Page 71 of Anywhere with You

“You just don’t understand how glorious you are,” I said.

“Are you talking to me or my boobs?” she asked.

“Uhhhh,” I said, then kissed her to get out of answering. She laughed against my mouth.

We took a long nap under the pillowy blankets, only waking when the doorbell rang that evening.

We heard the creak of the door, then Lane, calling out from the doorway. “Dinner!”

“I think you were right,” I whispered to Cara. “You should name your firstborn child after them.”

“They’re my favorite person in the whole world,” she muttered.

“Hey,” I said, biting her shoulder, but secretly, I felt the same.

Cara and I dressed and went into the living room, both of us looking revealingly disheveled, but Lane just grinned and kept unloading food: chicken-fried steak, burgers, gravy, sweet potato fries, several slices of pie, and a jug of iced tea.

“How many people do you think you’re feeding?” Cara asked, laughing.

We talked Lane into staying to eat with us, which didn’t take much convincing. I got the impression that it was pretty lonely, being a young queer person in a town this small.

I got out glasses for the tea, and Cara brought plates and silverware to the table, and soon, the only sound was chewing. Lane took out theirphone, and in a few seconds, Fiona Apple was singing through the living room speaker system, clear and just loud enough for us to enjoy.

After they’d put away half a chicken-fried steak, Lane brushed off their skirt—it was polka-dots today—and said, “Oh, I meant to tell you. My boss, Alyssa, is driving into Phoenix, day after tomorrow. She said she could give you a ride to the airport.”

Cara and I looked at each other across the table.

“How would I get my car back?” Cara asked.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Lane said, smoothing the crumbs from their goatee. “I guess one of you could stay.”

Cara turned back to me. I hadn’t looked away from her. I was already shaking my head. “Tell your boss thanks,” I said, “but we’ll wait for Bill to get the car fixed.”

“Okey dokey, rum and Coke-y,” they said, straight-faced.

Cara and I had to turn our faces away from each other to keep from laughing.

“Hey, how are you liking the hot springs?” Lane asked.

Cara kept her face turned away, but I still saw her cheeks pinken.

“They’re wonderful,” I answered. “It’s hard to believe they’re just out there, part of nature.”

Lane nodded enthusiastically. “The water actually mixes in with cool groundwater before it reaches the surface. Otherwise, it would be too hot to touch.”

“Really?” I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that Lane would know all about it. “Did you grow up here?”

“In the town, not in this house, but they’re everywhere around here.”

“One for every backyard?” Cara asked, smiling at me.

Lane chuckled. “Not exactly, but not too far off, either. You may have noticed there aren’t a lot of people here. We don’t advertise the hot springs in town, and that’s just about the only entertainment you’ll find for a hundred miles in any direction.”

“You don’t advertise?” I asked. “Why?”

Lane shrugged one shoulder. “You ever been to the beach when it was crowded? Or just after a holiday weekend, when there’s trash everywhere?”

I nodded, wiping my greasy fingers on a napkin. “Fair point.”