Page 55 of Velvet and Valor

“A little waterlogged, but alive,” I say. June smacks me on the arm playfully. “Listen, we need someone to come and pick us up.”

“Did you wreck that shit-suspension adolescent mistake you consider your ‘ride?’” Dane asks.

“I kind of like you, Dane,” I say. “That’s why I’m not going to kill you for insulting my muscle car. Those are like the apex of the motoring world.”

“The Apex of the motoring world is an Alfa Romero.”

“Alfa Romero? Are you kidding me? Are you in love with sitting on the side of the road trying to get your engine to turn over? Might as well drive a Lotus,” I say.

“What’s wrong with Lotus?” Dane counters.

“Nothing,” I say, “they look great, except that Lotus is an acronym that stands for Lots of Trouble, Usually Serious?—”

“Ahem,” June says.

“Oh, right, can you come and get us.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Where are you at.”

“Ah, funny story,” I say.

It takes some friend finder app wizardry, but we manage to tell Dane where we are. There’s a ranger station a couple miles down the road, so we plan to meet Dane there.

“Give me ninety minutes on the low end,” Dane says. “Oh, and when I arrive, it will be in a proper vehicle that can actually handle those mountain roads.”

“What's it going to be, a Dacia Sandero?”

“You want to be rescued or not?”

The call ends, and I hand the phone back to June. She gives me a look.

“Is that all you guys do is play pool and argue about who has the worst taste in cars?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I reply.

“Oh, you’re too late for this shtick, Axel,” she says with a chuckle.

“What?”

“Don’t play innocent. You might want to pretend that you’re just a shallow, beer swilling dude bro but you’re a lot deeper than you let on, Axel.” She puts her hand on her hip, standing like a teacher dressing down a student she sort of likes, even if they’ve been bad.

“I am not,” I say in sincere protest. “I swear, what you see is what you get.”

“Uh-uh,” she closes her eyes and shakes her head. “You don’t get the level of ennui you’ve espoused without having some depth. It takes depth to hold all the darkness.”

I lapse into silence as we hike down the road toward the ranger’s station. I want to deny that I’m a dark, depressive type, but I guess the shoe kinda fits.

“I don’t want to be,” I say at last.

“What, deep?” she asks with a giggle.

“No, dark. Depressing. Enya eyed, like you said.”

“Ennui, not…never mind.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles. “Axel, it hurts because you care, and you care because you are a good man.”

“It doesn’t come naturally.”

She lets out a bark of laughter.