Page 8 of The Spirit of Love

“It would be. I could show you around. There’s so much beauty here most people never get to see. Hidden treasures everywhere, if you know where to look. There’s this mind-blowing reef. We could go tomorrow—”

“That sounds amazing. But I have to prep for Monday.”

“Right. Of course.” He smiles like I didn’t just shoot him down.

“Boring, I know.”

“Not at all. I’m fascinated. I should have known.”

“Known what?”

He tips his head. “You give off the air of someone with a really spectacular career.”

“You, too—no, wait, that was just the blinding light of your miner’s helmet,” I tease.

“Whose batteries I’m currently charging, thank you very much.”

“Nice. A lucky future damsel in distress shall get the five-star rescue.”

“Tell me more about what you’re shooting on Monday,” Sam says, his southern drawl becoming a little more pronounced with his drink. He sets down his empty bowl and leans closer to me in his chair until I can feel the heat coming off his skin.

I have no idea what time it is. My carefully planned vacation weekend has been washed away. And somehow, I don’t care.

This isn’t like me. I don’t have fun with strangers.

Especially Good Samaritan cowboy-types who probably still make their own Mother’s Day cards.

But even though this is normally when I’d pack up the conversation, I find that I want to stay up talking to Sam, eating his stew, warmed by his fire, nestled in his enormous, soft, nice-smelling clothes.

“Okay, so there’s a boy on the show who has to choose life over being a zombie,” I say. “I know it sounds campy, but I want to direct the scene like it means something…more.”

“It’s a huge choice,” Sam says. “A person would really have to know what they were living for.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you? Know what you’re living for?”

I nod. “My family. I’m really close with my sister and her kids. You could say I live for them. And a job that challenges and surprises me most days. But also, little things.”

“Like?”

I think about this for a moment. “Like the first sunset of daylight saving time from my balcony in Venice. Or catching a fly ball on the intramural baseball team my friends finally convinced me to join. Really luxurious shower gel. The symphony—”

“I’ve never been to the symphony.”

“You’d love the symphony.”

“What else?” Sam leans closer.

“Great books.”

“Authors. Titles. Go.”

“Really?”

“My Tbr list needs to know.”

I smile and close my eyes. “Lucille Clifton and Colette. Jia Tolentino and Madeline Miller. Elaine Pagels. Riane Eisler—”

I stop when I hear the scratching of a pencil. I look over and he’s holding a pad. “Are you…taking notes?”

“It’s not every day I rescue someone like you.”

I tilt my head. “What are you doing out here by yourself, Sam?”

“What do you mean?”

“Most guys your age—”

“Which is?” he asks playfully.

“Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three.”

“I found that to be an awkward age,” I say.

“I’m okay with it,” he says.

“But don’t you want to be in bars with single women, saying things like, ‘How can you afford yourself?’?”

“I don’t get it,” Sam says.

“?’Cause you’re so fine .”

Sam winces. “Wait— fine like being charged a fine? Has someone used that line on you?”

“Never mind,” I say. “But even if Search and Rescue is your calling, why do it in total isolation? Seems a little heavy on the search and a little light on the rescue.”

“Yet here we are.” Sam gives me a wink.

I reach for my viewfinder, but it’s in Sam’s bathroom, not around my neck.

I’d like to lift it up right now and study him with no distractions.

There’s a dusting of freckles on his nose I hadn’t noticed until now.

He has a slight overbite that’s only visible when he’s not talking, and his feet, propped up on the coffee table, are more attractive than any feet I’ve ever seen.

“When I first came here,” he says, “I had all these questions. I thought being in nature might answer them.”

“How’s it going? Have you found any answers?”

“It’s more like the questions have receded.”

“That’s beautiful,” I say.

“Maybe,” Sam says. “But sometimes I feel like I might be stuck here forever.”

“You’re not stuck,” I say. “You’re completing your training. There’s honor in that, right? We all have to put in our time before we can do what we’re meant to do.”

“Or maybe training is bullshit, and you and I aren’t learning anything we don’t already know.”

“I’ve been on the apprentice track at Zombie Hospital for seven years. Sometimes, that’s felt like forever, but in a few more years, I might look back and—”

Sam shakes his head dismissively. “There’s only now. Now is all there is.”

“Huh?”

“I mean it. Why waste another moment searching for what we already have?”

“Are we still talking about our jobs?”

“No,” Sam says, leaning in toward me, staring at my lips. I look at his. Pink and smooth, highly kissable.

I lean a little closer, too. Definitely feeling the now .

“Do you hear that?” Sam says suddenly, turning away. “The rain stopped. You’ve got to see this. It’s so beautiful after the rain.”

Trying not to feel disappointed that what felt like a kiss moment was, in fact, not, I follow Sam to a side door, and we step out onto the porch.

The predawn world sparkles with raindrops. Everything is brilliant, glistening. Sam looks at me and smiles.

“Do you hear it?”

“What?”

“The morning. Here it comes.”

“Wait,” I say. “What time is it?”

Sam shrugs. “Listen. You can hear it rise.”

I try, but all I hear is the softness of his breathing. And then my eyes find the horizon, the ocean, gray and greased with nearly morning light. The world gathers a harmonious silence around itself like a shawl.

“Do you do this often?” I ask. “Listen to rock formations? Listen to the dawn?”

“Do you know about the native Moken?”

I shake my head.

“Oh, you’ll like this,” he says. “You’ll bring it out one day at a fancy LA dinner party.

The Moken live in Thailand, and in 2004, when a tsunami wiped out millions of homes, the Moken heard the warning.

They heard it in the stillness of the water, in the shifting flights of fish.

Their entire tribe got out in time. Nature is always telling us something. The trick is to remember to listen.”

“I’ll remember that,” I whisper. “I can’t believe we talked until morning.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Sam says. “You need your rest. Big week, right? There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom drawer.”

“Oh. I…Of course.”

I close myself in the bathroom and brush my teeth, thinking maybe I’ll go out there and take back everything I said about not wanting to sleep with him tonight. But when I leave the bathroom, Sam’s fast asleep on the couch, looking like Michelangelo’s David .

I watch him for a moment, young and peaceful, lovely and strong. How intimate and also still unknown he is to me after tonight. Then, as the sun finds its legs on the ocean, I climb the stairs to Sam’s loft and tumble into his soft and empty bed.