Page 21 of Lost With My Enemy

"You edited it," I say.

"Cropped your thumb out. That's it." He looks at the screen. "I'm sending it to Kenzie."

"Jaxon, it's not good. Let me retake it tomorrow when the light's better and I can actually hold the camera properly."

"The light was exactly right." He looks at me, brown eyes steady in the porch glow. "This is the first photo of me in three years. The first one my mom's wall would've gotten from this side of the camera. It's exactly right, Elise."

My name in his mouth does something to my pulse that no amount of itinerary revision will fix.

"Okay," I manage.

"Okay." He sends it. His phone buzzes thirty seconds later, and he reads the reply with a smile that starts slow, then takes over his whole face. He angles the screen toward me.

jax. you look happy. who took this???

a friend

a FRIEND. with the good light and the dream catcher and that look on your face. sure jan. bring her home for christmas

He pulls the phone back, laughing, and I'm laughing too, and the river is moving below us, and the tea is warm in my hands, and somewhere in the back of my planner there's a schedule for tomorrow that says we drive six hours to Regina, check in by 3 PM, and maintain a professional distance from the man sitting two feet away who makes my mother's recipe with no measurements and calls imperfect photographs exactly right.

The schedule doesn't account for the way my chest feels right now. Full and frightened and awake.

Five more days.

My tea is cooling. His coffee is almost gone. The city hums below us, and neither of us moves to go inside, because going inside means separate rooms and closed doors and the version of us that is just a driver and a passenger heading to the same city for different reasons.

Out here, on this balcony, we're something else. We're not saying it. We're not naming it. But the naming will come.

I can feel it approaching, and there's nothing to hide behind.

CHAPTER SIX

JAXON

Saskatchewan sunset is an event. The whole sky catches fire, horizon to horizon, layers of colour stacked from gold at the bottom through pink and violet into a blue so deep it's almost purple. No mountains in the way. No trees blocking the view. Just the earth and the sky meeting at a seam that stretches forever.

Elise stopped working to watch it. That's how I know we're in trouble.

We're parked at a rest stop west of Swift Current, day twelve, leaning against the tailgate of the truck. She's got a sweater wrapped around her shoulders, and her hair is doing the wavy thing again because the Saskatchewan wind doesn't respect blowouts. Her planner is closed on the dashboard inside the cab. Closed. Not open, not being annotated, not consulted. Just sitting there, abandoned, while its owner leans against a truck and watches the sky change colours without scheduling it.

"I could live out here," I say, mostly to myself.

"No you couldn't. The nearest grocery store is an hour away."

"I could adapt."

"You can't adapt to not having groceries."

"I'd grow things."

"You'd grow things." Her voice is flat. "You, the man who lives out of a duffel bag and has eaten Timbits for breakfast four of the last eleven days, would become a farmer."

"It could happen."

"It couldn't."

"You don't know."