Page 79 of Wild Abandon

“If you don’t know what those are for, then you’ve been out of commission way longer than I thought.”

I threw the box back at her. “It’s not that kind of trip.”

She threw them right back in my bag. “Better safe than sorry.”

“We’re just friends,” I repeated for the umpteenth time in as many weeks.

“No man drives forty minutes in the opposite direction to pick a woman up for a weekend getaway.” She zipped my bag. “And trust me, accidents happen. Beautiful accidents,” she added, “but they happen.”

When Nate pulled up to the curb, I walked to the car and shrugged my shoulders at my bag. “I didn’t know if we were spending the night. Are we spending the night?”

Nate opened his trunk and placed my bag next to his. “Yes, Crystal. We’re spending the night,” he said.

My heart sped up.

“I booked two rooms at the Radisson.”

And my heart slowed down. Two rooms. That’s good. That’s what friends do. That’s normal.

As nervous as I had been while waiting for Nate to arrive, I was still a little on the way to San Francisco. We fought over what music to listen to on the radio. He told me not to put my feet on the dash, but I did anyway, and when I told him I was pretty sure we were on a different road from the one Naomi had driven when she picked me up from the airport, he just grinned and confirmed we were taking the scenic route. When the Golden Gate Bridge peeked through the hills, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

I beamed over at Nate, about to say something to the effect of how much I wanted to see the bridge, but from the smile on his face, I knew he had known this already and planned the detour just for me.

Now, in New York City, we have bridges. Suspension bridges, retractable bridges. Bridges for pedestrians only and one that is a one way to a jail. Bridges that go over land and over water. Bridges that connect us to other states and one that spans across three boroughs. The Brooklyn Bridge alone is a piece of architectural history. People travel from all over the world just to see it. And, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world.

I’ve seen my fair share of brick and mortar. But what I’ve never seen before is how the tips of the burnt-reddish towers peek out from behind a cliff, and as you round the bend of US 101, approaching the bridge, like a ghostly metal goddess, the towers appear—tall, large, and covered in low rolling fog. It looked like a painting of vermillion orange and dusty gray. The span is long, and the towers made me feel like I was approaching a secret gate to a beloved city.

Instead of driving onto the bridge, Nate exited to the right and drove up a hill, causing me to hold on to the door handle at the increase in altitude.

We passed various lookouts, Nate needing to drive higher. When we reached the peak, he parked the car, and we walked out to the edge of the cliff. We took a seat on a stone wall overlooking the San Francisco Bay and gazed at the most stunning bridge I’d ever seen.

By the time we got back into the car, I was breathing peacefully. My calm in Nate’s company was back. I had been nervous that this trip would be laced with misinterpretation and innuendo. Instead, it was just two friends, seeing a beautiful city, one for the first time.

“We need to ride a cable car!”

“People who live in San Francisco don’t wait in this line.”

“But we don’t live in San Francisco, so we have to ride a trolley. Let go of my arm.”

Nate is pulling me away from the line where tourists pay to ride a cable car across town, away from Fisherman’s Wharf.

“Lines are for tourists. There’s a stop up the road. We can hop on up there.” He starts walking, and I get distracted by the sign for a chocolate shop.

“Ghirardelli!” I exclaim as I start running off in the opposite direction.

“How can you still be hungry?”

After stuffing my face and my pockets with enough chocolate to last me through next year, Nate asks if he can show me one of his favorite spots in the city.

Of course, it’s a bar.

He holds the door open for me as we walk into Buena Vista Cafe. The place is packed—or mobbed is more like it. Every table is filled, and every seat at the bar taken.

With his hand on my lower back, I try to ignore that intimate move and allow him to guide me to the end of the incredibly long bar where two people are getting up. We each slide onto a stool, and Nate holds two fingers up in the air for the bartender.

I tilt my head at him, but he puts his hand on my lower back, leans into me, and nudges his chin toward the bartender, urging me to watch.

A white-jacketed bartender lines up a dozen tulip-shaped glasses along the long wooden bar. With a rapid movement that only comes from muscle memory and sheer consistency, he drops two white sugar cubes into each cup and then pours hot black coffee into each, a continuous stream pouring from the pot like a cascading waterfall, steam billowing out. With a rapid stir, he melts the sugar and scoops out some coffee from each glass, making sure they are all equal height. A dramatic pour from a bottle of Irish whiskey is served to each glass in the same manner as the coffee, and then whipped cream is ladled. The entire process is performed in under a minute.