* * *
After about fiveminutes a relieved-looking Kenzie rounded the corner.
“Everything come out okay?” I asked.
She gave me a dirty look.
“And, most importantly, nothing went in that shouldn’t have?”
She grinned and smacked me. “You’re pushing it, Kyle. If you want a pissing buddy, you’d better keep your mouth shut.”
I stopped talking because, honestly, I did want a pissing buddy.
Kenzie took off in the opposite direction from where we’d come.
“Hold up. You’re going the wrong way.”
“No, I’m not. I’m exploring. You want to come?”
Like an obedient dog following his master, I trotted over to her side. “Oh boy, do I.”
She eyed me with amusement. “You don’t like being alone, do you?”
Kenzie’s words were nothing more than an innocent observation, but she had no idea just how accurately she’d hit the nail on the head. I’d actually been in therapy for that very issue. I’d never really seen it as a problem, but my mom had insisted on bringing it up, and the therapist harped on it over and over. So I liked company? Big deal. There were worse things to stress over.
“I don’t need to be alone when I have my very own Dora the Explorer to follow around.”
“Oh, right. This is going to be very informative. Are you ready? That right there is a rock. Oh, and over there, that leafy thing – plant.”
“Wow,” I said wide-eyed, “You sure know your stuff.”
“Yep.”
“So forgive me if I have pegged you all wrong, Kenzie, but this doesn’t seem like your type of a reality show.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know, you seem like more of an inside girl.”
Kenzie raised one eyebrow at me. “I could say the same about you.”
“That may be true, but I’m not the one who was nearly taken away on a stretcher yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let my fainting, barfing, and bug burrowing phobia fool you. I’m actually a really tough chick,” she said, as she ducked out of the way of a dive-bombing insect and let out a little scream.
“Well, that’s a relief.” I grinned as she circled around the back of me for protection.
Kenzie was definitely growing on me. She had an endearing quality to her that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. She wasn’t like most of the women I met in my day-to-day life. This one was real and humble-sort of like my sister Emma, only a much nicer version.
Kenzie gasped and grabbed my arm, “There, in the tree. Is that fruit?”
My eyes followed her pointing finger until they focused on some purple orbs bundled high up in a tree.
“I don’t know. Either that or they’re seed pods.”
“We should go up there and check it out.”
“And bywe, you meanme?”
