SATURDAY MORNING, BOONE shows up at my apartment to take me sledding.
In July.
While I think he’s crazy, I happily go with him after he promises me there won’t be caves or bats involved.
After an hour of driving us into the mountains, cactus gives way to trees. The air chills as we gain altitude. On either side of the narrow, two-lane road, tall pines jab the deep blue sky.
“Did you magically transport us out of New Mexico?” I lean my head against my window and stare up at the green tree tops.
He chuckles quietly. “No.”
“No teleportation or apparition?” I shift my focus from the passing scenery to him.
Fighting a smile, he shakes his head. “Sadly, no.”
I respond with an exaggerated sigh. “That was one of my favorite parts of Harry Potter.”
“Never read it.”
“Okay, but you saw the movies, right?” I’m trying not to judge him on his entertainment choices.
“Negative,” he says like it’s no big deal.
My mouth hangs open as I attempt to formulate a response that isn’t full of shock and judgment.
“How is that even possible?” I screech, failing at my objective.
His lips twist to the side. “Wizards and magic and dragons aren’t really my thing.”
I can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but I swear his mouth twitches with a smile.
“It’s all a metaphor for good versus evil and the triumph of love over evil, hope over despair.” I cross my arms, gearing up to convince him he’s made a grave error in his entertainment choices. “I mean, I guess if you hate those things and don’t believe in a hero’s journey, then, well, you wouldn’t like them.”
Grateful my own eyes are hidden behind sunnies, I blink away unexpected tears. My dad and I read them together. Well, he read them aloud to me before bed.
Boone’s warm hand rests on my bare knee. “Sounds like I have some movies to watch.”
“The books are better,” I mumble as I turn to the window to wipe a tear from my cheek, hoping he doesn’t notice.
“Tell me why you love them.” He gives my knee a gentle squeeze. “Maybe you can convince me.”
With an audible “harrumph” of disgust, I tell him, “If you can’t see the amazing for yourself, it would be a waste of my energy and your time trying to convince you.”
“I want to believe.” He lowers his voice to a soft plead.
“You sound like one of the alien conspiracy guys in town.”
“The little green men brigade? Those guys? Someone didn’t love them enough as children.”
I laugh despite my disappointment in his muggleness. “They are an imaginative bunch.”
“That’s a nice way of describing the whackadoodles and their grainy videos of big-eyed mannequins.”
“Not a believer?” I ask.
“I think someone came up with a snappy bright green icon and people ran with it.”
“Look at E.T.—he’s neither green nor snappy. People think he’s adorable.”
“He was meant to be scary and creepy.”
“Lies. He’s even cuter than little baby Drew Barrymore in pigtails. And that’s saying something. I loved that movie when I was a kid.” The memory settles heavy on my chest. I forgot how much I loved E.T. At one point, I was obsessed with it. My brow furrows as I try to remember if it was before or after. All those memories are hazy, like I’m trying to see them through thick smoke that burns my eyes until I have to close them to block out the pain.
“Earth to Lucy.” He taps my knee with his knuckles, pretending he’s knocking on a door.
“What?” I shift my focus to him.
“Where’d you go?”
Blinking away childhood memories, I think of something generic. “Nowhere. Got lost thinking about other child actors who grew up to be good-looking adults.”
Now I’m thinking about Ryan Gosling.
“O-kay.” He stretches out the word, clearly thinking I’m a weirdo. “What about Britney Spears? Or Justin Timberlake?”
“Good point.” I wedge my back into the gap between the side of the seat and the door. “You came up with those two really quickly. Is this something you give a lot of thought? Or do you have a secret crush on Ms. Spears?”
He checks the rearview mirror and his side mirror even though I’m sure we’re the only vehicle on this stretch of road for at least a mile in either direction.
“Your hesitation says it all.” I laugh and poke his side.
“I discovered her at a delicate age for boys.” He keeps his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, but his tell of bouncing his left knee gives him away.
“Was it the pigtails? Or the inappropriately short plaid skirt? Isn’t she a little old for you?” I don’t know how old she is precisely, but having a nightly act in Vegas à la Celine Dion and Cher would lead one to believe she’s older than Boone.
