“Where are you taking me?”

Mark had his arm looped through mine and one of his neckties wrapped around my face as a makeshift blindfold, which was particularly distracting seeing as we had used this specific necktie in our sexual endeavors last weekend, right after the game against Albuquerque.

It was scary being out in the open with Mark and not knowing where I was or who might be looking. I kept reluctantly dragging my heels and I knew I was gripping onto Mark’s arm much tighter than was strictly necessary. It was nearly five when we left the car and it felt like we’d been walking forever.

“Patience, Grasshopper,” Mark said gently. “Just try to relax. I know you hate surprises, but this is a good one. I promise.”

I still wasn’t entirely convinced.

Finally, after several more nerve-wracking minutes of walking through quiet and rugged terrain, Mark squeezed my arm and told me to stop. I reached up and placed my fingers underneath my blindfold and waited to see if Mark would protest. When he didn’t, I tugged the strip of fabric until it loosened and slipped off.

The first thing I saw was a rocky secluded cove nestled near the shore of Lake Havasu. It was unlike any other part of the reservoir I had ever seen. It looked timeless and wondrously intimidating, like something out of a pirate or dinosaur movie. The space was lit by the light of nearly a hundred flickering candles and completely deserted of all tourists. The sky was that perfectly unreal combination of striated pink and orange that only an Arizona sunset was, and I watched as the hue dimmed to a light purple and then black, causing the candlelight to cast wicked shadows across the rocks which then turned into a rippling lightshow across the surface of the lake. It was easily the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen in my life, and I’d seen the Grand Canyon- twice.

“Wow,” I breathed, not daring to ruin the magic with anything other than the one syllable.

I tore my gaze away from the natural beauty to look at Mark, who was grinning from ear to ear in a way that I’d never seen him do before. He looked like a joyous little kid who’d done something impossibly nice and was so very proud of himself for it; an innocent kid who had never been hurt by his parents or been made to grow up too fast. It made my heart skip a beat and flutter all throughout my body.

Mark reached out and I unquestioningly took his hand. He gave mine a little squeeze.

“You’ve seemed so busy and on edge ever since classes started back up again,” he began, answering my unspoken question. “I thought I’d take you completely away from all of that for one night.”

I let out an erratic laugh. Not because it was funny, but because there was nothing else I could really do.

“How are you even real?” I asked him. “Am I being pranked? Am I secretly a contestant on a gay dating show?”

“That would require you being out, babe.” 

I laughed again and planted a kiss on the corner of Mark’s jaw.

“How did you even find this place?”

Admittedly, I hadn’t had a lot of free time to explore the city in which I lived, but the only parts of the lake/reservoir I’d ever seen were the tourist-y bits around London Bridge and the long stretch of Native American cultural shops that surrounded the dam and the California border. It seemed impossible that there were no people or boats in sight, even on a slightly chilly night in January.

Mark shrugged. “A couple of ecology students owed me favors.”

I leaned against his warm body and shook my head in disbelief.

“You’re incredible. You know that?”

Mark gave me a quick squeeze around the waist and then pulled away. I looked down at him in confusion. He was smiling like a maniac.

“We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet,” he said. He disappeared behind the massive rock structure and came back a few seconds later with an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. I hid my face in my hands.

“No,” I said in disbelief. “You are not.”

“I am,” Mark confirmed, gently strumming the instrument.

I knew absolutely nothing about music, but just that one chord sounded better than anything I’d ever heard. I dropped my hands so I could watch him play. He was looking at me like I was a miraculous rainstorm in the middle of the hottest day in summer as he plucked out a happy little tune.

I blinked a few times.

“Okay,” I said. “That is ridiculously attractive.”

“It takes one to know one,” Mark sang along to the tune of what he was playing. If I had ovaries, this is where they would have exploded.

“Are you sure you really want to be a counselor?” I teased. “We could go on tour. I’ll be the hot younger boyfriend who provides moral support and carries all the heavy equipment…”

“Nah,” Mark said. “I get motion sickness. You can still be my hot younger boyfriend though.”

My smile was so wide it nearly cut my face in half.

“Deal.”

Mark led me away from the rocks and closer to the shore where we sat down and he played a bunch of songs at my request. He didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed any time I complimented his singing or playing abilities. In fact, this one aspect of himself, Mark was actually pretty cocky. I found out that I liked that. A lot.

