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Is this a fling?
Is that how she sees it? I’ve heard about people having flings before. Short-term romances that burn hot then fizzle to nothing. Maybe that’s what she thinks is happening between us.
It felt so good to hold her in my arms when we went to sleep last night. To feel her warmth, to listen to her breathing become steady and soft as she dozed off. But that was out away from everything else.
Away fromlifeas both of us know it.
For all I know, all this is going to evaporate into nothing the minute we get back to Silver Creek.
Or even before then.
We’re on day four of this crazy retreat thing, now—this bubble we’ve been living in.
Tomorrow’s the last day.
We’re supposed to have some sort of fake fight.
I’m supposed to ask Danielle out.
I don’t want to, though.
If I'm going to tell Olivia how I feel about what’s happening between us, it better be today. Maybe this helicopter ride will help pave the way.
I’m going to need all the help I can get.
These past couple of days have gotten me to open up a little. But a few frank conversations are nothing compared to actually baring my soul. And that’s what it will feel like, to tell Olivia I want to be with her. It’s going to feel like removing the plateof armor I’ve worn over my chest for years, risking a wound straight to the heart. Am I going to be able to do it? I work the controls to lower our elevation once we get to Two Forks, a little town between Desolation Valley and Farmdale.
“See over there?” I point toward the place where the ribbon of glistening black water far below divides into two streams. “That’s what gives this little town its name. My grandpa told me that when folks were first settling down here, they thought about naming it Rockland, but thought that might scare farmers off. Makes the soil sound too rocky—which it is.”
She laughs. “Yeah, that could be off-putting.”
She turns to me to flash a smile.
Her, in her flying headset, her face fresh and pretty, her eyes bright…?
Gorgeous.
“You know a lot about the area, hm?” she says.
“My family’s been ranching out here for a few generations now.” I point down again. “See that field, there? My great grandpa used to herd cattle from our place in Farmdale all the way out here. It’s fifty miles when you go over those peaks.”
She follows the direction of my gesture, out toward the ragged, rocky mountain line. “How do they get cows through the mountains?”
I chuckle and shake my head. “Well, you can't gothrough’em, for a start. No tunnels out here.”
“Right. Up and over?”
“Yep, and it was hard work. But the winter in Farmdale is more severe than here in Two Forks. Gentler out here, less wind, less snow. Water don’t freeze every few days, you know? So, this is where the herd would winter.”
I don’t usually talk about my ancestors like this. It feels good to let her know more about my kin. My background.Me.
Even the parts of me I don’t usually share, especially with people from hoity-toity Silver Creek. Feels like a weakness, sometimes, to let people know that my family is working class to the bone. There’s nothing fancy about my lineage.
But Olivia shared her weaknesses with me.
So maybe this is all part of it—this romantic relationship thing. If that’s what we’re doing…
We cruise toward the mountain range. It’s a wall of gray rock with a skirt of dark evergreen trees around the base. Looks impassable, but I’ve been flying around these parts long enough to know the way through. There’s a saddle between two of the peaks, nice and open, safe for flying through.
