We kiss. And we kiss. Going slower this time. Teasing lips with tongue and teeth. Our breath heating. Our hands caressing.
Sometime later, a canine whimper brings us back to earth.
“Mica doesn’t understand why we’re not exploring,” she whispers.
I don’t miss a beat. “Oh, I was exploring,” I whisper back.
Iris laughs. It feels really good to make her laugh. Though not as good as kissing her. But I won’t press my luck.
“Should we keep going?” I say, nodding toward the trail ahead of us. I hope she says yes, but I want her to know she has options. She doesn’t owe me anything. “Or we can head back if you’re—”
“Let’s keep going,” she says brightly. “I brought a picnic.”
She takes my hand again, but this time Iris weaves her fingers between mine. It’s small. But it’s also not. Hand in hand, we cross the bridge.
* * *
“How’s this?”she asks, pointing to a small, open patch between a semi-circle of pine trees.
The boardwalk is about a mile behind us, and except for a couple of times when muddy spots on the trail forced us to walk single file, I’ve been able to keep Iris’s hand in mine. We’ve talked the whole time, about my tiny house, her modeling days, and where we’d both like to travel if we could go anywhere right now—Iris: the Mediterranean, me: Croatia.
But as we’ve talked, our linked hands have carried on a silent conversation all their own with squeezes and strokes that have derailed my train of thought more than once.
And now I get to trade hiking with Iris to sharing a picnic, and I welcome the chance to be able to watch her instead of watching my footing.
She digs a blanket—a frickin’ blanket—out of her pack, and I offer to take it from her. As soon as I have it spread out as neatly as the uneven ground will allow, Mica wastes no time claiming one corner of it.
“Go ahead, and make yourself comfortable, Mica,” Iris quips. The dog faces her, panting softly, but, I swear, it looks like he’s grinning.
“You can even make the dog laugh,” I tease.
“I told you. He laughs at all my jokes.” She hands me a plastic container. “I hope you like hummus.”
“I do,” I say, taking it from her. I peel open the container to find a hearty sandwich cut on the diagonal. The bread looks artisanal. The cross section reveals a layer of hummus, red pepper, Greek olives, and sprouts.
“Where did you get this?” I ask. She didn’t have time to go to a deli this morning, and we didn’t finish our lessons until almost nine last night.
“I made it this morning,” she says, grinning.
“It looks great.” I take a bite, and flavors flood my mouth. “Mmm. Is that feta?”
Her smile grows. “Yeah, I took a chance you’d be okay with it. But you put olives and cheese on your board, so I figured I was safe.”
“I’ll eat pretty much anything, and this is really good,” I say, taking another bite.
She opens her container, but there’s no sandwich inside. Just a dollop of hummus sprinkled with feta and next to a stack of sliced vegetables.
I raise a brow. “No bread?”
Iris makes a face. “Too many carbs.”
She already has somebody in her life who hassles her about food, so even though I want to point out that we’ve been hiking for hours, I don’t. At least she’s eating.
And as long as she’s okay, I don’t want her to have to worry about anything. Not while she’s with me.
And I just want to know her.
“So you don’t like Cajun music,” I say, pulling the topic from the air.
