Chapter 9 Kit
Kit
We had a lot to do on our last day in San Diego. I wanted my dad to come home to some nice surprises, so we stocked his fridge and deep cleaned his kitchen. Then Devon and I baked a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and left half for him before packing our things and heading to the diner.
Devon and Dad ended up talking business after the breakfast rush, including a conference call with Devon’s lawyer, who was drafting their contract.
I was absolutely thrilled that this was happening.
It was exactly what my dad needed—an investor who believed in him, and in the diner.
It was going to completely transform his life.
And maybe it was exactly what Devon needed, too.
Even though he’d said he wanted to be hands-off, he seemed excited to brainstorm some ideas when my dad asked for his input.
It gave him a chance to focus on something besides that ticking clock counting down to his thirtieth birthday, and that had to be a good thing.
When it was time to go, Devon and I both hugged my dad goodbye. Dad and I teared up a little, but I meant it when I told him, “I’ll see you soon.” Whatever my concerns had been about coming home, I’d put them behind me on this trip.
Our last stops before leaving town were a sporting goods store, where we bought some camping equipment, and a grocery store, so we could fill our new ice chest. It was early afternoon when we finally got on the road.
“Since we’re getting a late start, I have a suggestion,” Devon said, after we merged onto the interstate. “Instead of driving all the way to the Grand Canyon tonight, I’d like to spend the night at this awesome campground that’s on the way.”
“Is this someplace you’ve been before?”
He nodded. “I took a detour in this direction for about a week during my west coast road trip. It’s really cool, and I’d love to share it with you, but it’s your call. If you’re eager to get to the Grand Canyon, it’s no problem to drive straight through.”
“No, let’s stop. I’d like to see this place.”
It turned out he’d been talking about Joshua Tree National Park. I’d seen photos of it, but they’d totally failed to do it justice.
It was starkly beautiful, an almost alien desert landscape punctuated with rugged rock formations and the strange trees that gave the park its name.
Their trunks were rough and gnarled, the older trees crowned with a handful of thick branches that ended in clusters of spiky leaves.
When I turned to Devon and told him, “I love this,” he looked relieved.
“Awesome! Not everyone appreciates the desert, but I’m glad you do.”
“It’s incredible. Thank you for bringing me here.”
He smiled as he drew me into his arms. “I’m so excited that you get to experience camping for the first time. I want to make sure we hit all the highlights, including cooking over an open fire, toasting marshmallows, and making s’mores.”
“So, the best part of camping is the food.”
He chuckled and said, “Pretty much. But there’s other great stuff too, like nature walks, and songs around the campfire, and stargazing. I don’t want to leave anything out.”
“What do we do first?”
“We set up camp. Since we’re sleeping in the van, we get to skip the step of setting up a tent, and yay to that. It’s always a pain in the ass.”
We unpacked our new canvas folding chairs and placed them beside the fire pit, along with a bundle of firewood.
Then Devon spread a red-and-white checked tablecloth over the picnic table and began pulling things out of the cooler.
Our haul from the grocery store had seemed pretty random, but now I realized he’d actually gone in with a plan in mind.
After he got a fire going, I acted like his sous chef and helped him prepare some chiles, onions, and tomatoes, which he turned into a batch of fire-roasted salsa. He served it with thick, melty quesadillas that he cooked over the coals in a wire basket with a long handle.
I took a bite and exclaimed, “This is amazing! How can it be this good?”
Instead of taking any credit, he explained it away with, “Everything tastes better when it’s cooked over a campfire.”
He started on dessert by placing pieces of Hershey bars on top of graham cracker halves that he’d arranged on a paper plate. He grinned when I kept stealing the pieces of chocolate, replacing them repeatedly as he told me, “It’s even better when you have it all together.”
He distracted me from swiping more chocolate by handing me a marshmallow on the end of a long skewer.
“There’s an art to toasting marshmallows,” he said, as he prepared a second skewer for himself.
“Some people catch them on fire and turn them into charcoal. I’m not going to tell you that’s wrong.
” He paused for a beat before saying, “Okay, yes I am. Don’t do that. ”
When he turned back to me, my skewer was empty and my mouth was full. He chuckled and stuck another marshmallow on the end of my stick. Then he made the mistake of looking away again. He turned back to two empty sticks and me trying to chew through a huge mouthful of pillowy sweetness.
