Chapter Eighteen
March was over before I knew it, which meant only a few weeks left in the semester. When I wasn’t in class, I was almost always at Tobias’s now. His townhouse had become sort of a safe haven where we could just be together without worrying about anyone seeing us. When we weren’t there, we were always exploring nearby towns. I had seen more of the surrounding area in the last few months than I had in my last three years of living here. Tobias knew all the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
He was taking me somewhere special today, but he didn’t tell me where. So, naturally, I was struggling to decide what I wanted to wear. I hated not knowing what the agenda was. I didn’t want to be overdressed, but I also didn’t want to not be dressed up enough.
“Go with layers for sure,” Alex suggested, as I held up my favorite white eyelet skirt.The weather was warm enough for one now, but I knew the evening would be cooler.
“Good idea,” I said, laying the skirt down on my bed and trying to figure out what top I wanted to pair with it.
“And wear your hair down.”
“Will do.”
“And tell me who the guy is.”
“Ha. No chance. Not yet, anyway.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, rolling over on her bed and covering her face with her pillow. “I cannot believe you are keeping this from me.”
“I told you, I’ll tell you everything once I’m sure it’s going somewhere.”
“You spend all your free time with him, and you don’t know if it’s going anywhere yet?” she asked disbelievingly.
“Soon,” I promised. I was counting down the weeks until the last day of the term.
“I guess I can wait a little longer,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Honestly, I’m just relieved that you were able to move on after Bookstore Boy turned out to be your TA. I thought for sure that was going to be the last straw for you, and you’d give up on the notion of love altogether.”
“Ha, yeah” was all I managed to get out. I felt so guilty over the fact that I was keeping this from her that I almost spilled everything right then and there. What would she think of this secret I’ve kept for this long? But the timing didn’t feel quite right, so my secret would stay mine for a little longer.
I finally decided on a white sleeveless top and a light denim jacket. Nice, but still casual. I left my curls loose down my back but grabbed a clip just in case I needed to pull it back later.
We were meeting at our bench—as I had started affectionately thinking of the bench in the park—in about twenty minutes, so I touched up my lip gloss, told Alex goodbye, and headed out the door.
He was already there waiting for me by the time I arrived, and after a paranoid quick glance around, I hopped in his passenger seat.
He was listening to the band Boston today—I recognized the one song of theirs I knew most of the words to.
“So do I get to know where we are going yet?” I asked.
“Not a chance. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
We drove down a familiar road, but I couldn’t remember exactly why it was familiar.We had driven for a while, so surely we were getting close.
I was just about to ask, “Are we there yet?” when he turned around the corner and it was yellow for as far as I could see. Just miles and miles of yellow flowers.He parked in a small parking lot right off the side of the road that I definitely would have missed had I been the one driving.
I got out of the car and took in the sight. “Wow.”
“I drove by the other day and saw they were in bloom, so I knew I had to bring you,” he said. He leaned casually against his car watching me take it all in.
“Can we get closer?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said as he reached out for my hand and led me down a narrow path.
I took a few pictures to show Alex later and then Tobias took a couple candid pictures of me walking amongst the yellow blooms.
“You better delete those,” I said sternly. I didn’t want any evidence of the two of us yet, and pictures on a phone were a risk we didn’t need to take.
“Okay.” He pulled me in for a kiss and held me in his arms for a few minutes before continuing, “But some day, my phone is going to be full of nothing but pictures of you. And Atticus, of course.”
I laughed at that.
“What?” he mocked. “He’s very photogenic.”
He kissed me again, but I pulled back and asked, “We aren’t trespassing, are we?”
He shook his head no and interlaced our fingers. “C’mon, if we keep walking that way, there’s a lake.”
We casually strolled through the goldenrods hand in hand until we made it to the lake Tobias had mentioned.That’s when I noticed a small tent set up near the shoreline. I was about to suggest that we turn around so we didn’t disturb whoever’s campsite this was, when I noticed Tobias’s mischievous grin.
“What’s this?” I asked nervously.
“I’m taking you camping,” he said with an unmistakable note of excitement.
“Camping?” I exclaimed in disbelief. “I’m not dressed for camping!”
“There’s no dress code for camping,” he insisted with a smug grin.
“But I brought nothing,” I said, exasperated. “I don’t even have pajamas!”
“One, I packed all the essentials, including a brand new toothbrush for you,” he said, leading me closer to the tent.“And two, I didn’t plan on wearing pajamas.” He winked, and I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks.
He opened the tent and pulled out a cooler and a couple of bags. I peeked inside the tent and noticed he had set up a full-sized air mattress already made up with blankets and pillows.
“So what exactly are we supposed to do while camping?” I asked.
“The key to a successful camping trip is to embrace the three S’s,” he explained.
“Which are?” I asked.
“S’mores, sunset and stargazing, of course.” He pulled out a box of graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows, and a large chocolate bar to show me before putting them back in the cooler for later.
“Of course,” I said with a grin.
“But before we do that, how do you feel about doing a little fishing?” he asked, with a slight cock of his head.
“As long as I don’t have to bait any hooks, I’m in.”
He laughed as he handed me a tackle box. “Right this way.”
Fishing was more peaceful than I thought it would be. He baited my hooks for me, which I appreciated since the worms looked slimy and gross. We sat side by side, our feet dangling off of the dock, and waited for the tell-tale tug of the line. The lake was larger than I realized; I could barely make out the trees on the other side. It was warmer now than it had been when we first left campus, with just a light breeze that made ripples on the surface of the water—basically a perfect spring day. We didn’t keep anything we caught. He said it was because they were too small, but I think it was because he knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach actually killing the creatures.
The sun was just starting to set when we returned to our campsite. Tobias really had thought of everything from our dinner—traditional hot dogs roasted over the open fire, of course—to coffee for the next morning.
“How do you like your marshmallows toasted?”
“Um, I’ve only had s’mores in the microwave before, so I have no idea,” I admitted.
“Hmm, definitely lightly toasted then for your first real s’more.”He stuck a marshmallow on a long metal stick, and I watched as it turned golden brown in the flame. He built my s’more for me before roasting his own marshmallow a dark brown until it caught fire, then he blew it out.
“Perfect,” he said of his burnt marshmallow. Then he added, “The charcoal flavor adds to the experience.”
“I’ll have to try it your way next, then.”
Campfire s’mores were definitely superior to the microwave ones my mom made when I was a kid.After we finished, he dug out some wipes to get the stickiness off of our fingers.The inky-black sky was full of twinkling stars, and we heard an owl nearby hooting.
“Are there coyotes out here?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“Yeah, but they usually don’t approach humans. They tend to be more afraid of us than we are of them,” Tobias assured me.
After we cleaned up our dinner of extra-charred hot dogs, we went inside the tent. He had hung up a string of lights on the inside. It still surprised me the amount of thought he put into the tiniest details.
“This was the reason I bought this one,” he said, revealing a sunroof. “Perfect for stargazing comfortably.”
We lay down on the air mattress, and I appreciated all of the pillows and blankets he brought, as it was much cooler now that it had been earlier today.
“Have you ever seen a shooting star?” I asked him, cuddling up under his arm.
“I’ve seen one or two,” he answered before kissing the top of my head.
“I hope we see one tonight.”
“If we do, what would you wish for?” he asked.
I thought about it for a moment as I listened to the peaceful rustling of the leaves in the wind and the beat of his heart. I realized there was only one thing I would wish for.
“To be more fearless…to do things that scare me,” I told him. Like falling in love. “What about you?”
“More moments like this,” he said, tightening his arm around me.