“I’ve been there,” I pipe up.
The conversation stops awkwardly for a moment, like they’re not quite sure what to do with a new member, and I immediately feel like there’s a spotlight pointing directly on my face.
“What were you doing in Elko?”Daniel finally asks.“And what were you being punished for?”
I laugh, even though I can feel my face turning bright pink, because they were having a nice conversation about getting drunk and I interrupted.
“I had a conference for work,” I say.
“You’re the forest ranger, right?”a guy whose name I don’t know asks.
“I’m one of them,” I say.
“And there was a conference in Elko?”
I pull one foot onto the couch in front of me, stillveryaware that everyone’s looking at me.I kind of wish I hadn’t said anything.
“It was on, um, the microbiomes particular to the high desert region,” I say.
“That’s the crust, right?”Daniel asks.
“Yeah,” I say, a little surprised that he knows about this.“Cryptobiotic crust.There’s a lot of it near Elko, so we’d look at crusts during the day and drink at the Wildcat’s Lair at night.”
“You don’t have to lookthatsurprised that I know about desert crust,” Daniel says, lifting his eyebrows.
I turn a deeper shade of pink.
“I wasn’t surprised,” I say.
“Mhm,” he says.
“I mean, I’m surprised wheneveranyoneknows about it because most people don’t really know a lot about desert bacteria?I only know because of my job.Otherwise I’d be clueless as a babe in the woods.Or a babe in the desert, I guess.”
I can’t believe I opened my mouth just to call Daniel dumb, I think.Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“Daniel, quit being an asshole, she’s new,” Hunter says.
Daniel just laughs.
“He’s notbeingan asshole, it’s just his shitty personality,” Silas says, also grinning.
“Yeah, I can’t help it,” Daniel says, then looks back at me.“Sorry, I have a shitty personality.”
“At least you know what desert crust is,” I say.I’m still blushing, but I’m relieved that at least I wasn’t being the asshole.
“And thank God forthat,” Silas says.
Hunter strokes my shoulder with his thumb, and I feel some of my anxiety dissipate.He’s acting sonormalabout this, like of course he’s got a girlfriend over at the house, and none of the other guys seem to even notice.
I, on the other hand, had a weird conversation in a supply closet at work, and then completely clammed up when my very nice boss tried to ask about Hunter.I’m doingspectacularlyon the “not making it weird” front.
“Did the Wildcat’s Lair get out the moonshine for the rangers?”Silas asks me.
“Not that I know of,” I say.
“Maybe it’s the desert crust that made that stuff so lethal,” Hunter offers.
