I could kiss her for hours, but I let her go as another car pulls into the parking lot.

“Anything else worrying you?” I ask her.

She shakes her head.

“See?” I say. “No plan, no problem.”

16

Rachel

Brody turns down a side road that gives way to dirt.

“Were you messing with me when you said you didn’t know where you were going and would know when we got there?” I ask.

“’Fraid so,” he says.

I punch his arm, and he laughs. It’s a pure, rich, molasses sound, and I want to wrap myself up in it.

He drives down the road until he reaches a gate, then parks. We’re the only vehicle here. I think we’re in the low foothills of the Cascades, but geography has never been my strong suit, and I was too busy freaking out to keep track of how we got here.

He pulls the tarp from the truck bed.

“Can you walk a couple hundred yards?”

I glance down at my sandaled feet. These are relatively sturdy sandals, the kind you could walk around town in, or Disneyland for a day, but I’m not sure how well they’ll do with the woods.

“It’s just like this,” he says, gesturing at the ground, which is a cat track. “No rougher.”

That turns out to be true; I get a few pebbles in my sandals, and my toes are dusty, but that’s the worst of it. And it’s worth it when we step out into an open area, a high rock outcropping overlooking a lake. The lake is a beautiful ice-blue color, surrounded by sunlit trees.

“Oh!” My voice reveals my delight. “This is beautiful!”

He spreads the tarp out. I look down at my dress, and at the tarp, which is—to put it kindly—dusty. Then I sit, because, well, dang it all to heck, as they say. My dress will launder, and Brody is right. I never do anything without a plan, and it feels good.

Besides, the dirt on the tarp is nothing compared to what the cherry juice is going to do to my white, yellow, and orange sundress. We sit side by side, facing the water. When Brody puts an arm around me, I scooch closer to him. He’s warm and muscly. My body gears up for more of that goodness by melting.

We eat jerky and cherries and drink water. The salty-sweet combo is so good, I can’t stop.

“This is really great, Brody,” I say, after a while. “Like, really great.”

I get a Brody smile.

“I know,” he says. “Do you think it would have been better if we planned it?”

I punch him. Mostly because his arm is like a brick wall, and it’s satisfying. Then I relent and say, “Nope.”

He kisses me with his salty-sweet mouth. Then he draws back and strips off his shirt.