Glen and Nora turned out to be the best hosts ever. They not only invited us into their campsite for dinner, but they had an extra tent for us, one Glen and Emery popped up in no time once Nora had convinced us to just stay with them instead of driving back into town to find lodging. It turned out Nora had sort of a thing for strays, which we learned after being introduced to the three cats traveling the country in their camper with them.
“Makes no damn sense,” Glen said, petting the white one behind the ear as it curled against his leg where he was seated by the fire. That one was named Valentine, after the town in Arizona where they’d found him. “Traveling with a bunch of cats. Thank God, we finally trained them to do business outside. You don’t want to know what it was like having a litter box inside that thing,” he said, nodding toward their camper.
Emery and I shared a smile, one that warmed my cheeks more than the fire.
“They needed a home, and we had one to give. It’s just that simple,” Nora argued, her eyes on the other two cats who were curled up on the mat below the camper steps. They were both tabbies, striped with different shades of gray and black, and one of them had a bite mark shaped piece missing from its left ear. That one was named Toledo, and the other was Faith. I loved that they each got their names from where they came from, like those places were still a piece of who they were, no matter where they traveled. As much as I never wanted to set food in Mobile ever again, I knew the same was true for me.
“I just can’t say no to her,” Glen explained, eyes catching Nora’s affectionately. “Never could.”
“That’s why I married you,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his hand with her own. “That and your dashing good looks, of course.”
We were all gathered around their fire pit, each of us indulging in a large bowl of the amazing chili Nora had whipped up that made me feel like I was really experiencing fall for the first time in my life — a real fall. In a strange way, they felt like home, those two strangers. They were kind and gracious and entertaining.
They were also hilarious.
Emery and I learned quickly that Nora was a little eccentric, and Glen kept her grounded. The way the two of them played into each other was adorable, and I couldn’t help but ask them about every aspect of their lives. I wanted to know how they met, when they got married, how many kids they had, when they retired, why they decided to travel — everything. And they loved to tell the stories.
“So, that was it,” Nora said after dinner, finishing the last of her chili and handing her little bowl to Glen. “There we were, about six months retired and watching Netflix all day every day because our darling daughter had showed us how to work it on our television, and I just saw our lives slipping away. I hated it. So, we bought this old camper, made it our project to fix her up, and as soon as she was good to go, we made our first trip.”
“That was three years ago,” Glen said, taking both mine and Emery’s bowls, too. He even picked up Kalo’s, who was spoiled with the scraps that evening. “We’ve seen a lot of the country and even some of Canada since then.”
“See what happens when you listen to me?” Nora teased.
“Forty-two years together and I’m still learning, dear.”
“You’re lucky I’m patient.”
They shared a loving glance, Glen winking at her before disappearing inside the camper with our dishes. It was a small, pull-behind one with a full bed they shared and a low-key kitchen. Nora told us they still carried the tent they were letting us sleep in just in case they camped somewhere where they’d want to be outside, like the time they slept right on the edge of a cliff in Canada and overlooked a crystal blue lagoon.
“What about you two?” Nora asked when it was just the three of us around the fire. Kalo was by her feet, already sleeping, her belly full. Nora rubbed her fur with a content smile as she waited for our answer. “Have you made a list of your hopes and dreams for your life yet?”
Emery and I glanced at each other, my eyes wide and his amused as ever as he reached forward and folded his hand over mine. His was warm, mine like ice, and chills sprang from his touch all the way down to my toes.
“We’re still figuring a lot out, but our first stop is Seattle. Cooper here is going to Bastyr in the spring.”
If I get in, I thought, but I just smiled.
“She was telling me a little about that on our hike back up,” Nora said just as Glen rejoined us. He handed Nora another Michelob Ultra before taking the seat next to her. “And what are your plans, Emery? Your dreams?”
I looked at him just as intently as Nora, wondering the same thing myself, but when I saw the discomfort on his face, I squeezed his fingertips draped over mine, letting him know I was there.
And he squeezed back.
“My dad wants me to take over his business. Well, he wants me to be his partner first, but eventually take over.”
“What business is that?” Glen asked.
“We create start-up companies and then sell them, so kind of like flipping houses, except flipping businesses. He’s been successful at it his entire life, and I’ve found out in the past few years that I’m pretty good at it, too.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” Nora said, but I was still watching Emery, because something in his eyes told me it didn’t matter if he was good at it. Something told me it wasn’t all he wanted. “So, you’ve got the job parts figured out, but that’s such a small part of it. What else? What’s on your list?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, Nora loves lists,” Glen said with a smirk. “To-do lists, goal lists, pros and cons lists.”
