Chapter 6 #2
“Please slap me if I ever say no to a s’more.” Daisy deadpans as she stands to make one. After she lights hers on fire on purpose, we settle back on the log to eat.
The desert stretches dark and endless beyond the glow of camp.
As the fire pops softly, Daisy takes a massive bite of her charred mess.
I can't help but stare as her head falls back, eyes closed, and she lets out a soft, appreciative moan.
The sound lands somewhere south of my better judgment, waking up a part of me that's been dormant for, well, a while.
Let's just say my dating pool has historically been…
niche. Not only because of my nomadic lifestyle, but because I have the emotional availability of a trail map.
The map's detailed. Reliable. Helpful, even. But according to my last ex who did long-distance with me for just over a year, it doesn't exactly scream husband material. Yet another reason I shouldn’t be staring at Daisy, even if the gooey marshmallow is stuck on her full, pink lips.
She tears off another bite anyway, making another satisfied little noise. I immediately become fascinated by the fire.
Fantastic. Years of hiking through mountain lion country without my pulse ever breaking eighty, and one sarcastic podcaster eating a s’more has my pulse skyrocketing as I try not to fantasize about what she’d taste like if I kissed her right now.
Nature really does have a sense of humor.
When she’s done, Daisy pulls the blanket around her, staring into the flames. “Okay.”
I glance over. “Okay?”
“That sound today.”
Ah. There it is.
I lean back. “Yeah.”
“You guys really couldn’t explain it?”
“No.”
She looks at me with curiosity. “Does that happen often?”
I shake my head. “No, you’re lucky. It happens less than you’d think.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
I consider the question.
“It bothers me if we can’t explain something, but pretend we can,” I say finally. “That’s where people lose credibility.”
She tilts her head a bit. “So you don’t just blindly believe every weird thing?”
I laugh. “God, no.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
She presses her lips together, as if considering whether to proceed. “I think I expected more… conspiracy energy. Finding Bigfoot. Hicks in the woods running after the wind.”
“I believe in evidence.”
“You hunt Bigfoot.”
“I research unexplained phenomena.”
“Same thing.”
I grin despite myself, nudging her with my elbow, and I relish how I can feel her warmth.
“Look, I get why it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around. But at the end of the day, I do think most people get belief wrong. Belief isn’t supposed to replace logic.”
“Then what is belief?”
The question catches me off guard a little.
I stare into the fire, letting the silence stretch too long before answering.
“Possibility, I guess. Or a willingness to expand your idea of what may be possible.”
I feel her eyes roaming my face. “You didn’t tell me your ‘why’ for all this.”
And because I can’t keep my mouth shut, I nod and keep talking.
“When I was a kid, my parents used to take us camping all the time,” I say. “At least once a month, at home in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, random middle-of-nowhere places.”
Daisy shifts and pulls her blanket tighter. “Your parents were into this stuff too?”
“You could say that.” I smile before I can stop myself.
“My mom believed in literally everything. Aliens, ghosts, psychics. Didn’t matter.
Bigfoot was her favorite, though.” I pause, taking a long breath before my eyes meet Daisy’s again.
“We went on a vacation once just to find him in this area, actually. She just thought the world was bigger than people let themselves believe.”
Daisy’s expression softens. “And your dad?”
“He was more grounded,” I say. “But he loved that about her—how excited she got about things. Sometimes, he would bring up Bigfoot just to see her light up. He bought her books, stickers, you name it. Once he got her this wooden Bigfoot keychain, and she hung it on our rearview mirror.”
The memory hits harder than I expected, warming me as if I’m in the backseat during a ‘90s summer all over again. I swallow, and I know Daisy notices. She inches closer, her knee touching mine.
“We used to sit around campfires like this and tell stories,” I continue. “And for a little while, it felt like anything could be real.”
The fire hisses and settles. Daisy’s watching me differently now. Like she’s really taking me in. Which is somehow worse for my nervous system.
“They died when I was a teenager,” I say before I can decide not to.
The words fall heavier than everything else.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I shrug because I still don’t know what to do with sympathy half the time. “Car accident.”
And there it is. The shift. The thing that always sits underneath this. Under all of it.
I exhale slowly. “Afterward… I don’t know. Believing in this stuff felt like a way to keep their memories alive.”
Silence settles after that. It feels more intimate than flirty banter ever could.
Daisy pulls her legs tighter beneath herself. “I kind of get that.”
I glance up.
“My mom died when I was little,” she says quietly.
Something in me tightens. “I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t.” She shrugs like it’s nothing, but I can hear the old ache under it. “My dad’s a plastic surgeon. Very rich. Very emotionally unavailable.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
She points at me. “That wasn’t a joke.”
“No, I know. I just—sorry. The delivery caught me off guard.”
A smile tugs at her mouth anyway. She’s stronger than she knows, but there’s a quiet, nagging part of me that wishes I could've protected her from all of this.
“He dated nonstop after she died,” she continues.
“He was such a cliché— always chasing women who looked perfect on paper, but never wanting them to stay. He’d draw them in with his money and success, then make it clear he’d always choose work over them, freezing them out till they left.
” She tensed. “He was married to his work. I wish I didn’t have that in common with him, but I think I do. ”
The firelight dances across her face as she talks. Open and unprotected. It hits me hard enough that I forget how to act normal for a second. As a breeze blows her hair across her cheek, I hold myself back from tucking it behind her ear.
“When I was eight or so, his girlfriend of the moment got really into spiritual stuff,” she says. “Crystals, energy healing, spiritual retreats, all of it.”
“That feels less church and more Sedona cult.”
“It was.” She laughs. “But in all honesty, I loved it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “It’s when I first started being open to supernatural things. It was the first time anyone had ever talked about the world like there might be more to it than what you could touch. For some kids, it felt scary, like a monster under the bed. But for me, it felt like an escape.”
Something about the way she says it settles directly into my chest.
Because I understand that. Too much.
“I know the feeling,” I say softly.
Her eyes meet mine. And suddenly this doesn’t feel like banter anymore.
Which becomes a massive problem three seconds later when I make the mistake of relaxing.
Because relaxed me starts rambling.
And rambling me is dangerous.
“So there’s this really interesting migration theory tied to canyon systems,” I hear myself saying.
“Most people assume creatures like this would stay deep forest exclusively, but historically there are repeated reports suggesting seasonal movement through high desert corridors, especially near underground caves and water systems because they’d provide natural cover and resource access without human interference—”
I stop abruptly.
Daisy is staring at me. Appearing… interested. My brain completely short-circuits.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, heat rushing into my face. “I’m doing too much.”
“No,” she says. “I mean, it was kind of out of left field, but I want to hear the rest. Keep going.”
I blink, a shiver from the cold working its way down my spine. “What?”