One thing Dariondidreveal was that he was wickedly funny.Nearly all of his comments were laced with a dry wit, but his observations were never mean.
When we finished eating, he got up from the blanket and stretched.“We should get to foraging.”
We spent the next twenty minutes on our hands and knees, digging up goldvein root and stuffing it in our packs.The afternoon sun was hot, and soon dirt mixed with sweat covered us in a muddy mess.
Darion stood up and tried to shake himself clean, but the mud clung to him like glue.“I’m filthy.”
“You are.You’ve got some mud on your face.”
“Where?”
“Right there.”With my index finger, also covered in mud, I tried to point to the smudge of dirt on his face.But a chunk of mud dislodged from my finger and smacked him right on the cheek.
His eyes went wide, and he barked out a laugh.“Why, you little—”
“It was an accident!I’m sorry!”
“I’ll show you an accident.”He smeared the entire palm of his muddy hand across my face.
My jaw dropped.I smeared my hand across his face in return.Then he reached down, grabbed a handful of mud from the bank of the pond, and flung it at my vest.
I looked down in shock at the mud stuck to me.“You didn’t just do that.”
Darion smirked.“Don’t start a mud fight if you don’t want to get muddy.”
An all-out battle started, and both of us grabbed piles of mud from the pond’s edge and hurled them at each other.Our laughter grew louder, punctuated by the occasional gasp when a handful struck home.An unfamiliar emotion flowed through me.I never let loose like this…but I didn’t want it to end.Being with Darion was intoxicating.And yet I couldn’t help my reflexive thought:I should stop before this becomes something I don’t know how to stop.
I rested my hands on my knees and yelled, “Truce!”
“Agreed.Truce.”He held out a muddy hand, and we shook on it.
I looked down at my clothing.“How am I going to get clean now?”
“Like this,” Darion said, pushing me backward into the pond.
I pinwheeled my arms to stop the momentum, but it was no use.
Utter shock.Then cold—very, very cold—water enveloped me like icicles against my skin.Maybe I should have been upset with him for pushing me, but there wasn’t an ounce of anger inside me.
Then he jumped in next to me.
When Darion surfaced, he cried out, “Wow!That’s cold.”
My eyes were daggers, but my voice was teasing.“Yeah, I know.Thanks for that.”
He shrugged and smiled.“We need to get clean somehow.”
Then he pulled off his shirt.His strong shoulders and the top of his chest peeked above the surface.It wasn’t a big deal, right?Plenty of guys swam together—this was just two new friends cooling down in a pond on a hot summer day.
That was when Darion pulled off his boots, threw them onto the shore, and then took off his pants.The water hid everything, but I felt my cheeks go instantly hot.
He saw me gawking and laughed a little.“You going to get clean too or just watch the show?”
Without waiting for an answer, he swam over to the waterfall with his clothes in his hands.With a strange mix of relief and disappointment, I noticed he still had on his drawers.I sorted through my conflicting emotions as I watched his lean muscles work to propel him through the water.I couldn’t recall ever being so attracted to a man so quickly.This was bad.
He rinsed his clothes under the cascading spray of the waterfall.
As I pulled off my shirt, I felt my locket bat against my chest.Letting him see the locket felt too personal, so I hurriedly took it off and stashed it in my buttoned trouser pocket for safekeeping.It hurt a little in a way I didn’t expect—an ache in my chest.I looked back at Darion’s smiling face, which took the sharp edge off.
