Page 65 of Anywhere with You
Cara grinned. “We could’ve been ditching them and going on adventures, this whole time.”
“We could’ve gone to see the boiling fish in Yellowstone.”
Cara seemed like she was about to correct me, then just shook her head. “We can still do that. Barbados, too, like Doug recommended. It was a very good suggestion. And we’ll try Muir Woods again, sometime.”
“Definitely,” I agreed, then bumped her shoulder with mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you, when I first found out about Bridget and Lorenzo.”
“It’s okay,” Cara said. “I knew. I mean, we found out around the same time, so it didn’t make a difference.”
“Still. I wish I’d been there for you.”
“We weren’t that kind of friends then, Honey. But we are now, aren’t we?”
I grinned and hugged her, lifting her inches out of the water, squeezing so hard that she squealed, then laughed.
And I…well, I fought to stay on friendship mode and not focus on the feel of her body against mine, the way my hands slid across her wet skin as I reluctantly let her go.
The dream I’d had about us had lingered, deepening into fantasies that were so much more than that. I didn’t just want a night with Cara, though I thought about it so much it bordered on meditation. I wanted her friendship, her conversation, her road trips, her morning breath, her bad music. I wanted it all, and I wanted it enough to wait, enough to hope, that someday she’d want it, too.
Chapter Twenty-five
We had taken turns recording each other and the beautiful hot springs throughout the evening. I knew that you could never tell the whole story from what you saw on social media, but as often as we’d done this, taking short bits of video to share our experiences, I never felt like I was faking or acting for the camera. And it seemed like Cara felt the same.
Often enough, it gave me the impetus to say out loud what I was already thinking.
Granted, I didn’t often refer to swimming holes asCara soup. But the steam rising over the water had thickened as the sun began to set, and the bowl-like shape that the trickling water had carved out here made a perfect cooking pot.
Cara rolled her eyes when I said it and lifted up a palm full of water, which I drank, pressing my lips to her hand.
“Ew,” she said, laughing. “Our feet are in this water.”
“Our whole bodies are in this water, and it’s the feet that gross you out most?”
Of course, I ended up trying to put my foot in her face after this revelation, and she pretended to gag while trying to escape onto the dry rocks.
I grabbed her, slipped, and landed us both underwater, only saving her phone from the same fate by lifting it straight over my head at the last minute.
I couldn’t remember ever feeling so abandonedly happy.
* * *
Later, Cara went to pee on some cactus, and I returned a call from the music store that I’d missed.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Florence said right away. “Except we’re down to the last ten ukuleles, which is a good thing. Sold a few guitars this week, too. Just thought you’d like to hear business is hoppin’.”
“That is nice to hear,” I told her. I was sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet in the warm water. It was my new official favorite way to make phone calls. “Is Doug still singing songs fromThe Lion King?”
“He learned one fromLilo and Stitchnow. The Hawaiian rollercoaster one. It’s been popular. A couple of kids just stopped and stared. One of them dragged their parents inside.”
“That’s sweet. No grass skirts, though, okay?”
“Oh,” Florence said, her voice serious. “I’ve been on nonstop cultural appropriation watch with that young man. He’s bright on some things, but other times, I think his biscuit’s not done in the middle.”
“Um. Okay. I ordered some ukulele songbooks, but if there are kids interested, I’ll try to find some that are made for a younger audience.”
“Hush up. You can take care of that next week, Hon,” Florence said. “For this week—”
“I know, I know.”