“They’re practical and help keep your brain centered,” Nora defended. “I made Glen sit down with me and make one when we were first married, all of our hopes and dreams. Kids, house, travels, etc. We still have it in a scrapbook at home.”
“That’s so sweet,” I said, leaning a chin on my palm as I sat forward. “Did they all come true?”
Nora grinned, cheersing her beer with her husband’s. “They did, in their own way, but we’ll never check the whole list off. That’s not the point. In fact, we add new items to the list every year.”
“It’s about growing together. Changing. And figuring life out along the way,” Glen agreed, and I smiled.
I liked them.
“You guys should make a list,” Nora said. “We can start it right now.”
“Great idea! And I have just the thing to get the creative juices flowing.” Glen pulled a long, cigar-looking thing from his pocket, waggling his eyebrows as Nora chuckled.
“What is that?”
“It’s a joint,” Emery answered, and now he was watching me with that same amused smile, as if he was curious as hell over what I’d say next.
“Oh.”
Nora and Glen’s faces dropped.
“I’m sorry, dear, are you okay with it? We don’t want to offend you. It’s legal here, of course, but we know some people still have opinions about it.”
“No, no,” I assured Nora. “It’s fine, honestly. I’ve just never… I don’t really drink. By choice. And I’ve never really been around… this before.” I gestured to the joint in Glen’s hand.
“Weed,” Emery said. “It’s just weed, Cooper.”
Glen lit the joint after making sure several times that I was okay with it, and I watched in fascination as he smoked it before handing it to Nora, who took two hits herself. Then she leaned up in her seat, passing it around the fire to Emery, and his eyes caught mine before he put the end of the joint to his lips and sucked in a breath.
I’d never been into guys who smoked cigarettes, but seeing Emery’s lips around the paper, the smooth way the smoke left them when he exhaled, the cool, confident manner he had as he took another hit like an expert — it sent a warm rush over me, and I swallowed, adjusting my position in the folding chair.
He went to pass it back to Glen but I stopped him, my hand finding his forearm. “Wait.”
Emery paused, smoke still seeping through his lips as his eyes connected with mine.
Listening to Nora and Glen share their stories had me looking at my own life up until that point, the twenty years I’d had on Earth and all I’d experienced — or rather, the lack thereof. Something about that night, that fire, or maybe those people had me wishing for more. I wanted stories of my own to tell, and I knew that wouldn’t happen if I didn’t step out of the box I’d lived in so comfortably my whole life.
My hand was a little shaky where it rested on Emery’s arm, and when the next words left my lips, my voice followed suit. But I was more sure in that moment than I had been at any point up until then.
“Can I… can I try it?”
I couldn’t stop giggling.
It didn’t matter what happened, or what anyone said, because I was stuck in my own thoughts, and everything was funny. And when I tried to explain why it was funny, I just laughed harder, and barely got a word out.
“You are so high,” Emery whispered into my ear, his elbow leaning on my chair’s armrest.
“I am,” I agreed, and then another fit of giggling started. “I’m so hot, too. Is it hot to you?”
I knew I sounded ridiculous, since it was in the forties that night, but the fire was warm and so was my sweater. I picked at the neck of it, searching Emery’s low, red eyes. He was watching me with a soft smirk, his hair mussed as always, his eyes curious.
“Want to take a walk to cool off?”
I nodded, and before I knew it, he was standing and pulling me up with him. He told Glen and Nora we’d be back, making sure it was okay to leave Kalo with them, and then we were walking by the light of the flashlight on his phone. I tripped on a rock, nearly falling as I laughed loudly, catching my balance with a firm grip on Emery’s arm.
“Hold onto me so you don’t fall,” he said, chuckling, too. “Are you okay? Do you feel okay?”
“I feel amazing.”
He laughed again, and I threaded my arm through his, leaning into him. He smelled like fire and citrus.
The farther we got from the fire, the more settled I felt. I was cooler, my skin tingling with the transition from the warmth of the fire to the icy night air, and the urge to laugh seemed to be left behind at the campsite, especially once we reached the edge of a small cliff at the end of the park. The moon and stars were bright, illuminating the edges of the mountains in the distance, and Emery clicked the light off on his phone, letting the night surround us.
The sky almost seemed sea blue instead of black, and I watched our breath float up in front of us in little puffs of white. It didn’t feel real, standing there with Emery, knowing I wasn’t in Alabama anymore, that I never would be again. I’d already seen more in the past four days than in my entire life before, and I knew it was just the beginning.
“That was fun,” I finally said, nodding back toward the campsite. “Making that list with them. They’re funny.”
“Everything’s funny to you right now.”