“Can I plead the fifth?” he asks, a smile tugging at his lips.
“This isn’t a court of law. Own your weirdness. Fly that freak flag high,” I encourage him and demonstrate waving a flag. Because I’m a nerd.
“Now you are sounding like you live in Roswell.” He grins at me and it’s like the sun parting the clouds
“I’m going to ignore the implied insult and pretend you’re complimenting me.” I jab my index finger into his shoulder.
“You shouldn’t attack a driver, especially while the motor vehicle is in operation,” he deadpans. “We might crash.”
“I trust your competency.” I grin at him while humming “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”
“No, uh uh. You can’t hold that against me. I was young and impressionable, not fully formed. Blame my undeveloped frontal lobe. Pre-pubescent boys are the closest things we have to humans operating using only their lizard brains. It’s why we don’t bathe and can’t remember simple tasks.”
“Nice try.” I frown, giving him my “sorry, you lose” face.
“Clearly you never spent a lot of time around boys,” he grumbles.
“I tried to avoid them.”
“Still do?”
His words hit close to my relationship avoidance. “Smelly, gross boys? Yes. Especially at work. Why are spit balls still a thing? Or an acceptable activity for a restaurant? I find them in my hair at the end of a shift way more than you’d think. And boys make the biggest messes. Splatters of ketchup everywhere. Lions are neater eaters.”
“You’re a poet.” He loses the battle against smiling. “And what about men?”
Studying him, I try to guess his motivations. “Are you asking if I’m single?”
A frown flips his smile upside down. “I, uh . . . I guess I am. Doing this out of order once again.”
I wiggle the fingers on my left hand. “No one’s put a ring on it.”
“That doesn’t fully answer the question,” he says.
“Why does it matter?”
“I guess it doesn’t. Not in the grand scheme of the universe. Black holes don’t care if you’re single or dating a dozen guys you met online.”
I ignore the online dating joke. “Black holes need a better range of options. But if the universe is asking, I’m single as in no, I don’t have a boyfriend. Or twenty-four lovers on monthly rotation.”
“A month is thirty days. What happens the other six days?”
I stare at him for a beat, hoping he won’t make me bring up a woman’s moon cycle, the monthly visit from our communal Aunt Flow. When he doesn’t show any signs of comprehension, I cough. “A girl needs to rest and have time to binge watch entire seasons of shows while eating ice cream and salty snacks. Crying is optional depending on the subject matter.”
And I hope we’re going to leave it at that.
Changing the subject before he makes the uncomfortable connection between my random string of words and female biology, I ask, “What kind of name is Cloudcroft? Sounds like it should be Cloud-craft like a flying saucer.”
He gives me side-eye. “You’ll see.”
We climb higher and clouds soften the light from the sun.
“Is it because it’s always cloudy up here?” I peer out the window at the thick, swirling mist.
“Always is a long time. And no, that’s not why. Have patience.”
Passing through the thick layer of clouds, we once again drive into sunlight.
After about two hours, we round another curve in the road and the edges of a town appear. A few colorful wood buildings occupy land on either side of the ribbon of asphalt. Other than a gas station, none of the structures are from this century and I’m not sure if they were built in the last century either. A wooden sidewalk flanks their fronts, mostly cover by balconies on the second stories.
“Okay, at first I thought you’d teleported us to the Pacific Northwest, but now I think we’ve gone back in time. What is this place?”
“In the winter, it’s a ski town.”
“But we’re in the desert. Mexico is like right over there.” I point out his side window.
He bats my hand away from his face. “If you hadn’t noticed, we gained about five thousand feet of altitude. We’re in the mountains now.”
“Har har,” I say with full sarcasm accent. “You distracted me.”
He makes a turn onto a side street that’s even more ridiculously charming than the main highway.
“Is this my surprise?” I’m happy if it is.
“It’s more of a pit stop.”
“I don’t see any snow. How are we going to go sledding?” I peer at the dusty ground peeking out between the pines.
“You’ll see.” He sounds so smug with his secrets and his sledding ideas when there isn’t snow on the ground.
“Wanda knows I’m with you. So if you have nefarious motives, the police will be questioning you first.” I cross my arms.
“You have trust issues, don’t you?” he asks.
