Page 35

Chapter

Twenty-Two

can you at least tell me what I should wear?

Noah:

watch out, you’re giving me too much power

wear whatever you want, but definitely comfortable shoes

like strolling-through-downtown comfortable shoes or two-mile-hike comfortable shoes?

shoes you’d wear in the dirt

we’re going to get dirty?

I hope so

For half an hour I debate whether to wear my expensive running shoes or a pair of old athletic sandals, and eventually the sandals win out.

I tug the last strap over the back of my heel and take a good look at myself in the mirror.

Teal-green Spandex running shorts, tight black sports bra, and an unbuttoned sunflower-patterned shirt.

Finally, I pull a black baseball cap over the loose curls of my bob.

It really completes the hot-vacation-mom look.

I’ve just pulled my phone out to ask Noah where we’re meeting—he still hasn’t told me—when the doorbell rings downstairs.

And god damn him, Liam beats me to it.

I’m halfway down the stairs when I see him silhouetted in the doorway, wearing his house robe.

He and Noah are already shooting the shit when I sidle up next to them.

Liam’s got his glasses pushed down his nose, and he’s peering at Noah from over the rims. “And you’ll have her back before curfew, yes? ”

“Yes, sir. Wouldn’t dream of missing it.” Noah’s hands are clasped seriously in front of him. From the line of tension in the side of his jaw, I can tell he’s trying hard not to laugh.

“All right, then,” Liam huffs dramatically. “You kids have fun.” He pats me on the back, pushes me into Noah’s chest, and closes the door behind us.

“Hey, you.” Noah skims his palms over my shoulders and down the sides of my arms. Despite the immediate shock of the Texas heat, goosebumps follow the path of his hands.

“Hey.” I curl my fingers over the fabric of his shirt.

He’s wearing a sleeveless green tank top, gray shorts, and a stuffed backpack.

His hair’s tied up into a knot, shining copper in the sunlight.

I like how short his shorts are. They show off his thighs.

“Is this the part where you finally tell me where we’re going? ”

“Nope. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

I stretch up on my toes to peer over his shoulder.

His bike’s propped up in the middle of the driveway.

Noah reads my mind before I have a chance to ask.

“Saddle up, Sadie. I’ll be driving again today.

” Leading me out into the sun, he swings one leg over the bike and holds it steady as I step up onto the pegs.

I wrap my hands around the straps of his backpack and shake them once.

“All right, then. Giddy up, cowboy.”

Noah sets off. It’s late morning, so the heat’s not so bad yet, but I can feel it emanating in waves off of the dark pavement.

Noah tries to keep us under the shaded parts of the road, and as he picks up speed, the wind rushing past almost feels cool.

We wind through one of Heller’s oldest neighborhoods, and as we pass by the well-loved houses, I imagine who lives in each.

The sage-green house with the wraparound deck belongs to a retired elementary school teacher with dozens of grandkids.

The brooding maroon house with the awkward spire jutting from the second floor is the home of an introverted professor who surrounds himself with books; he’s secretly a vampire who checks his mailbox only at night.

The purple-painted house covered in vines with an overgrown lawn full of flowers obviously belongs to a witch.

As I yell my theories into Noah’s ear, I wave at kids with dripping popsicles gripped in their fists and at old folks watering their carefully cultivated flower patches.

Noah’s right; biking really is the best way to get to know a place.

Eventually the houses become more spaced out and then disappear entirely, and we’re left under the glare of the open sun.

I look up. The sky is so blue; it’s never this blue in New York, where you can barely see the sky for how the buildings crowd around you.

Noah takes a sharp turn at what I thought was a dead end and swerves onto a dirt path, and I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep my teeth from chattering against one another.

Soon we arrive at a small unpaved parking lot under a canopy of trees, empty save for two cars and a bike rack.

There’s a board with a yellowing map of the surrounding trails posted behind scratched plastic.

“We are going on a hike,” I realize, delighted.

“A short one, but yes. I want to show you my favorite spot.”

After Noah locks his bike into the rack, we set off onto one of the trails—though, truth be told, it barely deserves the name.

The worn dirt path is narrow and overgrown in spots, and the red trail markers painted onto the tree bark every twenty feet or so are faded and difficult to spot.

