My own body still hums with satisfaction and warmed-over hunger, but it’s tempered by contentment.
He breathes slowly, hand resting over my sternum. For a few minutes, we just exist. The trees sway. A bird scolds us from a nearby branch and then decides we’re not worth the effort. The sky, visible between the canopy, has shifted toward afternoon.
“Wow,” Elias says eventually, voice muffled by my fur. “Okay. That was… a thing.”
“Regrettable?” I ask, because apparently I enjoy suffering.
He lifts his head enough to give me a look. “Boone,” he says. “If I could bottle that and label it ‘stress relief,’ I would never need therapy again.”
“Good.” The word comes out more relieved than I intend.
He snuggles back down, humming under his breath.
After a while, I ask, “You really meant it? About Yellowstone?”
He goes very still. “Yeah,” he says. “I meant it.”
“You would leave all of this,” I say. “For three or four months. The data, the routines, the comfort. To walk across several states with a grouchy forest monster and go to a party you can’t talk about afterward.”
He lifts his head to look at me, his eyes steady and clear. “I wouldn’t be leaving it,” he says. “I’d be… expanding it. And I wouldn’t just be walking ‘with a grouchy forest monster.’ I’d be walking with you.”
My chest tightens.
“You understand how much your life will change if you keep doing this?” I ask. “More secrets. More distance from people who cannot know. More… me.”
“That last part is not a problem,” he says. “The secrecy, yeah, that will be an adjustment. I’ll have to be careful. But I already spend most of my time talking to trees. Talking to someone who talks back sounds like a major upgrade.”
“You say that now,” I murmur.
He considers me for a moment, then leans up and presses a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I trust myself,” he says. “And I’m starting to trust you more than I trust most humans. That says a lot. Also, logistically? Getting to see more of the country, more ecosystems, more protected areas? That’s a dream. Getting to do it with you is…” He shrugs, smile crooked and earnest. “A bonus,” he finishes.
I close my eyes briefly, because the feelings are too big to look at head-on.
“Fine,” I say. “We’ll figure out the details. When to leave, what to tell the rangers, how to keep you from terrifying half the monster population by tripping into their dens.”
He beams. “I will be so respectful. And quiet. And normal.”
“You can’t be any of those things,” I say.
He laughs. “True,” he says. “But you like me anyway.”
“I do,” I say, surprised by how easy it is to say it out loud.
We stay here a little longer, sprawled against the log, watching the light shift. Eventually, we have to get up. There are cameras to check and transects to walk and a world that still expects both of us to move through it like we’re solo organisms.
But it’s different now.
There’s a line drawn between us, thick and bright and unignorable. A promise of Yellowstone. Of Solstice. Of more shared paths and shared blankets and shared quiet moments where I don’t have to hold up everything alone.
When we finally stand, I offer him my hand. He takes it with a smile.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Ready.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ELIAS
