“I hear another stream.” Luke faces the direction of running water like a hunting dog on point. “That’s our cue for a break.”
“No, it’s too early for lunch, and I’m not tired yet.” I stand straighter to make my lie more convincing. I don’t have time to be tired.
“We’ve been walking for three hours.” Luke adjusts the straps on his pack, and his shoulders sag. “We have to take water where we can find it, Maddie.”
I know he’s right. And the only way we can boil water is to empty more soup cans.
I don’t realize how hungry I am until I pop the top from my beef stew, and my stomach growls.
When our refilled cans are sitting on the attachable grill over the camp stove, I notice Luke watching me with a cryptic smile. “What?”
“I have a surprise.”
I fake a gasp. “How could youpossiblyimprove on lukewarm soup and boiling water?”
He pulls a clear plastic bag from his backpack. Clumped up in the bottom are four soft, white poufs.
“You havemarshmallows?”
He shrugs. “This is all that’s left from camping with my parents. Will it upset your glucose level?”
“Not if I just have one.” Right now, I want a marshmallow so badly that I don’t give one single shit about my blood sugar level. Which is easy to say, as long as I still have insulin in my pump.
Luke reaches behind the log he’s sitting on and pulls out two sticks he must have trimmed while I was getting water. He impales a marshmallow on the end of each stick, and when he hands one to me, our pinkies brush.
We hold our marshmallows over the fire, and Luke’s goes up in flames almost instantly. I laugh as he grins, then blows it out.
I roast mine slowly, savoring the brief break from pain, grief, and misery.
He pulls his burnt marshmallow from the stick. “Come on, we have to eat them at the same time.”
“Is that a Boy Scout thing?”
“No, that’s just how my parents do it. So they can share the experience.” He shrugs, and for once, his cheeks don’t flush. “It’s just more fun that way.”
I lower my marshmallow until it catches fire. He watchesme blow it out. “Ready?” I ask, and he nods. “Okay, but you have to eat the whole thing at once. That’s how Ryan and I used to do it.”
Luke gives me a solemn nod. Then we count to three and each shove a charred marshmallow into our mouths.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he moans around a mouthful of sugar goo.
“Right?” I agree, though that might have as much to do with how he’s watching me as with the sweet surprise.
His eyes close, and I watch him chew. He looks truly at ease and confident for the first time since he gave me the other half of his sandwich on the beach at Cabo.
The bag crinkles when I pick it up, and his eyes fly open. “No, we have to save them for tonight!”
“We don’t even know where we’ll be by then. We could be rescued. Or we could be captured. Or we could be ...”Dead.
“We’ll be fine, and having something to look forward to will get us through the day, even if that something is just a brick of processed sugar.”
“But Ireallywant that other marshmallow.”
Luke eyes me suspiciously. “Give me the bag, Maddie.”
Instead, I grin and deliberately tuck it behind my back. He reaches out, but I lean to block his arm. He can’t take the marshmallows if he’s too shy to touch me.
Luke’s eyes narrow. He lunges. I squeal, and we fall onto the ground, the log shielding us from the camp stove. His elbow lands on my hair, his face inches from mine. He’scute, for a Boy Scout gamer, and the flash of heat in his eyes has nothing to do with the firelight flickering on the side of his face.