Vegetation presses in so tightly around us that it’s like I’m crawling through a tunnel.

But Noah doesn’t even look for the markers; he already knows the way.

I try not to jump too much at the sound of rustling in the overgrown grass and focus my attention on Noah’s topknot bouncing ahead of me.

“You know, the first time I offered you a ride,” I muse, “I considered whether you were an axe murderer. This is the perfect opportunity.”

He turns just enough for me to see the flash of his teeth as he smiles. “Damn. I was hoping you wouldn’t catch on this quickly.”

“You’ve been playing the long game, haven’t you?”

“You got me.”

He chooses this moment to veer off of the trail.

The trees are farther apart here, so theoretically there’s more room to step in between them, but still I blanch.

Noah’s five steps ahead of me when he realizes I haven’t moved.

He turns and reaches toward me. “It’s okay, Sadie. I know where I’m going.”

I take his hand. He squeezes once and then holds on, drawing me deeper into the leaves and shadows.

I focus on the warmth of his palm instead of the childhood memories of Animal Planet that flash unwanted in my mind.

Don’t rattlesnakes live in Texas? Spiders do—I’m sure of that.

Is it true that everything’s bigger in Texas?

Does that apply to venomous bloodsucking insects, too?

I gasp at a sliding, rustling sound in the bush to my left.

See, I’ve always been an admirer of nature—from a distance.

I regularly run on carefully paved trails in perfectly groomed parks, and I enjoy vacationing in a cabin in the woods from time to time.

But I’m usually the one sitting on the deck sipping a glass of spiked cocoa instead of bushwhacking my way through uncharted wilderness.

So maybe a small park a few miles from Liam’s house isn’t uncharted wilderness, but close enough.

“I’m not making a very good first-date impression, am I?” Noah’s tone is amused. He takes each step with slow assurance, as if to prove to me the safety of our exploration. I’m careful to step only in places where I can see the imprints left behind by his sandals.

“I just think you might be confusing me with Jaylie.” She might prefer the comforts of the city as I do, but she’s braver than I am. I try to tap into that, picturing our trek as the start of a quest.

Surely Marlana would smile down on my adventurousness.

“We’re almost there.”

At the sound of flowing water, I start to relax, and curiosity wins out over fear.

The trees part to reveal what can only be described as a hidden gem.

Gently the earth slopes downward, growing rockier until it dissolves into sand leading into a clear stream.

The water trickles by unhurriedly, and though it’s deep in spots, I can almost see to the bottom.

It’s the perfect swimming hole. I look around, expecting a family to come bursting out of the bushes to picnic, or high schoolers to swing wildly from the branches and jump in, but it’s quiet.

Empty. As far as I look, I can’t see anything but trees and water and glimpses of blue sky through the leaves.

As Noah watches my eyes go soft, his face breaks into a smile. “You like it.” It’s not a question.

“It’s lovely.”

“One more thing.” He tugs at my hand again— he hasn’t let go, I think distantly—and leads me away from the stream.

We’re climbing again, and he’s pulling me up steep rocks along a winding path until we’re on a ledge overlooking the water.

One tree leans dangerously over the ridge, as if peeking into the stream below.

I can see half of its root system, old and gnarled, shooting out from the earth to either curl back into the rocky foundation or dangle like wind chimes in the air above the water.

We stop at the base of the tree, and Noah gives it a friendly, welcoming pat.

Briefly I worry that it’s just enough of a push to send the old thing tumbling into the water, but it stays strong.

Noah shrugs off his backpack and begins pulling all sorts of shit out of it—a blanket, one water jug, a glass bottle full of a mystery amber-colored liquid, containers of fruit, a towel (suspicious), pencils, a sketchbook—as if it’s a goddamn Bag of Holding. He must be a packing pro.

I shrug out of my sunflower shirt and toe off my sandals, moving to sit in the center of the newly spread-out blanket. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

“Good at what? First dates?”

I grin. “Hiking, backpacking. You look like you know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, this isn’t anything like backpacking,” he says with a laugh, “but yes. This…” He spreads his arms wide, encompassing every tree and leaf and rock that surrounds us. “This is my favorite thing in the world. I’m always outside.”