date is dinner at The Cherry Pit, because Asher told me once that he’s never been there, even though the delightfully tacky cherry-themed restaurant is basically its own kind of tourist destination around here. We’re sitting in a booth, sipping on cherry-ade.
“Maybe tonight we can decide what we’re putting in Nadine’s yard?” We haven’t pranked her in weeks. Well, not together, at least. I like to think my birthday yard show was more of a gift—to both of us—than a prank. I doubt Nadine sees it that way, but still.
