“You’ve been asking me things all evening. Why start being polite now?”
I almost laughed. “The scavenger hunt. The orchid I was looking for up on the ridge. Do you know where it actually grows?”
He leaned back in his chair. “The yellow fringed orchid.”
“It’s worth a lot of points. One of the highest on the checklist. I need it if I’m going to have any shot at winning.”
“You fell off a mountain today, and you’re still thinking about the contest.”
“I fell off a mountain todaybecauseI was thinking about the contest. Might as well commit.”
He studied me, and I had the uncomfortable sense that he was seeing more than I wanted him to. Not the surface-level Brooklyn—the one who cracked jokes and slept in and treated everything like it was funny until it wasn’t. The one underneath. The one who wanted the prize money and wasn’t going to say why, because saying it out loud would make it real.
“It grows in a clearing about a mile from here,” he said. “South-facing slope, above the tree line. I’ve been monitoring itfor two years. There’s a safe route to reach it, but it’s not on any map.”
“Will you show me?”
“Tomorrow. After we see how your ankle’s doing.” He stood and collected the plates, carrying them to the sink in a way that made it clear he’d been cleaning up after himself for a long time. “There are other species up there too. High-point ones that most people can’t reach because the terrain’s too technical. But if you’re with me, I can get you to all of them.”
I watched him wash the dishes—two plates, two forks, two glasses. The quiet math of shared space, multiplied by two for the first time in what was clearly a very long while.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
He turned off the water and dried his hands on a towel, his back to me. “Because you were on a ridge you shouldn’t have been on, looking for a flower that shouldn’t have been on the checklist, and nobody warned you because nobody’s paying attention to the terrain conditions up there.”
He turned around.
“That was my job. Or it was. And I’ve been up here pretending the mountain isn’t my problem anymore. Then I find you on the ground with a busted ankle, and it turns out it still is. You’re still my?—”
He stopped. Reset.
“The mountain is still my responsibility.”
There was a word he’d almost said. A word he’d caught and swallowed and replaced with something safer.
I stood from the table, testing my weight on the ankle. It held. Barely. A deep throb flared, warning me I was pushing it. I hobbled to the counter where he was standing, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to see his face.
“What happened to the person who got hurt?” I asked softly. “On the trail.”
His jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he’d shut down—retreat behind the wall I’d been watching him maintain all evening. But he didn’t. He looked at me, and the rawness in his eyes made my chest ache.
“She fell forty feet off a ridgeline I’d said was safe. Shattered her pelvis. Three ribs. Her wrist.” His voice was steady, controlled, but the effort behind that control was visible. “I got to her in under a minute. I stabilized her. Rescue came. She lived. She recovered.”
“But you didn’t.”
The words came out before I could filter them, and I watched them land on him like something tangible. His whole body stilled.
“No,” he said quietly. “I didn’t.”
I reached up and put my hand on his chest, over his heart. I don’t know why. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t strategic. It was just the only thing that felt right in that moment—touching the place where I could feel him hurting and letting him know someone had put her hand there and wasn’t pulling it back.
His hand came up and covered mine. His palm was warm and rough and easily twice the size of mine, and he held my hand against his heartbeat like he was anchoring himself to it.
“I should tell you something,” I said.
“Okay.”
“I’ve never been with anyone. Not like— not in any way. I’m a virgin.” I kept my eyes on his. “I’m telling you because I think something is happening here, and I don’t want you to find out later and think I was hiding it.”