I nudged him. “Don’t make fun of me! Are you high, too?”
Emery looked down the bridge of his nose at me, one side of his face shrouded in the darkness, the other illuminated by the moon. “I am.”
“It’s a weird feeling.”
“It is. I remember my first time, too. It doesn’t affect me the same way anymore, though.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
A loud, long breath left his chest as he turned his eyes back toward the mountains. “I used to laugh like you, and now I just get…” He faded off, mouth flattening like he didn’t know if he should say anything more, like he wasn’t sure he could trust me.
I squeezed his arm, letting him know he could.
“I get in my head,” he finished after a moment. “And that’s a dangerous place to be.”
Suddenly, I felt sober, though I knew I wasn’t yet. His words struck that chord inside me, the one that warned me, that buzzed to life when something was a threat. I didn’t want him inside his head, not if it was the same dark mind that almost took his life.
“Maybe it’s only dangerous because you’re the only one there. You could…” My voice faded along with my confidence. “I’m here, if you want to talk.”
Emery smiled, though it fell quickly, and he tucked his hands into his pockets. My own hand was still wrapped around his bicep.
“It’s nothing specific, honestly. I just get to thinking… like tonight, making that ‘list of hopes and dreams’ with them. You were so happy making it, laughing and listing things off. And it made me… sad.”
“Why?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “That’s the kicker. I’m not sure.”
My thoughts were fuzzy in my head, and I suddenly wished I could come down from my high, that I could be sober and present. I fought through the cloud, trying to find the right words to say.
“Do you think it’s because making a list like that takes something as grand as life and simplifies it? Makes it so… small?”
Emery turned to me then, his brows pulled together, my favorite lines forming between them. “Kind of,” he admitted, as if it surprised him that I understood. “It was also hard for me, to even come up with those few that we did to start the list.”
“You think you don’t have any real hopes and dreams.”
“I don’t.”
I shook my head. “Yes, you do. You’re just figuring it out. It’s not easy for everyone.”
“It was for you.”
I laughed then, but not because I was high — because the thought of anything in my life being easy was hilarious.
“Nothing in my life has been easy, Emery. Sure, I know that I want to go into natural medicine, but that’s only one part of life. A tiny part of it. Maybe it was easy to make my list because life hasn’t disappointed me yet. I’m still lusting after things you’ve already experienced and been let down by.”
“Like love,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a statement, one he punctuated with a turn in my direction, with a stare down into my eyes that felt like a piercing needle.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Like love.”
Emery wouldn’t take his eyes off me, not even when I blushed and looked away, or when I found his unwavering gaze once more, my breath suddenly hard to catch.
“It’s such a shame,” he finally said, voice as smooth and calm as the sky above us. “That you’ve never been really kissed.”
“It is?” I breathed.
His Adam’s apple bobbed once in his throat as he nodded, stepping closer to me, and the hands that were in his pockets had somehow found their way to my neck. They crawled up, framing my face, his thumbs by my ears as his fingers curled into my hair. My mind rushed like the waterfalls we’d seen earlier, my heart racing along with it, our breaths meeting between us in a mixture of white puffs.
I expected him to ask, or to maybe change his mind halfway through, but Emery was steady and sure as he leaned down, his eyes not leaving mine until our mouths connected.
And in that moment, with that kiss, everything changed.
We both inhaled the moment our lips touched, and I stepped into him, my arms wrapping around his middle. I pushed up onto my toes, desperate to get closer, to get more — of his lips, of his breath, of his warmth, of him. When I opened my mouth, his tongue swept inside, and I didn’t even try to fight the moan that came next. That moan made Emery grip my hair, tugging it lightly, just enough to tilt my head back and allow him better access.
He wanted more, too.
My first kiss wasn’t anything like I thought it’d be. I didn’t see fireworks or feel butterflies in my stomach. No, I saw the stars, and the mountains, and the rushing water. I saw messy script writing and a wet t-shirt stuck to muscular arms. And I felt fire, hot and burning in my core, my breath more like steam than just an exhale into a cold night. I felt warm hands and cool lips, thick sweaters and thin inhibitions, and when he finally pulled back, his forehead pressed to mine, I felt empty and elated all at once.
“Wow,” I breathed, my hands still fisted in his sweater. “Was that… is kissing always like that?”
Emery swallowed, the muscle over his jaw flexing as he shook his head slightly. “Never.”
We were both quiet a moment, my thoughts still going faster than I could keep up with. I wasn’t sure if it was the high or the kiss anymore. When Emery pulled all the way back, his hands brushing down the sides of my arms before he hooked his hands with mine, I asked the only question that was clear above the rest of the noise.
