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“Sure we have,” Cam said. “But not to be on dating apps.”
I flipped them off and sipped my beer. My phone buzzed again, and the tension ratcheted in me, my chest tightening. I was dying to know what he’d said. Instead of checking my notifications, I turned the vibrations off and ignored my phone until I got home.
Chapter Four
Travis
WhenIwokeupThursday, I once again checked Fyre for notifications right away. Parker and I had stayed up messaging each other late into the night, catching up on work, school, parents, family, and everything in between. I smiled at my phone, ridiculously happy to have him back in my life. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having him as a friend until we started talking again, but I was glad we had reconnected.
Before I got out of bed, I sent him a message with my phone number and told him to text me if he found the time. My reception sucked in the park, which was normally not a problem, but I knew my chances of loading Fyre successfully were hit-or-miss.
My schedule was a packed one that day. I needed to finish outlining the educational program I’d started the day before, brainstorm with a coworker about a special winter event we wanted to plan, I had some weekend volunteers coming in and I needed to prep them, and I wanted to get out and hike at least one of the trails, something I did weekly just to keep an eye on things.
I pulled my old beat-up pickup truck into the parking lot at the Visitor Center, where the gift shop and my office were located, surprised at how packed the lot was. For a Thursday, there were a lot of people milling around. I made a mental note to ask Faith, our Coordinator of Special Programs and one of my closest friends, if she knew anything about it, and headed inside.
I didn’t have to wait long. Faith was in the Visitor Center talking to a family with two small kids about the different trails. Working at a state park wasn’t a glamorous job, and it wasn’t particularly well-paying, but it was full of people with heart.
I busied myself by going to my office and getting my day started. I checked emails, listened to voicemails, and made notes on the paper desk calendar I still used. When Faith finished talking with the family, she came into my office and leaned on the doorframe.
“Morning,” she chirped. “You look cheerful today.”
I laughed, unable to suppress it. “Thanks. I’m in a pretty good mood, actually.”
“That’s good. I hate event planning when you’re a grumpy asshole.” She winked and stood up.
“I’m never a grumpy asshole.”
Faith snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”
My cell buzzed with an incoming text, and I resisted the urge to pick it up, until it buzzed a second time, the screen lighting up to let me know I had an incoming message.
“Sorry, let me just check this real quick.”
Parker: Ugh, I cannot think of anything good for this ad campaign that hasn’t been done before.
Parker: You want to trade jobs for the day?
“Anything important?” Faith asked, dragging me back to reality.
“Oh, uh, no. Sorry, just a friend.”
“A friend or… afriend?”
I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of me. “The first one. We were best buddies in elementary and middle school and lost touch. We just reconnected, that’s all.”
Faith took a seat across from my desk and pulled the door closed. She was never one to miss out on gossip. “You think there’s the potential for something more?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? I mean, we met on a dating app, but a long-term relationship wasn’t exactly something I was thinking about.”
“That’s fair. Is he hot?” I pulled up Parker’s pictures and showed her. Faith let out a soft whistle. “Dang. Heishot. You gotta get on that, or he’s going to slip right through your fingers.”
“Whatever you say.” I chuckled again, shaking my head. I wasn’t in any hurry to “get on that” with Parker, but I was curious to know if we had any chemistry or anything. It would be cool to hang out, at least.
The morning flew by as Faith and I worked out the broad strokes for a winter party of some sort. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to do a New Year’s Eve event, a winter gathering—she favored the name Hibernation Happening—or both. Either way, we came up with a lot of great ideas to pitch to our boss, who was the head of the state park system in Virginia. Over lunch, I found a few minutes—and enough cell signal—to send Parker a few messages, telling him about the Hibernation Happening and my planned afternoon hike. He made me agree to take photos that actually had me in them and I promised I would.
The hike was only two miles, one of our shorter loop trails. It followed the north bank of our river, walking west for a while before turning north and running into the woods a little way before looping the hiker back to the Visitor Center. I took pictures of anything that looked like it needed repair, including a broken directional sign, and carried out some trash I picked up along the way. There were bear tracks in fresh mud near the farthest point of the loop, which I worried meant that our resident bear, Arthur, was getting up to no good again. Arthur had a tendency to wander into human areas more than he should, and was starting to be a nuisance, which I worried meant he’d need to be relocated, or worse, euthanized. As I headed back, I also snapped a few photos of myself, selfies with backdrops as interesting as I could find.
When I returned, I met with our volunteers and explained to them which trails needed the most TLC. They were going to take chainsaws and remove dead trees obstructing a trail we had closed down after a bad storm. By the time I’d given them directions and gotten back to my office, I was wiped out, so I locked up and left a little early. The next day was a day off, and I was looking forward to sleeping in.
