Page 79 of Starrily
“I have to proposition you,” she said as she sat down, wiggling in her seat excitedly.
He raised his eyebrows. “Not what I expected to hear first thing in the morning, but—”
“I meant …” she shook her head. “I wanted to say ‘I have to ask you something,’ but then I changed my mind to ‘I havea proposition,’ and …” She clutched her tablet. “You said the Bucket List can be ours. Could we do an item from it today?”
Look at her, taking the initiative. Simon felt a strange sense of pride, but also curiosity, and his worries about fading were temporarily pushed away. He wouldn’t tell Callie about his morning episode and bring down her mood. He could carry the fear alone for a few more days. “Go on.”
“The ‘find gold’ one. I was thinking truffles.”
“A fine dining experience. I suppose adventure can be had in different ways,” he admitted.
“No, I want to go dig for truffles.”
His eyebrows rose higher. “I think we’re a bit too far south for that.”
“Not according to my research.” Callie pulled out her tablet. “Different kinds of truffles can be found in specific climate zones. We only need to find a forest at the proper elevation, with either junipers or pinyon or ponderosa pines.”
“According to your research.” Good to know she was thinking about digging in the dirt while he’d been pondering complex life choices, such as why he went with two rooms in the end.
“Yes.”
“There’s gotta be more to this. Why suddenly truffles?”
“Ava and I went on a truffle digging course once—yes, such things exist. She was full of ideas, like how we’d find a bunch of truffles, start producing them, and have a big business. We found none.”
“So one could say you haveunfinished businesswith the truffles.”
She snorted.
“Don’t worry.” He started the car. “We’ll go get you some.”
They drove further east, past the borders of Las Vegas, as Callie guided him toward areas her research marked as fruitful.In the early afternoon, they headed into the mountains until lush, dark green pine forests surrounded them. Callie took Theia in her carrier, Simon took a backpack with supplies, and they headed into the forest on foot. They hiked for about twenty minutes until Callie stopped to catch her breath.
“Is this where they are?” Simon asked.
“No idea. If the ground is right, they could be anywhere around here.”
“Don’t people use dogs to sniff them out?”
She nodded.
“I don’t suppose Theia knows how to sniff out truffles.”
Theia meowed.
“Even if she does, she’s not getting out of that carrier.” Callie put it down. “Movie set, I can find her. But there’s no way I’m chasing her through a forest.”
“Well, then.” Simon took off his backpack and leaned it against a tree. “How do we start?”
Callie grabbed a nearby stick and slapped it on her hand. “We dig.”
They might as well have been looking for real gold because three hours later, they still hadn’t found any.
“They should be near the surface.” Callie crawled on all fours, her knees and hands dark with dirt. “Come on. Surely, there’satruffle somewhere around here.”
Simon got off his knees and sat, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. The area around them looked like a bunch of moles had passed through. They’d tried five different spots around the forest so far and had no luck. Their search was fun initially, but the novelty had passed about two hours ago.
“You know, if you wanted to get down and dirty with me, you could’ve just said so,” Simon remarked.