Alas, after a while he stowed the guitar back where he’d gotten it from and returned with two plastic containers full of salad; and Mark hated salad, so this too was a pretty romantic gesture in and of itself.

We ate our healthy dinner overlooking the water. By then, the candles behind us were starting to burn out and we had to rely on the moonlight reflected off of the water to see. It was actually really nice. The darkness eased some of my anxiety over being watched, and made everything feel more intimate and personal, like Mark and I were the only two people in the world.

When we were both done eating, I reached out with my hands and gently brought his face up to mine. We kissed and kissed and kissed, and this too was music to my ears. I couldn’t believe how attached I already was to this frustratingly perfect boy. It didn’t even feel real. I didn’t deserve anything as fluffy and romantic as this.

“Do you think we should go for a swim?” Mark asked cheekily when we finally broke apart.

I took one look down at the murky water and shook my head.

“You know they filmed that piranha movie here, right?”

Mark laughed.

“I’m pretty sure they’re only native to South America, but okay.”

We ended up skipping rocks instead. I couldn’t stop laughing at how terrible Mark was at it.

“Can’t be good at everything, pretty boy,” I said, after he bombed his third try in a row. A lot of it probably had to do with him picking out stones that weren’t flat or heavy enough, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that. I stood back with my own rock in hand, took a deep breath and flicked my wrist ever so slightly, letting go at the last possible second. The rock skimmed the surface of the water and bounced four times before disappearing beneath the depth. I clasped my hands together and lifted them over each shoulder one at a time in mock celebration.

Mark came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Yeah, well,” he whispered, his breath hot against the back of my neck, “I make up for it in other areas. Speaking of which...I actually have one more surprise left for you tonight.”

I turned around in his grip and hooked my fingers into his belt loops.

“I hope it’s a sexy surprise,” I whispered.

Mark bit down on his bottom lip.

“Okay,” he exhaled softly. “Make that two surprises, but first…” He circled his hand around my wrist and pulled me toward the last dying bit of candlelight. He stooped down and took one of the pillars in his hands to help light the way as we rounded the corner to find a small motorized boat idling in the water, hidden behind the rocky embankment. The boat was tied to the base of a small shrub near the shore and inside was Mark’s guitar, as well as Jan, who was sitting behind the steering wheel boredly scrolling through things on her phone. Mark coughed to get her attention and Jan shot up so quickly that the boat rocked and the still water splashed all around. All I could do was stare.

“Has she been here this entire time?” I whispered, dumbfounded.

Mark winced and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I needed someone with a boating license, and safe place to store everything.” He shrugged helplessly.

I looked back and forth between him and Jan.

“I take it she owes you a favor too then,” I said finally.

“Yep,” they answered simultaneously, but with drastically different levels of excitement.

I shook my head. There was really nothing else I could do at this point so I just watched as Mark helped Jan untether the boat and then took his hand and followed him inside of it.

“I thought you got motion sickness,” I said as Jan started up the engine.

Mark nodded and smiled his most winning of smiles.

“I do. I already took a pill for it.”

I rolled my eyes, but despite my slight annoyance I was eventually able to forget about Jan’s presence and relax. I nestled into Mark’s side in the back of the boat. We both had our eyes upturned, staring at the millions of twinkling stars up above. It was unlike any nighttime sky I had ever seen back home in Phoenix. There was no light pollution out here to dull the effect, and it truly was a breathtaking sight to behold. It made every single trivial problem I’d ever had in my life seem so stupid and small. In that moment, all that really mattered was the water beneath me, the air all around, and my head rested on my sweet boyfriend’s shoulder.

Eventually the sight of London Bridge popped up in the murky distance and we started to emerge back into more populated territory, thus ruining the illusion of isolation, but it did not take away from the warm feeling burrowing its way into my chest. Mark leaned over to whisper something in my ear as we pulled up to the dock.

“I’m so happy I met you,” he said, voice choked with more emotion than I knew what to do with.

I took his face into my hands and gave him one last kiss with absolutely no regard for the people on the docks or in the other boats all around us.

“I’m so happy you met me too. When I get home I should wake up Steve and tell him thank you.”

Mark visibly flinched and lightly punched me on the shoulder, but a second later we were both laughing. I was deliriously happy. The kind of happy that just sneaks up on you when you least expect it and sweeps your legs out from under you with how wonderful everything feels.

And I hadn’t even thought about hockey once the entire night.