This story, as is all stories, isn't written for everyone. If you enjoyed it, thank you very much and you're welcome. If not, thank you for visiting.
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Dad said, "Why don't we get out of the house. No reason we can't. There isn't any traffic around here and nobody to run into. No reason we can't. We can go for a drive up along that ridge where the walking trail winds along the edge. Take our own food and drinks. We can pee in the woods and stay out of rest rooms at stations. We'll be perfectly safe. The cars full of gas so we won't have to stop for anything."
Nobody said a word. We didn't know what to say. It was dangerous out there. Everybody said so.
"Can we take Joel?" I said.
Joel lives on the next road east of us. We went to school together. I collaborated with him with the online stuff to finish school and get my diploma, which I did. He did too. We're not that close but we more or less grew up together, on and off. They were isolated at home too.
"Let me call Horace," dad said. "I'll let you know but it'll probably be ok, Horace is a careful person. I'll let you know."
An hour later dad said, "Joel can come. I invited him and he said yes and thank you. We'll pick him up. I set it up for tomorrow morning about 10:00 so everybody be ready to leave a little before that."
Joel is just a guy. We went to a lot of places together. I kissed him once and liked it so we kissed again then had to stop because his mom and dad were coming up the drive to his house. I kissed him twice since then. Once we held hands at the fair for almost the whole time. I saw him dancing at a hop once. He was pretty good. The girl looked dumb but she danced ok. Then a couple of weeks later the same girl taught me to fast dance a couple of different ways. It was easy once I got started. She was with a different guy.
It was warm but breezy. I put on a mid-thigh skirt and button blouse and walking shoes and took a sweater in case it got cool up on the mountain. Walking got me hot so the skirt will keep me cool. When we picked up Joel he had a Styrofoam with lots of sodas and tea, and ice in big sealed zip bags, and other stuff.
Joel said, "Everything you mentioned is in there."
"Great," dad said. "I'll open the back hatch."
"Yes sir," Joel said.
There was a click and the back hatch opened. Joel loaded the Styrofoam and away we went. We were in an SUV. Very comfortable and great views out the windows all around, even thru the tinted ones. Everything was in full bloom and a great time to get out of the house. Joel was always very polite and respectful. Dad always said he was raised right.
Dad had the radio on and he and mom chatted. It was hard to hear mom and dad in the back. We had a full across seat and not two individual seats. My skirt was a flair out so it spread between me and Joel and he held my hand, hidden under the material. Once he put his hand around my waist. We both ignored all that and carried on conversations like mom and dad. I think I caught dad glancing in the rear view mirror once when Joel had his hand around my waist but he didn't stare or smile. Maybe he was looking out the back window.
There was no traffic on the mountain. We parked where the SUV was mostly hidden with little chance someone would bother it. There's a walking path covered with some kind of stone dust and very small rock chips that goes along the ridge up and down with the landscape. There's places where you get near the edge and you can see almost forever. There are barriers along the edge so you don't fall over. In the summer most of them are hidden by bushes. I don't know why they don't cut them down.
You have to burrow your way through the bushes to the overlooks but just the walking trail itself is great with all the views up and down. Mom and dad walked in front holding hands so Joel and I held hands too. They didn't look back to see if we were. It was great. We didn't walk all that fast so we could see more and that was great too. We came to the fork, which we knew about. The right hand fork went up and over a small rise and back down into the ridge trail. Mom and dad decided to go that way.
Joel and I waved bye and started out. It was only a few minutes before mom and dad were totally, totally hidden from view. Joel slowed down and put his arms around my waist and pulled me in slowly, looking in my eyes, and kissed me. It was really a great kiss. I mean it felt like a grown up kiss, not a high school kiss. I liked it and hoped I returned it to his satisfaction. We broke and looked at each other a moment and I think he did like it. He did it again.
This time my chest got into his. Neither one of us did anything to make it a 'thing'. The third kiss got one of my hips into one of his. We almost got both hips together and his hands were moving up and down my back, albeit slowly. The kiss was that long. He got my hand again and we started along the trail. We were actually on one of the high points on the ridge. Joel and I had been here before and there were some great overlooks so we started looking through the bushes and found one.