Page 43 of The Lovers
Julia grabs my hand in a loose hold, but my fingers close willingly, brushing the tips over her knuckles, holding on.
“Go!”
We both run.
Chapter Sixteen
Julia
We’re huddled together against the craggy body of a Joshua tree. Kit keeps turning on the flashlight, quickly checking the ground, turning it back off.
“I don’t think it was a rattlesnake,” I say, after she does the motion for the third time in as many minutes.
“It was a distinctrattle hisssound.” She is a mess of restless, nervous energy, and I can’t tell if it’s just her fear of desert wildlife, her proximity to me, or both that is the culprit.
“I think it was the wind moving through that hollow branch.” I point above our heads to a dead limb of the Joshua tree protruding from the trunk. I check the clock on my phone. “We’ve been at this particular tree for almost five minutes and we haven’t seen anyone.”
“I think most of the other teams scattered to the opposite side of the camp—away from the mountains and all the creatures that live in them.” The moon is high and bright, so I can easily see the outline of her features in the light.
We ran together, hands clasped, all the way to the last crop ofJoshua trees before the fence line of the Glamp-Out. When we reached it, I felt her fingers go slack and let go. But for a while, she had gripped my hand back.
I’m sure of it.
“It was the right call,” she concedes, despite her visceral distaste for creatures she can’t see coming. “But I want it on record that I heard a rattlesnake. Leaving that in the Yelp review.”
“I’m sure if the Glamp-Out was concerned about mountain lion attacks or rattlesnake encounters, they would have had us sign a waiver,” I say, grinning.
She gives me a playful shove that I’m not prepared for and it knocks me back into the tree. The momentum makes her lose her balance, her slick-soled boots skidding across some precarious sand. Her hands extend to break her fall against the tree and stop her from colliding bodily with me. Her lips brush the side of my cheek, breasts beneath jackets grazing, hair tickling the edge of my earlobe. My palms flatten against the tree trunk, fingers clenching.
Her small gasp becomes visible in the chilly night air.
I can smell food on her breath, wine and tequila, the sharp acid of that lime we chased the liquor with. Then I feel her holding her breath, like she knows I’m cataloging the scent for memory. She doesn’t pull back right away.
“We should make our break for it,” I say. She nods. Her full lower lip comes tantalizingly close to brushing the corner of my upper lip.
Finally, she pushes herself up, adjusting her braid over her left shoulder and straightening her coat. Her crystal necklace rolls into the light. When she looks up, she doesn’t make eye contact.Her eyes drift over my shoulder in the direction of the tents nearest to the yurt, focusing, and then squinting in a narrow, sly expression.
“One team down,” she says, and I whirl to get eyes on the events.
Maddie and Lisa have been captured. They make a show of holding up their arms in surrender while Natalie edges up, tapping them both on the shoulders and finishing the action off with some finger guns. Coco does a happy dance that gets a dramatic display of middle fingers shooting out from both the captives.
It’s a quick exchange, and then Coco seems to spot movement from the other side of a row of tents.
“Now,” I say. “They’re distracted.”
Kit flicks on her flashlight, casting the beam over the expanse of sand that makes up our designated path toward the yurt. It ends at a large boulder formation just on the opposite side of the building. The light reveals a few small rocks working their way up onto the surface of the sand that we will need to avoid, but no sign of rattlesnakes or other creatures of the night.
“One, two,” she says, turning off the light. “Three.”
We launch out, guided only by the moonlight. The bouncing flashlight beam would definitely give our movements away. They’d see us, and instead of regrouping at the boulder before making our final run, we’d just have to break for the yurt and hope we’re faster than they are. My lungs burn already from the exertion. I squint to make out the rocks in the way, sidestepping one just as Kit screeches, “I swear to God something just brushed by my calf—holy shit, was that a possum???”
I let out a howl laugh, and she growls profanity in reply. “A possum in the desert? That’s a new one.”
It’s not like old times. Not even close. But still, it all feels achingly familiar.
I never had to drag her along in the past, despite her aversion to things like snakes, or heights, or humidity (“My hair cosplays as Ms. Frizzle in a swamp at the concept of moisture in the air”), she wanted the rush of adrenaline that came with taking risks as much as I did. Maybe even more. Whatever has changed since the last time we saw each other, that desire seems to remain in her, even if it’s been mostly squashed out of me. She would leap headfirst, ask questions later, and almost always have a bunch of mini freak-outs along the way. Emotions like fear or pleasure were to be felt, not withheld.
That is, until the last time she leaped and she became terrified of falling.
