Chapter 22
JOSH
The air up the mountains is so clean it burns my lungs.
It reminds me I’ve been breathing LA’s special cocktail of exhaust and baked concrete for too long.
I take another deep breath, letting the pine-scented mountain oxygen fill my chest as I trek up the dirt trail, following the swish of Lily’s ponytail ahead of me.
After three weeks of planning this camping trip, we’re in the woods near Big Bear.
The forest expands around us, sunlight filters through a canopy of tree branches, and birds chirp all over.
It’d be perfect if Penny wasn’t six yards behind, huffing louder with each step, sending off “Most Dramatically Exhausted Child in the Wilderness” vibes.
“How much longer?” she asks.
Her shoulders droop with exaggerated fatigue as she scuffs the toe of her hiking boot against a rock.
“Just a little further,” Lily answers, her voice light and patient despite having answered this exact question at least ten times already.
I glance at my watch—we’ve been walking for forty-five minutes. We’re not even halfway to our picnic destination. I bite back a grin, projecting my inner Yoda: Strong with the Drama, this one is.
“I still don’t get why we couldn’t eat at the campsite,” Penny continues, stopping to adjust her small backpack. “It had a picnic table and a view of the lake.”
“Because,” Lily says, waiting for her daughter to catch up, “the whole point of camping is to explore places you can’t see from a parking lot.”
Penny looks supremely unconvinced. “I’ve seen so much dirt already. And rocks.” She gestures at the winding path ahead. “More dirt. More rocks. Mystery solved.”
I shuffle next to them. “Hey, your mom promised one of the most incredible views in Southern California at the end of the trail, don’t you want to see it?”
Penny squints up at me, skepticism radiating off of her. “Is there a snack bar?”
“Better,” I promise. “I packed lunch.”
“Did you make chicken nuggets?” She crosses her arms.
Lily catches my eye over Penny’s head, her lips quirking in that half-smile that makes my heart do stupid flips.
This thing we’re doing—this not-dating, just-friends arrangement that has evolved into weekend outings, regular dinners, and now a full-blown camping trip—keeps blurring at the edges, leaving me off-balance, no closer to figuring out where I stand.
“Better even than McDonald’s, I promise. Come on.” I nod toward the trail. “Let’s get over that ridge and around the bend, and we’ll take a water break.”
Penny sighs but trudges forward.
Lily falls into step beside me. “You’re great with her.”
I shrug, doing my best to hide how stupidly pleased I am by her compliment—total step-father material here, ready to serve. “Complaints are proportional to distance from food.”
Lily laughs, the sound blending with the rustle of wind through the pines. “True. But I appreciate you not getting annoyed. Daniel used to—”
She stops, her mouth snapping shut, her dead husband a sudden, unexpected visitor on our trip.
I wait, giving her space to either continue or change the subject.
Over the past few weeks, Lily has mentioned him more often.
Little snippets about his habits, his favorite foods, the way he would read to Penny.
Like she can share the memories now without them shattering her.
“It’s okay to talk about him,” I tell her.
She swallows, eyes fixed to where Penny has stopped to examine a pinecone.
“Daniel used to come up with these elaborate stories on hikes to distract her. Made up quests where each bend in the road might reveal a dragon or hidden treasure. But she was so little, he ended up carrying her on his back most times anyway.”
I nod, tucking away this piece of Lily’s past like a precious stone.
It goes on top of my hoard made of the stories she drops like breadcrumbs, the expressions she thinks I miss, the flinches, the heat I catch in her eyes sometimes.
I’m collecting her like treasure, but even dragons can drown in gold.
“I’ve got zero storytelling skills, but I have shoulders sturdy enough for piggyback rides if she gets exhausted.”
Gratitude and grief wrestle across Lily’s features before settling into a soft smile. “You’re lucky she didn’t hear you.”
We walk in comfortable silence for another fifteen minutes before Penny’s complaints grow louder. The trail has steepened, winding up toward a ridgeline that promises the panoramic view I’ve been hyping. But an eight-year-old cares more about immediate discomfort than future payoffs.
“I can’t,” she announces, collapsing onto a large rock at the side of the trail. “My legs are broken. You’ll have to go on without me.”
Lily checks her phone, then looks at me with a questioning eyebrow raised. I nod, understanding her silent query—we’re good on time and can take a break.
“Five minutes,” Lily tells Penny, who flops backward on the rock like she’s been granted a stay of execution.
