Rolling thunder.
The sky opened up before I’d evenregistered the thunder, heavy drops beating down on the two of us within seconds.Ashley laughed, grabbing my hand and dragging me over to the shelter of theancient oak tree as the dust-dry loose soil around us turned to sucking mud.
“Storm followed us,” hesaid, looking up at suddenly cloudy skies.
He was joking, but I got thefeeling he wasright. This was the same storm.
By now, the trees on theother side of the clearing were blurred out through the rain, like lookingthrough someone else’s prescription glasses.
Water started dripping onour shoulders, filtering down through the thick canopy above.
Ashley looked up, peering atthe tree house.
“How are you at climbingtrees?” he asked.
“Is that… structurally soundfor two grown men?”
He shrugged. “It was fine fora half-dozen kids?”
“How many years ago wasthis?”
Ashley rolled his eyes. “Quit being ababy,” he teased, grabbing a low branch and swinging himself up onto it,clambering up to the tree house without missing a single foothold.
Muscle memory, I figured.
I could either stay downhere and get soaked, or follow him up.
The lowest branches creakedunder my weight, but they’d taken Ashley, and I couldn’t have beenthatmuch heavierthan him.
It’d been a long time since I’dclimbed a tree. Twenty years, must have been.
Ididn’thave the samemuscle memory Ashley had, but the tree was old, and gnarled, and easy enough tofind footholds on with a little thought.
By the time I got to thebranches where the tree house was perched, I felt pretty good about mytree-climbing abilities.
“Don’t you have to do thatin basic training?” Ashley asked. “Genuine question, I’ve only ever seen it inmovies.”
“Don’t believe everythingthe movies tell you,” I said, thinking back to all the nets I’d climbed over.
And all the chain-linkfences, and all the brick walls, and everything else.
I’d gotten out of shape inthe last two and a half years.
The tree house itself wassturdier than I’d imagined, the floor basically level and the roof notquitewater-tight, butbetter than standing under the tree.
A clap of thunder straightoverhead told me we were stuck here for a while, unless wedidwant toget soaked through.
“I guess kids still come uphere,” Ashley said, smiling as he reached out to touch a wind chime made fromold keys and pieces of copper pipe. “This is new. Well. Newish, anyway.”
I found a wall to makemyself comfortable against, stretching my legs out in front of me. This was abig room, definitely big enough for the half-dozen kids Ashley had mentioned toplay together.
Closing my eyes, I letmyself imagine nine-year-old Ashley dutifully sorting nails, and smiled. Hemust have been anadorablekid, all big eyes and rosy cheeks.
“I lost my virginity uphere,” Ashley said. “I mean, in the sense that I got my first handjob. I’vealways counted it because it’s the closest thing to a romantic story I’ve gotfrom this place.”
“With Mike?” I asked.
Ashley shook his head. “Bobby Miller. Hewas a year or so older than me. Hell, he was the one who gave me the jobcounting nails. Always looked up to him. We had one summer together when I wassixteen, and then he left for college after, and then there was Mike.”