“Can we do it again?”
So, we did, all night long. Emery wrapped us up together in the same sleeping bag, our bodies hot and slick as he kissed me like it was his job, like it was number one on his hopes and dreams list. He didn’t lift my shirt, or sneak a hand down my sweat pants, or thrust his hard on against me, though I knew it was there. I could feel it even when he tried to hide it from me.
He kissed me like it was a privilege, like he didn’t want to rush, like we had forever.
I think I knew even then that we didn’t.
I woke up alone in the sleeping bag the next morning, rubbing my eyes with a slight ache behind them. I felt around on the floor of the tent until I found my glasses, and when I pushed them into place, every moment from last night rushed back all at once.
A smile found my lips as I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of his hands, the taste of his lips, the sounds he made when we were both driving each other so crazy it was unbearable. When I opened my eyes again, Emery was in the opening of the tent, watching me with a lazy smile.
“Good morning.”
“It really is,” I said, and his smile grew.
“Glen and I are going to go for a morning hike around the park, probably get some firewood. I figured I’d take Kalo to get some of her energy out. You want to come?”
My leg protested with a strong, tingling ache before I could even open my mouth to answer.
“I’m a little sore from yesterday, so I think I’ll stay back.”
He eyed my leg, a flash of concern on his face, but I smiled to assure him I was fine.
“Okay. Nora is making breakfast burritos. And there’s coffee.”
I hummed at that. “I’ll be out in a sec. Have fun on your hike.”
Emery’s eyes trailed over me, the strap of my layering tank top slid off one shoulder, my legs still covered by the sleeping bag. When his gaze found mine again, I knew my blush was like a neon sign, and he just smirked before letting the tent flap close.
I bit my lip, falling back into the sleeping bag with a puff, my stomach giddy, heart fluttering.
What does this mean?
It was a question I didn’t let myself ask last night, at least not out loud, but it was sounding in my head on repeat now that the morning light was shining. I’d never been kissed before. Emery knew that, and he kissed me. He was my first kiss. That had to mean something, right?
Or was it just for fun? Was it just Emery being him, kissing girls like it was no big deal, like everything would be normal the next day?
Were we just friends?
Were we even that?
My smile faded when I realized we’d known each other for less than a week, and here I was getting butterflies over a make-out session. He probably did this all the time — he probably usually did more.
Desperate for reassurance, I eyed the tent opening before pulling Emery’s journal out of his bag and into my lap. I heard his voice fade along with Glen’s, and even though my heart thumped with a mixture of adrenaline and guilt, I opened to the last page.
But there was nothing new.
Of course, he hadn’t written about it yet. When would he have had time?
But I needed something, needed his words, needed to be inside that beautiful brain of his. So, I flipped back toward the beginning, reading an entry not too long after the one about that day.
I stopped taking my medicine.
Marni knows, but my parents don’t. They think it’s the only way to save me from myself, to dope me up to the point of basically not living at all. Marni gets it, she knows why I don’t want to take them. She still thinks I should, but doesn’t press me to. She says it’s my choice. My parents make me feel like I don’t have any of those, anymore.
Grams has been on medicine all her life, the exact kind they prescribed me. She said she doesn’t know how she would have survived as a mother, as a wife, without them. But after Gramps died, she stopped taking them.
I liked her better then.
Maybe she’s a little crazy, maybe she talks about darker things than most preferred — but she’s here. She’s alive, and alert, and real. Uncensored. I appreciate that.
So, when I told her about not taking my pills anymore, she didn’t judge me, either.
She told me how to get rid of them and make it look like I was taking them when I wasn’t.
Anyway, I stopped taking my medicine, and I feel a little better and a little worse. Dad wants me to step up in the business, and I’m trying, but my heart isn’t in it. My heart isn’t in anything.
When I was little, I used to love the swings. It was the only place I wanted to be on the playground. I spent my entire recess on the swings. I loved that feeling, of flying, of falling. Marni said I should focus on things that make me happy, so I went to the park today. I went to the swings.
They don’t make me happy anymore.
Maybe today is just a bad day.
“Whatcha reading?”
I jumped at the sound of Nora’s voice, tossing Emery’s journal across the tent like it’d bitten me. One eyebrow raised on her face as I pressed a hand flat to my chest.
“Sorry, you startled me,” I said on a laugh, crawling out of the sleeping bag to retrieve his journal. I tucked it back into his bag, but when I faced Nora again, I saw suspicion all over her face. “Just the map we have for the trip, figuring out the next stop. We’re thinking Rio Grande National Park.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, eyeing me. “Great park, definitely worth the stop.” She paused, her lips rolling like she was tasting her next words before she said them. “I’ve got coffee and breakfast out here. Care to join an old woman?”
