Chapter 3

 

 

The swing gradually slowed until an employee was able to snag them. He unhooked them from the cable and then began the complicated process of removing the safety harness. As he helped Reed to his feet he shook his head in disbelief.

“I can’t believe you went up blindfolded,” he said. “Never had anyone do that before. Was it a dare?”

“More like a challenge,” Reed said, stepping free of the harness.

“Who’s winning?” he asked.

Reed and Kate exchanged a look and said in unison. “Me.”

They laughed and exited the ride, making their way past the line to the parking lot. She’d had Reed don the blindfold a mile before they arrived, so it was the first time he had a chance to look around. As they left, he looked up at the sign.

“The Royal Gorge Skycoaster,” he read aloud. “The highest skycoaster in the world.” He looked to Kate with a wry smile. “You should try it blind.”

“I think I’ll leave that to you,” she said.

“Once was enough,” he said fervently.

They walked to the car and she opened the door for him. Now that they were dating officially he’d argued that he should get to open her door but she’d been insistent. When it was her turn in the dating challenge, she got to be in charge.

“Are we going straight back?” he asked.

It had been nearly a three hour drive down from Boulder, but it had seemed much shorter. Being with Kate had changed his entire outlook on life, and time was never enough. He recognized that such an emotion could not last, but for now, he did not want to acknowledge the spark of worry.

“Not yet,” she said. “We have one more thing to do.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Do you mind if we eat while we drive?” she asked, pulling out her phone to check the time. “The line at the skycoaster took longer than I thought, so we’re running a little behind.”

He reached to the bag she’d stashed in the back and withdrew the sandwiches they’d picked up before leaving Boulder. As they ate she drove northeast, heading back the way they had come, with Reed adeptly feeding them both.

“Drink,” she said.

He lifted her cup so she could sip from the straw, allowing her to keep one hand on the wheel. She smiled and nodded her gratitude and then took another bite of the sandwich. They’d picked up Subway and he’d been surprised by her order. She didn’t usually get spicier food.

“How’s your Spicy Italian?” he asked.

“Flavorful,” she said, the word muffled through the food in her mouth.

He grinned and took a bite of his own sandwich. “I have to admit something,” he said.

She took a bite and cast him a curious look. “What?”

“I kind of wish we’d started dating like this sooner.”

“Really?” she asked, her lips twitching into a smile. “Why?”

“I missed six months with you,” he said.

“We both had some things to work through.”

“Sorry it took so long,” he said.

“I’m not,” she said. “For most couples, the honeymoon phase of a relationship lasts a few weeks. For us it lasted six months—apart from when we broke up.”

“We weren’t actually dating,” he said, “so I’m not sure we can call it a break up.”

“That’s what my roommates called it, so that’s what I call it.” She tipped her sandwich to him. “But right now I can’t stop thinking of the last few weeks, and how much fun it’s been to be together.”

“How long does the honeymoon phase usually last?” he asked, his previous thought returning.

“I keep forgetting you’ve never had a serious relationship,” she said. “You’re already so good at the boyfriend thing.”

“I’m still in training, remember?”

“I remember,” she said, pulling onto the freeway.

He laughed at her expression. Over the last few days they’d started a game called “does a boyfriend do.” He’d cooked her breakfast and surprised her at work, much to Kate’s obvious delight.

“Does a boyfriend kiss a girl while she drives?” she asked.

“No he does not,” he said. He reached out and kissed the back of her hand. “At least not on the lips.”

She grinned and took another bite. Then she sped up to pass a minivan doing sixty on the freeway. Reed watched the woman yell at her kids as they drove by, wondering if she realized they were going so slow. Her husband was in the passenger seat, his attention on his phone. It made Reed wonder if ten years ago, the couple had been driving on the same road before they’d gotten married, their whole life ahead of them.

Had they too, felt that time was never enough? Surely the initial euphoria of a new relationship had faded, but they’d overcome the ensuing conflicts to get married and have a family. It made Reed wonder what lay ahead for them.

