I stopped at the edge of her firelight.
“I was going to drive by,” I said. “Make sure you got here.”
“And then you got out of the truck.”
“And then I got out of the truck.”
She looked at me a beat. Then she lifted her hand and pointed at the second camp chair across from her on the other side of the fire ring.
I sat.
She closed her paperback over a finger to mark her place and set it on the log next to her phone. Then she picked up an enamel mug from the rock by her foot. There was a small camp stove behind her with a coffee pot on it, still hot, judging by the steam coming off the spout.
“Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She poured a second mug and handed it across the fire ring. Our fingers brushed on the handle. Hers were warm. I took the mug and didn’t drink from it for a minute.
We didn’t say a lot for a while. The fire popped. Up the creek, I could hear water moving over stone. She had a quiet that wasn’t awkward. She didn’t fill it.
“You picked a good site,” I said.
“I scouted it on my way in.”
“Most folks who camp around here use the overlook up Mountain Road.”
“I know. I read about it. I wanted the creek.”
“Fair.”
She drank her coffee. I drank mine. It was strong, made with creek water she’d filtered herself, judging by the gravity filter hanging from a low branch behind her.
After a while she said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t look at me when she spoke. She stared at the fire.
“I came up here because my numbers stalled.”
I waited.
“I do outdoor content. Apparel brand. The deal is contingent—they renew quarterly based on engagement, and engagement isn’t where it needs to be. Hasn’t been for three months. I’ve been making content out of my apartment in Charlotte and the trails twenty minutes from my apartment in Charlotte, and a state park I’ve shot at four times this year. I keep telling myself I’m still building a following. I’m not, right now. I’m holding one. Barely. So I told my brand I had a Wildwood Valley trip planned and I packed my car and drove up here without an itinerary because I thought maybe if I just went somewhere real, I’d remember what I’m actually doing this for.”
She stopped. Drank her coffee.
She hadn’t looked at me the whole time she was talking.
I didn’t say anything for a beat. I didn’t want to come at it with a fix. A fix wouldn’t have helped. I sat with it. Watched the fire. Drank my coffee.
After a minute I said, “I built the barn behind The Soda Jerk.”
She turned her head and looked at me.
“West needed more freezer storage for the summer,” I said. “I framed it the spring before last. Pole barn, sixteen by twenty, on a slab. Took me about three weekends.”
She was still watching me.
