Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(64)
“You want to see the creek?” I asked.
“I want to see everything.”
I took her around the site, through the woods and along the creek. It was only a few feet wide but with a solid current of clear, cold water. Kacey put her hands in it and jumped back with a yelp. She shook her hands dry and wrapped them in her shirt.
“Please tell me we don’t have to bathe in this,” she said, laughing.
“Not at all. The town of Baker has pay showers.”
“Thank God.”
“Just a short, four-hour hike down the mountain.”
Her smile dissolved. “For real?”
“Oscar likes to go all or nothing. We’re roughin’ it, city girl, for two whole days.”
Kacey blew out her lips. “There’d better be some serious stars tonight.”
“I guarantee it.”
We walked on through the trees, the creek’s whispering and babbling the only sound.
“Do you know where you’re going, Fletcher?” she asked, stepping carefully over a fallen tree.
I stopped walking. “I thought you had the map?”
“Very funny. If we get lost, I’m not eating bugs or moss or…lichen. I’ll tell you that right now.”
“You won’t have to. Sasquatch will probably get to us first.”
Kacey stopped cold. “Please don’t kid around. Big Foot? For real? Are there Big Foots? Big…Feet up here?”
“Big Feet?” My laugh started as a low rumble, picked up steam, and then I was laughing so hard tears stung my eyes.
“Shut up!” Kacey said, giving me a playful shove while trying to conceal her own laughter. “They scare me. And they’re real, you know,” she insisted, jabbing a finger at me. “You can’t tell me they’re not. I once saw a documentary…didn’t sleep for a week.”
“Come on,” I said, wiping my eyes. “I’ll show you why we’re here. Sasquatch-free territory, I promise.”
We walked on until the trees thinned, and then gave way to a clearing of that long, hair-like grass, at the edge of the world. The mountains rose up on all sides, dressed in the pale, dusty green of summer trees, no longer the vibrant green of spring and not yet the golds and reds of fall. Below us, the basin spread out for miles, a silvery blue lake tucked among more green. There were no boaters out yet to disturb the surface; it was as still as glass.
“It’s so beautiful,” Kacey murmured, her gaze sweeping all around, and then up to the overcast sky. “If the clouds pass, we should see stars tonight.”
I nodded. “If it’s clear enough, you can see the edge of the Milky Way.”
“Really? That would be amazing.”
I watched her gaze follow a hawk as it soared across the basin. Seeing the stars reflected in her eyes… that would be amazing. A chance of a lifetime.
Twilight descended and the six of us sat in fold-out chairs around the fire pit, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. Talk and laughter criss-crossed the circle, stories ending and others picking up in their wake. I watched the firelight cast a glow over the faces of the people I loved best. I captured the moments in mental snapshots.
Oscar’s laughing face, firelight catching Dena’s earring, Holly’s squeak of alarm when her marshmallow caught fire, Theo holding a hot dog straight up and turning his head sideways to bite it. And Kacey leaning her chin on the heel of her hand, glancing sideways at me, leaning toward me…
I committed these moments to memory with the hope I might take them with me wherever I went next.
Soon, the only light left was from our low fire. The trees bent over us to form a canopy, and while it looked as if the clouds had passed, only a smattering of stars was visible beyond.
Food eaten and trash cleaned up, Dena opened the artistic half of the evening by reciting a few poems: a little Walt Whitman, a few lines from Thoreau. She closed as she usually did with Rumi, and while most poetry didn’t move me, Dena recited a line that jumped out at me:
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
I looked at Kacey sitting beside me. She is not merely an ocean. She is an entire universe.
Oscar called on Kacey to play for us.
“Rock star in the house,” he said to Holly.
“Really?” she said from her chair beside Theo’s, their hands linked.
“Former rock star,” Kacey said. “And I don’t think you can call yourself a ‘star’ if you quit the band eight nanoseconds before they get famous.”
She was right. I heard on the radio at the hot shop her old band was tearing up the charts and had added four more shows to their sold-out concert series.
“Which band?” Holly asked.
“Rapid Confession,” I said as Kacey was digging her guitar out of the tent.
Holly nearly spit out the beer from her longneck. “Are you kidding? I f*cking love that band.”
Theo shot her an irritated look. Kacey just smiled as she shouldered her guitar strap.
“Why did you quit?” Holly asked.
“Not my scene.” Kacey sat on the ground in front of her chair, near my legs. The firelight made her face glow. “So,” she said, tuning her guitar. “Any requests?”