“Why do you think the honeymoon phase ends?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I think it’s just time. At first you are discovering everything about each other, the quirks, the habits, the things that make you unique. It’s wonderful. Then one day you realize your boyfriend isn’t as attractive as he was on the night you went drinking, or he says something that used to be funny but suddenly isn’t. Or maybe you begin to fight and the attractions just fades.”

“Is that going to happen to us?”

“No,” she said, glancing his way, her eyes traveling up and down his body as a hint of a smile appeared on her lips. “I think we would have hit that point months ago.”

“So what is going to happen to us?”

She asked for another bite and he waited for her answer. He’d thought the question before, but been afraid to ask, afraid to shatter the wonder of their new relationship. But now it seemed the question wanted its own answer.

“We can’t always want the same thing,” she said.

“Is that what happened to you and Jason?” he asked.

She nodded and took the last bite of her sandwich. Then she crumpled the wrapper and dropped it into the bag at Reed’s feet. Picking up her cup, she swallowed and then gestured vaguely south, toward Arizona and her youth.

“Three weeks,” she said. “That’s how long Jason and I were together before the first incident.”

“The first?” he asked.

“He had a soccer game the same night I was supposed to have a choir rehearsal. It wasn’t mandatory but it felt like it was. I told him I couldn’t go to his game and he wasn’t happy.”

“Just a game?”

“The championship,” she said. “They lost and I wasn’t there. He blamed me.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “It seems so juvenile as I say it, but we got into our first fight because of that.”

“Well, I don’t have an upcoming game, so I think we’re safe.”

“For now,” she said with a smile. “But remember, things come up. A relationship is strong because of what it endures, not because of the depth of the feelings.”

“I am but the apprentice,” he said.

The conversation shifted, but throughout the drive Reed found his thoughts returning to her warning. She’d said it in amusement, but he sensed an element of seriousness to the words, and wondered what the source of their first conflict as a real couple would be.

His thoughts were interrupted when they got off the exit for Cheyenne Mountain. Refusing his request for a destination, she drove into the mountains, threading her way higher and higher until they were surrounded by trees and the road had turned to gravel.

Sunlight streamed through the canopy to illuminate the road, the warm summer air pulling at the leaves. The forest grew denser as they drove until she pulled off the road and parked at a tiny, nearly invisible trailhead. Reed exited the car and breathed deep.

“This is beautiful,” he said. “Where are we?”

She popped the trunk and grabbed two backpacks. “The Titan Falls Trailhead.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s not one of the popular hiking spots,” she said, handing him a backpack.

“How’d you learn of it?”

“Before I answer that, I have a question for you.”

He turned at her somber tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Does a boyfriend help his girlfriend replace bad memories?”

Kate’s expression was tight, lines of worry creasing her forehead. Reed sensed the weight to her question, and realized that, just by asking it, she was showing a vulnerability she had never revealed before. He stepped in and wrapped his arms around her waist. Then he brushed a hair out of her face and marveled at the profound sense of unity.

“Yes, he does.”

She smiled, but the expression betrayed a trace of nervousness. “This way,” she said. “It’s a half hour hike.”

Curious, he followed her into the woods. She accepted his hand and began, “About a year before he proposed, Jason took me here. He wanted to plan something special but the weather didn’t cooperate.”

“Rookie mistake,” he lamented. “You have to check the weather.”

She smiled faintly. “He brought a picnic and a blanket so we could be alone at the falls.”

“And it didn’t work out?”

“It started to rain. He got frustrated and we argued, and the fight lasted for hours. This place was so magical I wanted to come back, but the memory seemed spoiled, and we never returned.”

“And now you’re bringing me?”

“Do you mind that it’s something from my time with Jason?” she asked.

Her expression betrayed her nervousness, and a trace of regret. Whatever lay ahead, she’d regretted it for years, and now hoped he could erase the burden. He smiled and squeezed her hand.

“I can’t wait.”

She smiled, and she picked up the pace. Shortly after, they broke through the trees and a small creek came into view. It gurgled past rocks and into swirling eddies before disappearing over a cliff. They approached the edge and he gazed down on a hidden grotto in the mountains.

“Welcome to Titan Falls,” she said.