He burst out laughing and exclaimed, “You have a raging sweet tooth! How did I not know this about you?”
Devon made a big show of reaching for the bag of marshmallows and impaling two more on the ends of our skewers without ever taking his eyes off of me. Then he demonstrated his technique for patiently holding his marshmallow over some glowing embers until it turned a nice golden brown.
When I tried to cook mine, it immediately went up in flames. I shrieked and tried to put it out by waving it around, which resulted in flinging the flaming marshmallow into the fire pit. I frowned and muttered, “Aw, I killed it.”
He used his perfectly cooked marshmallow to assemble a s’more for me, and I thanked him and said, “You’re good at everything.”
“That’s not true.”
“Name one thing you’re bad at.”
“Designing dresses. If I tried to do what you do, everything would end up looking like a poncho with a belt around it.” I chuckled and took a bite of the treat before feeding him the rest of it.
It was getting cold now that the sun had gone down. He put some more wood on the fire, and I asked, “Do you think one of these chairs with its spindly little legs can hold both of us?”
He said, “Let’s find out,” so I climbed onto his lap and kissed him.
I marveled at how peaceful this was as we snuggled together and watched the fire. Since we had the entire campground to ourselves, the only sound was the wood crackling as it burned.
After a while, I said, “Turns out I love camping, but I suspect ninety percent of that is because I’m with you.”
“Is the other ten percent the chocolate bar?”
“That and the marshmallows.”
He grinned and nodded. “Thought so.”
“Seriously, this is wonderful. However, I do believe I was promised some campfire songs.”
Devon instantly got excited. “Yes! I didn’t actually grow up camping, so I don’t know what most people would traditionally choose here. I guess we can just pick a song that both of us know.”
“I doubt we know many of the same songs.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you’ve got this retro rocker vibe going on,” I explained, “while I pretty much only know songs a drag queen would perform as a lip sync.” I made two circles with my thumbs and index fingers and held them side by side.
“In the Venn diagram of your musical taste and mine, there are probably two or three songs that fit in both categories, but I can’t think of them right now. ”
“So, what you’re saying is, you hate my taste in music.” He was teasing me, which was obvious by the sparkle in his eyes.
“Not at all.”
“Well, if we don’t know any of the same songs, I guess that means we have to take turns and perform for each other.”
He probably thought I’d say no to that. Instead, I told him, “I’m game if you are.”
“Awesome!” He gave my butt a playful swat and said, “Get up. I need my guitar.”
I climbed off of him and called as he jogged to the van, “If you’re using your secret weapon, then I’m using mine, too. I won’t just let you win!”
“It’s not a contest!”
“Sure it is!”
While he was gone, I quickly scrolled through my phone. I didn’t have an internet connection, but I’d downloaded a few of my favorite songs, so I cued one up for when it was my turn.
He returned a minute later with the guitar and a pick.
“I really need to buy another acoustic guitar. I had one that I traveled with, but I traded it in when I bought my electric guitar a couple of months ago,” he muttered.
“This is going to sound tinny without the amp, but it’ll have to do.
” Devon stood on the other side of the firepit and began to play.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, because it sounded great to me.
After a few moments, he said, “I give you my rendition of ‘Free Falling’ by Tom Petty.”
He ended up changing the pronouns from she to he at the beginning, which made it wonderfully gay. I thought he was just going to do a fun, campy version of the song, but when he began to belt out the chorus, I got goosebumps.
Devon had a voice that should be filling stadiums. I’d heard him sing before, but now that we were alone out here in the middle of nowhere he held nothing back, and it was glorious.
When he finished, I leapt to my feet for a one-man standing ovation, applauding and cheering while he took a bow.
As he circled around the fire pit, I exclaimed, “That was sensational!”
“Glad you liked it.”
“I loved it.”
“I know we said we’d take turns, but if you don’t want to—”
“Oh, but I do. This is one time only, and only for you, Devon.” I flashed him a playful smile and added, “So pay attention.”
I peeled off my oversize sweatshirt and tossed it onto my chair before handing him my phone. “Hit play when I tell you to.”