I set down my backpack and pull out my steel water bottle, while they drink from theirs.
The mid-morning sun beats down on us, warm but not yet the scorching heat it’ll become by afternoon.
Perfect hiking weather. I take a long drag, watching as Lily dabs at the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand.
Even flushed and disheveled, she’s breathtaking.
I’ve spent over a month trying not to stare at her, and I’m no better at it now than I was on day one.
When Penny shows no sign of moving after five minutes, I crouch down in front of her rock. “Want a ride the rest of the way?”
Her eyes light up, fatigue miraculously vanishing. “For real?”
“Sure.”
Penny beams. I help her climb onto my shoulders, her small hands gripping my head for balance as I stand without effort—she weighs nothing! Her legs dangle against my chest, and I secure her in place, grabbing her ankles.
“Whoa,” she breathes, swaying as she adjusts to the height. “I see everything from up here!”
I turn and smile at Lily. But her expression is tortured as she watches me carry Penny.
Did I overstep? She seemed fine with the piggyback ride suggestion twenty minutes ago, but thinking it and seeing it are two different things.
Did I trigger something? Maybe it’s too familiar, too paternal.
Or it reminds her of Daniel in a way that hurts.
But Lily steps forward, reaching for my backpack. “I’ll take that,” she says, slipping it off my shoulders. I suppress a shiver when she touches me.
“You don’t have to—”
“It’s only fair,” she interrupts, already slinging it over her shoulder alongside her own. “You’ve got the human cargo.”
We continue up the trail, Penny perched on my shoulders, instructing me when to duck under low-hanging branches. Lily walks beside us, keeping pace. A few times, I catch her watching us with that same inscrutable expression—half smile, half something more complex.
We hike until the trail opens onto a small clearing at the edge of a cliff face.
The view stops me in my tracks. The San Bernardino Mountains spread out before us, a rippling emerald carpet stretching toward the horizon, with the deep blue of Big Bear Lake gleaming in the distance.
On a clear day like today, you can see all the way to the desert beyond, where the green fades to dusty brown and then to the haze of distant places.
“Okay,” Penny admits from her perch. “That’s pretty cool.”
I lower her to the ground. She runs to the edge of the clearing, stopping at a safe distance, and stares out at the view with childish wonder.
“Worth the hike?” I ask, coming to stand beside Lily.
She nods, her face tilted up to catch the sunlight. “Yeah. I should’ve brought her sooner.”
My heart stutters.
“Let’s take a picture,” I say, getting my sack back from Lily. I grab my instant camera and hold it up to frame us. “Okay, ladies, give me your best ‘I thought it was a fart, but wasn’t’ smile.”
Lily blinks, startled, Penny makes an “ew, gross” face, and I click, capturing them and my goofy grin.
“Josh, stop making us look silly in pictures,” Penny protests, shaking the Polaroid as I unpack our lunch while Lily lays out a blanket on a patch of level ground.
“Silly? No, we look real. Funnier to remember than a pose. Now, are you ready to judge my sandwiches?” I ask, pulling the food out. “I present you my specialty: roasted chicken breast, provolone cheese, fresh basil leaves, and the surprise ingredient: homemade pesto sauce.”
Penny eyes the sandwich suspiciously. “It’s green.”
“That’s the pesto,” I explain, handing her the smallest sandwich. “It’s a sauce made from basil and garlic and pine nuts.”
“Isn’t pesto for pasta?” Lily asks, accepting her wrap with a skeptical look that mirrors her daughter’s.
“It works great in sandwiches too,” I assure her. “Trust me.”
She gives me a long, evaluating stare before taking a cautious bite. Penny, less restrained, takes a huge chomp and makes an appreciative noise.
“It’s delicious!” she declares between mouthfuls, green sauce smeared at the corner of her mouth.
Lily swallows and nods, surprise clear in her raised eyebrows. “Okay, I admit it. You were right. This is amazing.”
I wink. She flushes and looks away.
We scarf the sandwiches in silence, enjoying the view that spreads out before us like a living postcard.
Penny finishes first and starts asking questions about the mountains and the lake. I answer what I can from the research I did last night, making mental notes to look up the things I don’t know for our next adventure.
Will there be one? The question echoes in my head, a dangerous assumption that we’ll do more.
That I’ll have more days spent with Lily and Penny in this strange limbo between friendship and something more.
I shouldn’t get used to having them around, to the way Penny’s laugh brightens the air, or how Lily’s smiles light me up from the inside out.