‘We’re more making good on my dad’s invitation. They’re out for the market, so …’ May scratches her shoulder, squinting at the sun and towards her house. ‘Maybe not so much the dinner as the “back to where it all started”.’

‘Back to where what started?’

‘Us.’

If it weren’t for the way she fidgets nervously, toeing the dirt driveway as she inspects my face for a response, I would have thought the word was easy as pie for her to let slip: ‘us’. The thought entertains my delusions, the fact that maybe she feels just a fraction of what I do. That would be enough hope. Because I’ve had girlfriends, but I’ve never, ever known a girl like her.

‘And sure, my parents aren’t home,’ she says to me, ‘but some of the ranch hands are. We have a bit of a walk.’ Under her breath, she mumbles, ‘Take my hand.’

I freeze in my tracks at the notion. Take her hand? She’d probably take off my head if I so much as tried. But she takes a step forward, glowering back at me with an insistent raise of her eyebrows. We’ve already had to kiss in public, right? What could this hurt?

I reach out, and gingerly, my palm meets hers, our fingers effortlessly weaving their way around one another. The hesitation I feel at first touch becomes more comfortable as we walk, side by side, around her house and down the dirt path towards the ranch. Hand in hand.

‘No way you guys kept this.’

‘Well, where do you think the Eagle Rock kids play pickup on the weekends?’

‘Good point.’

My sneakers stir up dust as we approach the half-size lacrosse field mowed into the back of the ranch. A fixture of Eagle Rock itself, ever since the Velascos decided the local lax and stickball kids needed somewhere closer to home to practise, the field is quite literally the lacrosse analogue of Field of Dreams, except – instead of mid-cornfield – it’s just fences that divide us from the cows. You can hear the cattle even more clearly here. The sound brings me right back. Way, way back.

‘I was ready to call you a liar when you first told me you had a lacrosse field in your backyard, back in, what? Elementary?’ I remark with a laugh.

We cross onto the short-grass field, with its dull white markings, and May smiles wryly. ‘For once, I can’t blame you. This is the most ridiculous small-town shit ever. I told Papa it would be weird. He did it anyway.’

‘Do you still think it’s weird?’

‘Not a bit.’ May jabs a thumb back towards the house. ‘I’m gonna grab some sticks and balls.’

‘Sticks?’ I stop in my tracks where I’m walking around the goal, one foot in the crease.