Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
I followed his gaze in the dim light and my breath hitched as I saw the glowing red sun rising in the sky, casting golden rays of light out to every side. “Oh, wow,” I breathed. “I literally don’t think I’ve ever watched the sun rise, Carson.”
“Never?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Then maybe… maybe from here on out, they’ll make you think of me,” he said softly.
My breath caught at his words. What he meant was, when we parted, perhaps the sunset would always be a reminder of this weekend. Of him. Sadness welled inside me, but I didn’t want to lose this moment. This beautiful now that would soon become a memory. I managed a smile over my shoulder, nuzzling in to him.
He pulled me back harder to his chest and kissed my temple. We stood watching the miraculous display of nature’s wake-up call to the world for a good twenty minutes, the sun dancing over the mountains as it creeped higher in the sky, the vivid reds and whites of the canyon on full display. It was breathtaking. When the whole sun was showing over the horizon and the landscape was bathed in light, Carson pulled my hand and we got back in the car.
Ten minutes later, after paying at the pay booth, we pulled into the parking lot at the Red Rock Canyon Visitor Center. Carson went to the trunk and grabbed a backpack that I hadn’t even noticed him putting in as we got into the car in the Bellagio parking garage.
“No rope and shovel in there, I hope,” I said, looking at his backpack with mock suspicion.
He laughed. “No, buttercup. Just some bottled water.”
“Whew.”
He took my hand and we began walking toward one of the trailheads.
The landscape was mountainous and rocky, the colors bursting all around me as the day grew lighter and lighter.
The rock formations in the distance were rusty red, the cacti bright green, and various colors of desert wildflowers were sprinkled beside the trail. The orangy-red, glowing sun in the distance was a backdrop for the beauty all around us. I was struck by how vivid everything was. Las Vegas had manufactured glitz—in spades—but this was a kind of radiance too and I marveled at it.
We walked along in silence for a little while. I was fully awake now, watching the amazing view of Carson’s muscular backside in a pair of khaki shorts moving up the trail in front of me. It was as awe-inspiring as the natural wonder around me and I smiled to myself, drawing in a big breath of dry desert air.
After a little bit, we started chatting. I told him about my sisters, Julia and Audrey, both younger than me. I talked about my dad, how he was still a cop but was planning on retiring in the next couple of years. I described what it had been like to grow up in the Midwest, in the same house all my life, and what it was like to leave Ohio for the first time at eighteen years old.
I told him about my best friend Abby and her boyfriend Brian and how Brian went to Georgetown with me. I described the night I had introduced them at a school function I had dragged Abby to.
He talked about what it had been like to grow up in Los Angeles, staying in the same city but moving around constantly. He told me about his best friend and roommate, Dylan, who was his snowboarding partner-in-crime and was finishing up his final semester at a computer-programming technical school. Carson said that Dylan was such a computer genius that he could have taught the classes himself, but in order to get a decent-paying job, he needed the degree.
We talked about everything and nothing, filling each other in on our lives. There was something about talking as we walked, looking ahead at the trail and not at each other, that made it feel like we could say anything. The boundaries naturally in place when looking someone in the eye were gone, and it seemed even easier to open up. To me, it felt like our own private place away from the world—there, it was just me and him, our own stories, what we liked, what we felt, and absolutely nothing else.
I was shocked at how quickly time was going by as we walked and chatted. I glanced at my cell phone ,in the pocket of my sweatshirt, now tied around my waist, and it was already seven thirty. We stopped and he took a couple bottles of water out of the backpack, and we took long drinks from them.
When he offered me a granola bar, I asked, “Where’d you get these?”
“Vending machine when I woke up this morning,” he said. “Always prepared, buttercup.”
“Lucky for me,” I said, eyeing him. “Why do you call me buttercup?”