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“You could stay with Tina.” His smile is more like a grimace. “In my old room.”
“Do you think Alana would mind?”
“The question is, would you mind? My mom can be a little…intense.”
“I like her.”
“Yeah?” he says, wrapping his arms around me.
“Yeah.” I reach up and peck his lips. “As long as Alana’s okay with it. If not, I’ll make myself a tent on the beach.”
He laughs, hugging me close. “You do have rope. All you’d need is a stick and a blanket.”
“Exactly.”
Kal sighs. “I’m pretty sure Tina likes you more than me right now.” He lets go of me but tugs on my hand, pulling me to the passenger side of his Jeep and opening up my door. “Let’s go. We’ve got plans.”
I giggle. “Of course we do.”
“If I ever get the chance to meet Autumn, the first thing I’m going to do is thank her for sneaking this two-piece into your bag,” Kal says above the noise of the waterfall, yards away from where we stand.
My cheeks warm, but I’m used to Kal’s teasing at this point. “And for stealing my old one-piece from my bag? Will you thank her for that too?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m pushing you in. Here’s your warning,” I say, but Kal’s arms wrap around me tighter.
“Do you want to kayak or swim first?”
“Kayak,” I tell him, pulling my sunglasses from my trusty bag.
The trailer hooked to the back of Kal’s Jeep has two bright blue Kayaks inside it, and the lagoon is peaceful where we stand, despite the noise and ripples from the falls.
Yanking open the back, Kal slides one of the kayaks out and onto the ground. He hands the end off to me and retrieves the front of the small boat.
We walk the kayak to the edge of the water, leaving it there to go back for the other.He doesn’t need my help, but we do it together anyway.
Kal’s fingers slip between mine. “If only we had a rope, we could tie our boats together and never get separated.”
“I have rope! In my bag.” I tap my chest, realizing two seconds too late that he’s teasing me—again. He is well aware that I have rope.
“Well, go grab it, Boy Scout.” He grins, pulling on the end of the remaining kayak.
“Do you actually need this?” I say, meeting him at the water with my things.
“I do.”
Bag in hand, I hand my trusty rope over to Kal, who ties the sides of our boats together. We paddle out to the falls, the noise growing thunderous. I can’t even hear what Kal is telling me. But when he leans in close, I read his body language and plant a kiss on his waiting lips.
This place is magical. He’s magical. I take in everything around me, not shooting any photos, though Kal has taken plenty of me. I take it all in, with every one of my senses—fresh air in my nostrils, cool breeze through my hair, light droplets on my cheeks, blue sky all around us, thundering falls in my ears, and Kal’s minty breath on my lips and taste buds.
It’s no wonder he never leaves this place.
Later, we row back to shore, eat a lunch plate of rice and mac salad—thank you Alana—and lie on a blanket, facing the sky.
Then, Kal uses my rope, tying a line up in the trees, and we take turns swinging into the water as if we were Tarzan. We swim until our fingers turn to prunes and our lips swell with a thousand kisses.
I’d think the entire day a dream, except that I end it alone, lying in Kal’s childhood bed, a cup of tea, brewed by his mom, on the desk beside me.
