How long am I supposed to wait before calling her? Two days? Three? And who the fuck created this rule anyways? Desperation of the male party should be inversely correlated to the length of time, because let's be honest here, I'm pretty desperate.
The next Sunday finds us in a canoe out on one of the secluded lakes in the park. With all the leaves about to drop it's beautiful from our viewpoint. I even brought wine to help loosen us up a bit. Girls like wine, or at least that's what most shows on Netflix lead the male population to believe. I row us out to the middle so unless somebody has a telescopic lens they won't be able to tell who we are.
"Some wine?" I ask peeling off the wrapping with my teeth.
"Sure, where are the glasses?" she asks. I nod to the basket and she pulls out two glasses.
"You won't believe what I had to do to get that basket here."
"Oh?"
Oh shit. Backtrack. "I mean carrying it - was hard."
"I see," she says pressing her lips together, her other hand clasped between her knees. We clink glasses and take a sip. "You're very strange you know."
"Am I?" Well besides the obvious.
"I just-," she begins then stops and slides her watch around her wrist again and again, "get the feeling there's a lot more."
I take a large mouthful of the wine that makes me cough. "We don't need to worry about it right now do we?"
"Can I ask you something?" she asks leaning forward her arms wrapped over her knees. I nod studying all the freckles on her face. I never really thought about them before, how they're like brown paint flicked on her face. Makes me wonder if her whole body looks like that. "Why did you reveal yourself to me -us, you could have just stayed hidden that day. Why come out?"
I'm going to need some more alcohol. "I -uh-," No answers pop up dancing out of the water saying here, yes, I'm what she wants to hear, "I just - wanted to see you." More like needed.
"But why endanger yourself? I could have told anybody, newspapers, tv."
"But no one believed you did they?"
"I didn't-"
"I know you didn't, but people - humans they have to rationalize everything. There's no myth, no magic to the world. Just science and anything that's not proven - just doesn't exist," I say.
"And you're the only one out here? I mean where are your parents, do they know about you?"
"It's just me, my parents are - dead," I say after too long a pause. She gives me a flat look with her eyebrows raised.
"Alright Oliver Twist, you keep your secrets and I'll keep mine."
I scoff, "You don't have any secrets."
"Well, you'll never know will you?" she says smirking and downing the last of her drink. Like hell I won't.
We eat the food I brought but before too long she turns her face toward the sun starting to get low in the sky. The light of it sets her hair afire picking out red and gold strands. "You should probably start rowing us back."
"If that's what you want," I say leaning forward my eyes on her lips. We're not moving an inch until I kiss those.
"Well I'm certainly not going to stay out here all night with you am I?," she says leaning forward to match and wiping the grit from the bottom of the canoe off her hands.
