Page 76 of Places We've Never Been

“I think I want to be a nurse or a doctor.”

“Cool.” As we stepped back and forth to the beat, I looked up at the lights they had strung between the RVs. This really was pretty awesome. “It’s fun that your family does this.”

“Yes, they are fun.”

“What’s your favorite thing from your route so far?” I asked.

“This is top three for sure.”

I smiled. “Okay, kiss-up. What are the other two?”

“Old Faithful was amazing. And I liked Arches National Park a little better than Zion. Did you stop there?”

“No, we did Park City in between Zion and here.”

“How was Park City?”

“Nice.”

“Obviously not in your top three so far.”

“We saw a bison yesterday. It’s going to be hard to top that. It almost charged a Corolla.”

“It did?”

“Not really, but it definitely gave it a dirty look.”

He laughed.

“Frogger!” I blurted out. “Bison and tiny cars.”

“What?” Ty asked, understandably confused.

“Sorry, I’ve been trying to think of a good spin-off ofFroggerfor days now. Would you rather be a bison who has to destroy cars to cross a highway? Or would you rather play the tiny car that has to avoid bison while crossing a highway?”

The song ended and a slow one took its place. Ty took a hesitant step forward.

“A bison for sure,” Skyler said, suddenly at my side. “Is that even a debate?”

I imagined the design. “The visual of a lot of bison and only one car on the road might be a better visual than the opposite, though,” I said.

“Cars are colorful—they’d make the better moving backdrop. The bison would make the better main character.”

“Are you going into video game design too?” Ty asked Skyler.

“No, but do you know how many games this girl has forced me to play over my lifetime?”

“You’ve known each other for a lifetime?”

“Most of it.” Then to me he asked, “Do you want to dance?”

“I…” I looked around and saw that others were dancing now, the slow song still playing. Even Paisley was dancing with a guy who looked like a kid. He was at least a head shorter thanher. She mouthed “Bighorns” to me several times but I could tell she was kidding.

Skyler raised an eyebrow at Ty. “I’m just going to…” He stepped closer to me.

“Yeah, of course,” Ty said, backing away and then joining a group by some camping chairs.

“I figured since I was the one who didn’t pick up on obvious signs earlier that I would save you from a slow dance.”