Part 16 (1/2)

”Yeah.” She pointed to the ground. ”It's immaculate.

I haven't seen a single piece of litter on the ground. The film crew must have come back and cleaned up after . . .”

She trailed off, because Colt was very clearly fighting to suppress a smile. ”There was never a film crew shooting a movie here, was there?”

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”Sure there was.” He scratched the back of his head and squinted thoughtfully. ”I think it was about fifteen years ago that they came through. I would have been three.”

She stopped walking. ”You bulls.h.i.+tted the headmistress?”

”Since I make very compelling arguments, and authority figures for whatever reason”-he snickered-”love me, I figured you five would appreciate a nature hike over whatever vile punishment the headmistress was concoct-ing for you. Would you rather be scrubbing the cafeteria floor with a toothbrush and your own spit right now?

Because I can give the headmistress a call if you want.”

He rummaged through his pockets for his cell phone. ”I have her on speed dial.”

Ash shoved him into the stream. ”No one's complain-ing, a.s.shole. My saliva thanks you. I guess I'm just suspicious as to why you went to all this trouble for five high school troublemakers like us. Seems to me that a state college boy like yourself should be disgusted by the thought of even fraternizing with a group of hyper, naive-albeit extremely good-looking-minors. It's almost one p.m.-aren't you late for a keg stand?”

”This may be impossible for you to believe,” Colt said in a hushed voice, ”but as recently as last year, I was a hyper, naive-albeit extremely good-looking-minor myself.”

”And now you're a persistent, outdoorsy, unshaven man-boy who cavorts with clones of your former self?”

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Colt plucked a round stone out of the water. ”I prefer boy-man, but the rest of the sentence sounded fairly accurate.” With a flick of the wrist he let loose the stone, which decided that instead of skipping downstream, it would sink upon contact.

”Okay, first of all, you need to choose a flatter stone.

And second . . .” She placed a hand on his elbow. ”You need to not throw like a total wuss.”

He turned on her fast, his eyes gleaming like the edge of a sword. ”And you need to stop second-guessing my interest in you.”

Neither the trickle of the stream nor Ade's booming laughter ahead could fill the silence that followed. The tops of the canyon seemed to extend toward the sky, and for the first time in six months, Ashline felt the upper hand slipping away from her, and fast. ”Can you blame me?” she asked.

”Yes,” he said matter-of-factly, and crossed his arms.

”I can.”

d.a.m.n. He was s.e.xy even when he was being stub-born. ”Call it . . . a defense mechanism. You ever see one of those National Geographic shows with the antelopes on the savanna and the lions waiting in the bushes? Ever wonder how the antelopes just know to run like h.e.l.l is on their hooves when they see the lion coming out of the gra.s.s?”

”Am I the lion or the antelope in this situation?

Because I'd like to think I'm more of a cheetah than-”

She cupped her hand over his mouth to silence him.

195.

”Girls have the same instincts. They know that when a good-looking older guy-who goes to State and is probably knee-deep in college freshman, soph.o.m.ores, and sev-enth-year seniors waiting to feel him up in the shadows of some off campus party-acts like he's smitten with a cra.s.s, overly sarcastic high school soph.o.m.ore, something is amiss.”

Colt leaned forward. ”Wood nymphs.”

What the h.e.l.l? ”Did you just say . . . ,” she started, but then she realized that, yes, she had in fact heard him correctly. ”You ate some of the sandwiches from the back of the truck, didn't you?”

He shook his head, and the corners of his lips curled up mischievously. ”I'm knee-deep in college girls when I'm at school, and beautiful half-naked wood nymphs when I'm out here.”

Ash held up a finger. ”This is the part where you make a case for why your being interested in me makes you sane.”

”I like you because of the crazy glimmer in your eye when you hit a tennis ball, and because you look d.a.m.n good in an orange jumpsuit?”

”Try harder,” Ash said. ”And this time maybe don't say it in the form of a question.”

He stepped forward, and his hand slipped into hers as if it had been there the whole time. ”Ash, this is the truth as I know it,” he said seriously. ”A boy grows up restless in a home too small to contain him. So he runs away and 196 spends his youth traveling everywhere that a pa.s.sport and a backpack will allow, until the dirt from the four corners of the world is caked beneath his fingernails. Until he forgets what home smells like. Until he's seen so much of this world that he takes a job as far away from it as he can. Somehow, one night, at a bar filled with retirees and old fisherman, in a town that might as well be off the map, he sees a girl sitting at the bar. Even though she's only twisting idly in her bar stool ordering a drink, that's all it takes for him to recognize that she might be the fire he's been looking for. In that moment he realizes that he could spend the rest of his life doing all the things he ever wanted to do in all the places he ever wanted to see, but if he doesn't ask her for her name, this is the moment that, forty years from now, he'll still remember as the moment when he blew it.”

Ash realized she'd been holding her breath the entire time he'd been talking, and let it out slowly. ”I'm . . .

going to a.s.sume the boy in the story was you?”

Colt smiled. ”So now that you've listened to my long-winded, dramatic, probably creepy but completely sincere speech . . .” He paused, then enunciated his next words deliberately: ”Will you, Ashline Wilde, let me take you on a date, a real one that doesn't involve orange jumpers and isn't a detention sentence?”

Ash was suddenly aware of how clammy her hand was in his, and had to actively stop herself from staring at his lips. It was time to concede defeat. ”Tuesday night. But,”

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she added before he could get too excited, ”your date better be as well-planned as your speech was convincing, or I'm afraid it will be back to slumming it with the wood nymphs for you.”

”You put a lot of pressure on a man,” he said, and leaned forward. Despite all of his suavity, his tongue still unconsciously wetted his lips, which parted with antic.i.p.ation.

Ash leaned forward . . . and slugged him playfully on the shoulder. ”I've got faith that you'll step up to the plate. Welcome to the major leagues, big boy.” And then she turned and walked away toward her four comrades, before she couldn't stop herself from pouncing on him and pinning him to the riverbank.

She was the lioness now.

Lily came up with the brilliant idea for chicken fights, because, she argued, when else were they ever going to have the opportunity to do chicken-fighting in a fern canyon? So Ashline obligingly climbed onto Ade's shoulders, and Lily saddled up on Rolfe. While they jousted, Raja comically tried to convince Colt that she had more than enough muscle in her legs to support his frame. Colt wouldn't cave.

Finally Ade, who was panting heavily and whose voice sounded mighty strained, invited Colt to a log race, which Ashline took to mean that her weight was beginning to crush down on him.

The canyon was a graveyard for fallen redwoods.

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Some of the old logs, casualties of erosion and time, leaned up against the fern-covered walls, while others rested on the canyon floor. The boys and Lily organized a relay race along the logs. Raja and Ashline lingered back and watched; it wasn't unlike observing toddlers interacting in a sandbox and wondering what crazy scenarios they were envisioning as they played.

”You know he's completely taken with you, don't you,” Raja said-not a question. ”Ever since the bar, he's tried to find subtle ways to ask Ashline-related questions.

Colt has the subtlety of a car alarm.”

Ash snickered. ”He's blunt, all right. You're sure . . .

that's okay with you?”