“Jack,” she called out, as the boy grabbed the ball where it had landed at my feet. “I told you not to throw it until we got home.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead and then gave us a polite, tired smile. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s no problem,” I said, keeping myself glued to Reid’s front, because, well, I was hard as a fucking rock.
The boy dashed back up the hill, ball in hand, and I turned back to Reid, who had a smile on his face and was watching me, not the passing family.
“So.” He grabbed the waist of my pants. “You’re really crazy about me, huh?”
I threw my head back in a burst of laughter and let my hands trail down his arms. Goosebumps covered his skin where I touched. I liked that. I liked that a hell of a lot.
“Don’t let that go to your head, Bluebird.”
Reid grinned at me and then lifted up on the balls of his feet to kiss me again, but before he did, he whispered, “Too late.”
eleven
WE SPENT EVERY evening together that week. One night we went back to Fisherman’s Grill and stopped by the music store again. Reid had finally gotten up the courage to ask the woman how he knew her, and she told him she’d mentored him through college.
There were a couple of nights I worked late, and we ended up ordering in and lounging on the couch, spending more time talking than paying attention to anything on the TV. I was surprised to learn that once Reid made up his mind about something, he wasn’t shy about the follow-through, and it was especially true since we’d cleared the air between us. If he wanted to kiss me, he did. If he wanted to hold my hand, he reached for it. I loved the way he always wanted to be close or touching, his hand always making contact, whether it was on my waist, my arm, my thigh. And though things hadn’t progressed any further than our nightly make-outs, I was content to keep it that way for as long as he needed.
Strikecontent; I was happier than I could remember being—ever.
That weekend, when I asked Reid if he was up for an adventure, and he responded with a resounding “Hell yes,” I’ddecided to drive us an hour east to one of my favorite hidden places. As we wound up the mountain, I thought back to the conversation that had sparked the idea in the first place.
“I’m learning all these things about me, but I still don’t know enough about you,” Reid said, as he lay in my lap and I absently stroked his hair.
“‘Enough,’” I said. “And when will you know ‘enough’?”
“When I know everything.”
“Hmm. That could take a while.”
With a shrug and a lazy grin, he said, “I’ve got a while.”
It had occurred to me then that instead of telling him the things I enjoyed, it would be a lot more interesting if I could show him. And halfway up one of the North Georgia mountains lay a hidden treasure, one that began in a long-deserted parking lot.
As we pulled in, Reid lowered his sunglasses and peered around the neglected space. Weeds grew through cracks in the gravel, and the only signage indicating there was anything beyond the wildly overgrown bushes was a rickety wooden sign spray-painted with the wordsKeep Out.
Reid leaned over me to look at the dashboard as I turned off the car. “Uh, did we run out of gas?”
“Nope. We’re here.”
“Define ‘here.’”
“You said you were up for an adventure, right?” I opened my door. “Let’s go have one.”
Reid stayed put. “I feel like a demented clown is gonna pop out of those bushes and chop me into bite-size pieces.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, taking out the backpack of food and drinks from the back seat and putting it on. “Clowns don’t chop. They slice and dice.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding. But don’t worry; I’ll protect you.”
With a raised eyebrow, Reid opened his door, and I rounded the back of my car to take his hand. I led him through a small opening in the shrubs, and when we squeezed past them, his eyes widened.
A couple hundred feet away stood the old brick entrance to the park, with a faded green and yellow sign hanging over the entrance proclaiming,We’re off to see the Wizard…
And beyond that, a glimpse of what had once been a brightly colored yellow brick road leading through the dense forest.