She crouched near a cluster and studied them without touching, and I watched her take a mental snapshot instead of a phone one. Most people on these tours experienced the wildflowers through a screen. She was experiencing them through her eyes, filing them away somewhere I couldn’t see.
I should have been moving the group along. Instead, I crouched next to her and pointed to the base of the plant.
“See the stripes? That’s how you tell a healthy one. If the stripes are faded, the soil’s too acidic.”
She looked at me sideways. “You really love this.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “I spent ten years selling hiking boots and kayaks to people who were going out and doing the things I wanted to do. One day my buddy Dash and I looked at each other across the sales floor, and he said, ‘This is stupid.’ Six months later we quit, moved out here, and started the outfitting company with another guy who worked with us.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Well, not just like that. There was a lot of eating ramen and sleeping on air mattresses and wondering if we’d made a massive mistake. But yeah. We knew it was right.”
She stood, brushing dirt off her knees. The group was pulling ahead of us, and I could hear one of the retirees calling back, asking about a plant she’d spotted. I should go.
I didn’t go.
“Must be nice,” Paisley said. “Knowing something’s right and just doing it.”
There was something underneath those words—a weight I couldn’t quite identify. It made me want to ask her what she was carrying. Not the daypack. The other thing. The reason she was up at seven in the morning with trail maps spread across my booth, chasing a scavenger hunt like her life depended on it.
“It’s terrifying, actually,” I said. “But I’ve never regretted it.”
She held my gaze for a beat longer than casual, and I felt it in my sternum. Not a flutter. Something heavier. More structural. Like a door closing softly and locking from the inside.
I’d spent twelve years dating women who were perfectly fine. Nice women. Attractive women. Women who laughed at my jokes and looked good across a dinner table and never once made me feel like the ground had shifted under my feet. I’d started to think that was just how it worked—that the seismic, everything-changes feeling was something poets made up and real people settled for something quieter.
Paisley had been in my life for one day, and I was already rearranging the furniture in my head to make room for her.
Fuck.
I caught up to the group and spent the next stretch being a professional—pointing out mountain laurel buds that would bloom in another two weeks and explaining the difference between native azaleas and the invasive variety. But I kept track of where Paisley was at all times, a constant awareness at the edge of my attention, like knowing where north was without checking a compass.
At the halfway point, I stopped the group at an overlook where the valley opened up below us and the mountains layered out in shades of blue and green. This was the spot where I usually lost people for ten minutes to photos and snacks.
Today, it worked in my favor. While the group scattered to find the best angles, Paisley came to stand beside me at the railing.
“That ridge.” She pointed southeast. “Is that where the flame azalea grows? The higher-elevation variety?”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I’ve done nothing but homework for three weeks.” She lowered her hand and leaned against the railing. “I researched this festival like it was a final exam. Every trail, every species list, every blog post from previous years. I know which wildflowers are on the scavenger hunt checklist, where they’ve been spotted before, and which ones nobody’s been able to find in the last two festivals.”
“The pink lady’s slipper,” I said.
Her head turned sharply. “You know about it?”
“I know where it grows.”
I didn’t say anything else. Her eyes widened a fraction, and I could see her brain working—calculating what that informationwas worth, whether I’d share it, what she’d have to give up to get it.
“I also know it’s in a location that would be genuinely dangerous for someone hiking alone,” I added. “Loose scree. No trail. And a ridgeline that drops off hard on the west side.”
“I’m not afraid of a hard hike.”
“I know you’re not. That’s what worries me.”
She studied my face like she was trying to determine whether I was patronizing her or being honest. I held still and let her look.
