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“Not particularly.”
Laughing, Tripp wriggled around, struggling to get his hand in his pocket to pull out the rock he always carried with him. There was a moment, when he was worried Zakk would find it odd, but in this new spirit of what the hell, he wrestled it free of the cloth and held it out proudly for Zakk to see.
At first Zakk squinted, cocked his head to the side, then lifted Tripp’s hand so the stone, and its shimmering rainbow-hued surface, was exposed to the sun. There was a mix of awe and curiosity of Zakk’s face as he studied it.
“What is it?” Zakk asked, as he turned Tripp’s hand in the opposite direction so he could check it out from a different angle.
“Labradorite,” Tripp explained, tucking it back in his pocket once Zakk let go. “It’s supposed to help guide you to whatever your destiny is and draw like-minded people to you so you can help each other along the way. I’m not sure I believe it can influence anything, but I like having something solid to touch when I’m stressing out.”
“That why it’s so smooth?”
“Ha. Ha.” Tripp grumbled, until it dawned on him how often he shoved a hand in his pocket and fiddled with it. “Maybe.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“I didn’t, my sister, Brooklyn, gave it to me,” Tripp explained. “It was in this little new age shop she used to get her tarot cards from. Every time we went in, I was drawn to the rocks. I was always picking shiny ones up off the playground or out of parking lot landscaping, but in that shop, there were kinds I’d never seen before. She got one of those cardboard hearts that candy pieces come in, took the chocolate out and put a rock in each spot. All these years later it’s still one of the best Valentine’s gifts I ever got.”
“Not sure if I’m supposed to think that’s really cool, or feel bad for you,” Zakk admitted.
“Trust me when I say it was super cool,” Tripp said. “Chocolate’s okay and all but, once you eat it, it’s gone. Rocks last for millennia. They’ll outlive all of us.”
“When you put it that way, I guess it is pretty cool.”
It was nice that Zakk wasn’t judging or making a joke out of it the way others had done over the years, calling it an old man’s hobby, odd, outdated, or just plain weird that he carried a ‘pet rock’ in his pocket. Some crass fucker had actually suggested it was because it was the only thing in his pants that ‘stayed hard.’ Needless to say, that date hadn’t progressed any further. And people really believed that rockstars didn’t have issues with dating. More like they didn’t have issues finding someone willing to fuck them just to say they had or be with them for the gifts and attention.
“It would be awesome to find a tiger’s eye,” Tripp mused. “I’ve got several, but every one of them was purchased from a store. It’s just…”
“Not the same,” Zakk finished for him. “So…what are we waiting for?”
“You really don’t mind?”
“I suggested all of this, remember?”
True, he had, specifically mentioning rocks and fossils among the long list of things for them to try.
“In that case, let me grab my boots. You’d better put some on too.”
Snickering, Zakk rolled off the bed, with the same energy and excitement Tripp felt at the prospect of exploring the canyon less than half a mile from the spa. The brochure said it was all part of spa property, with a well-marked path to help guide them to the bottom.
“We should get them to pack us some food too. I can stick it in my backpack with the rock picks and digging tools.”
“You take your rock hunting seriously, don’t you?”
“Heh,” Tripp said, grinning his way while he fumbled to yank a boot on. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Chapter 11
More than dirt and rocks
“Okay, so what did you call this one?” Zakk asked, holding a large cluster of gold squares in his hand.
“Pyrite,” Tripp replied. “Or fool’s gold, if you’d prefer.”
Zakk held it up to his face, scrutinizing it closely. “How are you supposed to tell the difference between this and real gold?”
Zakk loved the deepness of Tripp’s voice when he chuckled. It sent a shiver down his spine that was quickly followed by a second one when the man’s voice ghosted along the side of his neck.
“So, an actual gold nugget is, well, smooth, the ore isn’t packed into clusters, it’s more like a chicken nugget in shape, solid with more weight to it. If it’s a vein in another rock, it would be more like someone poured liquid gold over and into the stone. Pyrite is pretty to look at, makes for a neat decorative piece, but it doesn’t have the kind of monetary value to it gold does.”
