I worship him. A golden boy in the setting sun. He tries to warn me he’s about to come, but I latch on to him and drink him down. His body shudders with his release, and it’s perfect.
“How was the sunset?” I ask as he sinks down next to me.
“Most beautiful sunset of my life,” he gasps, his eyes on me.
He tucks me into his side with a blanket curled around my knees. We sip wine and eat his adorable picnic foods. I feel calm and at peace, perhaps for the first time in my life. The sun sinks over the horizon, with one last gasp of brazen, saturated hues of red, orange, and violet. In the distance, a coyote yips and howls.
“I don’t want this day to end,” I murmur. “It’s been absolutely perfect.”
“It doesn’t have to, baby.”
“All days end,” I argue softly, watching as pink shifts to blood-red in the dying light.
He kisses me, slow and certain. “True, but I don’t mind. Because I’m looking forward to another perfect day tomorrow. With you.”
“What defines a perfect day to you?” I ask, suddenly inspired by his turn of phrase.
Logan frowns, thinking. “Well, climbing was great. Spendingtime with you.” He brushes my hair off my shoulder. I shiver as it slides across the sliver of bare skin against my throat. “Sex,” he whispers. He plays with the button of my shorts, but I drape my hand over his, stopping his movement.
“Exactly,” I say. “Exactly.” I sit up, suddenly too excited to stay still. “Every day can be like this. We should go.”
He laughs. “We have some time before we need to head back. Let’s stay and enjoy this.”
“No, I mean, we should leaveSagebrush. Let’s go on an adventure together.”
I can see by his expression that he’s already balking at the suggestion. My heart sinks.
“No, listen,” I say intensely, feeling a little desperate and trying to rein it in. “This can be just the start. Think about it! Climbing by day, making love by night. This could be our life, Logan. Sam says Clunker is all fixed up, we only need to pay the difference, and then we can hit the road.”
“We’re right in the middle of planning our next event,” Logan says dismissively.
“No,” I shake my head. “No. Be honest with yourself. You’re already mentally planning the next one, aren’t you? If it’s not this event, it’ll be the next thing.”
“Exactly. There’s the company to consider. My family. Sagebrush. We can’t just leave.”
“Ever?” My voice comes out as a squeak. I clear my throat. “You can’t leave ever? You’ve never even really left Sagebrush for more than a night or two. You’ve hardly been farther than a hundred miles in years! Just think of how much fun we’d have, the climbs we could conquer.”
“I thought we were having funhere.”His arm falls away from my shoulder, and I shiver at the sudden chill. “Whywould you want to leave?”
“Why are you so determined to stay? There’s a whole big world out there, Logan.”
“Why would I walk away from all this?” He gestures out over the desert. Down at the bottom of the mountain, the lights of Sagebrush are starting to twinkle in the fading violet light.
“That alone should be the reason.”
“Because I don’twantto leave, Ishould? That doesn’t make any sense, Sierra.” He sighs. “Why do you even want to go? We have everything we need here.”
“I love adventure.”
His eyes turn shrewd. “Do you? Or is it because it distracts you from thinking about what you’re missing?”
“Some of us aren’t lucky enough to be handed everything on a silver platter,” I snap. “You really want me to wake up every day and be reminded how I don’t have a supportive family, an impressive career, or fucking basic respect from my neighbors, who know I’m the girl who went off and fucked a married man?” I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling cold. “I want to go back to the house.”
“Sierra, come on.” Logan’s voice is full of frustration. “That’s all in the past.”
“Nothing is ever all in the past!” I shout. I take a deep breath and lower my voice. “You can claim up and down that it’s all over, but it’s mine. I alone know when it’s over.”
“Fine.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “We don’t need to say it’s over. But don’t you see? I molded this place into something else, if you would take a minute toseewhat I’ve done. If I can do it, then you can too. We can work together to give you everything you say you’re missing.Family, community, a career.”
