I point one toe as if Adidas has hired me to model a new line of hiking-chic Ultraboosts.
“Nothing broken,” I reply. “Nothing twisted. Pretty sure I don’t even have a blister yet!”
“Yetbeing the operative word,” he says drily.
“We should make a bet—I bet I can make it an entire week of hiking without getting a single blister.”
“And what will I get when I win that bet?” he challenges. “You’ll have blisters by tomorrow.”
“WhenIwin,” I counter, “you will simply have to admit my shoes are fine.”
“Okay, well, that’s never gonna happen. So when I win,youwill have to give up one item from your pack.”
“And leave it behind—here in the woods? Doesn’t that, like, interfere with the whole leave-nature-as-you-found-it thing?”
“I’ll put it inmypack,” he replies. “Where you won’t have access to it until the end of the trip.”
I’m starting to think maybe this bet was a bad idea—I already left behind everything I couldn’t live without. Maybe I should’ve committed tothreeblister-less days, not an entire week.
But I’m nothing if not stubborn.
“You’re on.”
“I look forward to carrying your espresso machine,” he says, and he means it as a joke, but—
“Wait,” he goes on, eyes wide as he takes in the look on my face. “You didn’tactuallybring an espresso machine, I hope?”
“Of course not.”
“But?”
I roll my eyes with more drama than is strictly necessary.
“Fine,” I say. “Imighthave brought a different sort of coffee situation so I wouldn’t have to go without it the whole time.”
“We rough it in a lot of ways out here, Sadie, but we’re not monsters. We’ve got coffee built into our breakfast plans.”
“Realcoffee?”
“Real instant coffee, yes.”
I scoff. “Say that a little louder—I want to see if the coffee bros riot.”
“You’d really rather carry extra weight in your pack for two weeks just so you don’t have to go without yourpreferredcoffee?”
“You really expect people to be satisfied with instant sludge that whole time?” I reply. “I suspect the coffee bros will take my side when presented with the option to have some of mine.”
This, unexpectedly, is the thing that cracks him.
“Let me get this straight,” he says, laughing. “You not only brought your own special coffee, and something special to make it in, but you brought enough to share withthreeother guys.”
I can’t help it, I laugh, too. It does sound ridiculous when he puts it that way.
Not that I’ll ever admit it.
I shrug, attempting nonchalance. “I had a whole box of beans ground before I came.” I had two boxes ground, but details. “Better to have more than you need than to run out halfway through the trip.”
His eyes light up. “Ah—see,thatis where we’re different.”