I hate that he sounds amused by this fact.
“It’s good to be guarded. Don’t take candy from strangers or accept rides from solo men. Who’s going to say avoiding either of those things are bad advice?” I deflect from answering his question directly. Hell yes, I have trust issues.
“I don’t have any candy, and while I might not be your average guy, I’m not a stranger. However, if I’m being forthcoming, I do plan to lure you with pie after we head out of town. Apple pie à la mode is as pure and American as it comes. What kind of monster would use it for, what was the word you used, right, nefarious purposes?” He ends his speech by dipping the bill of my hat low over my eyes.
“Hey,” I cry, shoving it up so I can stare at him. “What was the part about pie?”
“What happened to not trusting me?”
“I’m here. I agreed to go sledding in the summer. And that was before anyone mentioned pie.” I peer out the front window of his truck, looking for a bakery or pie sign.
I chuckle at my own pun.
“What’s funny?” He unbuckles his seatbelt.
“I was thinking about signs and then looked around for a pie sign. Get it? Pi sign?”
He scrunches up his nose and closes one eye. “Ouch, that one was painful.”
“Don’t hate the pun.” I’m out of the cab before he opens his door.
We wander down the block. One side is lined with modern, nondescript town buildings while the other is stacked with two story wood structures straight out of a western movie.
“What a weird town. Over here I expect a gunfight to break out any second.” I point to the two storied hotel bearing the town’s name. “And over here, I could be in any rural town in America.”
“Then let’s stick to the boardwalk and the fantasy.” He presses his hand between my shoulder blades to turn me.
Back in the truck, I buckle in. “Ready for pie now.”
“Is today going to be all about pie? I’m regretting mentioning it.”
“No way, don’t hold back. If you know other places, you need to tell me. I keep asking Tony why the diner doesn’t have a decent pie on the menu. He waves me off and points out we have ice cream,” I scoff. “It’s not even frozen custard. I wouldn’t be bragging if I were him.”
I finish my mini-tirade and realize we’re still parked. “Why are we sitting here?”
Boone laughs, filling the cab with the rich sound of his voice. “I wasn’t sure how long you were going to talk. Figured if things escalated, and it felt like you might become agitated there for a while, best if we weren’t moving at a high speed.”
Narrowing my eyes, I stare at him. “If that was a roundabout way of accusing me of lady hysteria, Mr. Santos, you best check yourself.”
A few miles down the road, he pulls into a gravel lot next to an apple-shaped sign shouting “PIE” in all capital letters.
While I find the bathroom, Boone orders the pie. When I return and see him holding a single plate with a single piece of pie, I realize I’ve misjudged him.
“Where’s your pie?” I eye the plate and then him.
“I thought we could share.” He holds out the solo slice.
Blinking and twisting my head like a confused dog, I try to comprehend his suggestion. He can’t mean the words coming out of his mouth. I never figured him for being a cheap miser, but he does eat in a gas station five days a week.
“Or not,” he finally admits. “Here, have this one and I’ll get my own piece.”
“That’s probably for the best.” I take the slice and sit at a picnic table a few yards from the walk-up window.
By the time Boone joins me, I’m half done with my slice.
“You weren’t kidding.” He points at my plate. “I guess it’s acceptable?”
“So good.” I finish the last bite and eye his slice.
Wrapping his arm around his plate, he says, “No way. I grew up with a sister who stole my food.”
I take this as a challenge to at least steal a bite of his crust.
“Look at the size of that squirrel.” I point over his shoulder. “Wow, I’ve never seen one that size.”
Lame even to my ears, but he turns his head.
I think it’s enough time to make my move, but without even moving his neck, his hand reaches out and grabs my arm.
“Hey,” I protest. “Do you have eyes in the back of your head? You have super fast reflexes.”
“No,” he laughs. “Just years of practice.”
After finishing his pie, he saves one tiny piece of the crust for me.
“Boone, you’re a good man.” I stretch over the table to give him a soft kiss, brushing my lips over his, tasting the cinnamon and apple on his breath.
He presses his mouth to mine, sweeping his tongue inside and tangling it with mine. “You’re my favorite pie thief, Lucy Halliday.”