“I’d love to. Let me put something warmer on and I’ll be right out.”
She nodded once, eyes flicking to Emery’s journal before she ducked out of the tent. I cursed under my breath, dressing quickly and pulling my hair up into a messy knot on top of my head before joining her by the fire.
Nora poured me a fresh cup of coffee, adding a little pumpkin spice flavored creamer to it before handing me the steaming mug. I inhaled the scent, a wide smile finding my lips.
Fall.
“There was one summer when I thought Glen was being unfaithful,” Nora said, and I nearly choked on my coffee.
I managed to swallow it down, giving her my full attention, not sure where that confession came from. “Really?”
She nodded, sipping from her own mug. “It was dreadful. We were young, married only a few years, and those years were rough. In fact, the first five years of our marriage were the hardest. But I didn’t know there would be brighter days then, and I thought he had found comfort in another woman.” Nora shook her head. “I went crazy, badgering him about where he was when he wasn’t home, listening from the other room when he was on the phone, even following him once.”
I didn’t know what to say, or why she was telling me the story, so I stayed quiet, drinking my coffee.
“He wasn’t. Cheating, that is.” She smiled then. “No, he was planning a surprise party for our fourth wedding anniversary, and it was one of my best friends he was talking to on the phone so late at night. He was helpless when it came to planning anything, still is,” she added with a chuckle. “So my friend Barbara helped him. When I found out, when they surprised me, I burst into tears. Not for the party though, but for the fact that he was still mine.”
I smiled a little then, hands wrapped around my mug.
“Sometimes, we have to trust the ones we love, the ones who love us, even when it’s hard to do.” Her eyes skirted to my tent, to the journal, before they found mine. “Because even though marriage brings us together as a unit, there are still two individuals who make that whole. And they need to be able to have their own things, their own time, their own privacy.”
She said the last word with a raise of her eyebrows, and I flushed, lowering my coffee until it rested on my knee.
“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” I admitted, glancing around us to make sure he wasn’t around. I couldn’t tell her that I barely knew him, that I wanted to, that I knew more than I should because I’d snooped already and now I couldn’t stop. “He’s just… his mind is complicated. Sometimes I read just to know him more.”
“I know it seems impossible, but you have to have patience, Cooper.”
I felt like I was getting a scolding from a mother I’d never had, and I dropped my head.
“There may be things he hasn’t told you yet. Hell, there may be things he will never tell you. But you don’t get to decide which thoughts are which, or when you get to learn more about him, or when that trust goes deeper than where it is already. You only get to be there for the ride, holding on, showing him you’re not going anywhere. And every now and then, you’ll get to see inside him — really see inside him — and you’ll cherish it. And your love will grow. And you’ll realize why you waited.”
I nodded, thumb tracing the black porcelain of my mug. “You’re right.” It was all I could manage without telling her the entire situation, because even though she was speaking to me as if I were his wife, I heard it as his friend — as his new friend.
I hadn’t earned those script confessions yet.
“Thanks, Nora.”
She smiled then, lifting her mug and tilting it toward me from across the fire. “Unsolicited advice is my forte, sweetie. Now, drink your coffee before it gets cold.”
The conversation was easy and light after that, and we were laughing when the guys returned. Glen swooped down to kiss Nora’s forehead as soon as they reached us and Kalo licked my cheek with the same enthusiasm, but Emery disappeared straight into the tent. When I followed, he wouldn’t look at me. He just started packing, saying we should get on the road.
When I asked if everything was okay, he assured me it was, but that assurance wasn’t sealed with a kiss or a hug or even a smile.
We couldn’t thank Glen and Nora enough for their hospitality as we loaded up the car and hugged them goodbye, exchanging numbers to keep in touch. Emery seemed back to normal in front of them, but as soon as we headed toward the car, he handed me the keys, climbing into the passenger seat and pulling his hoodie up over his head as Kalo climbed over him into the backseat.
It was a bad day.
I didn’t need to ask this time, or pry, or beg him to talk. I knew from the look on his face, from the way he desperately tore his bag apart for his journal, letting it rest in his lap, pen at the ready.
So, I fired up the engine, ready to drive in silence. But before we pulled away, I reached out with a shaky hand, my cold fingers finding his wrist.
He stiffened.
When he didn’t pull away, I slid down farther, and he turned his hand up, letting me lace my fingers with his for just a moment, just long enough to squeeze and let him know I was there.
Then, I pulled my hand back, put the car in drive, and we were on the road again.