Page 99 of The False Flat

“Are you calling me absurd . . . again?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“You’re not going to let me kiss you in the woods?” he asked. “There’s doggone romance coming out of these flowers and setting with that sun, but you’re not going to let me kiss you in the woods?”

I crossed my arms in front of me and shook my head. I wasn’t sure why I was doing this.

He looked away and then back at me. “Ever?”

“Never.”

Don’t believe me, Grant. Come and kiss me again.

He took a large stride toward me. When his hand started toward my face, I reached out to push him away. “What are you doing?”

He stopped, opened his mouth to let the exasperated sigh escape. “There’s something in your hair. I was trying to get it out for you.”

“Oh.”

His face was inches from mine as he reached up and then, in a seductive whisper, said, “And I also wanted to tell you that you can’t catch pneumonia from the rain.”

“What?”

I was totally caught off guard as he dropped his arm to the back of my shoulders, the other encircling my waist as he expertly tilted me toward the ground and kissed me like a ballroom dancer dipping his partner in a sultry Latin tango.

I pretended to resist, but I wanted this, him and the “doggone romance,” whatever that was.

Just when we’d recovered what we’d lost in the fall, just when I was about to shove him to the ground and mount him, we heard William’s voice call out.

“Pen? Grant? Where are you guys?”

I hated William.

Grant growled as he set me upright. “Shameless! I thought you said you weren’t going to kiss me in the woods anymore.”

He left me gawking at his back.

William came into view as we passed a large maple. “Did you guys hear me calling? Why didn’t you—” He stopped talking when he saw us, my disheveled hair and red face, Grant’s dirt-streaked clothes.

“Oh,” he said. “Didn’t mean to—”

Grant stepped forward. “We were about to head your way but couldn’t tear ourselves away from that.” He directed William’s attention to the deep orange of the nearly set sun, amplified by the golden trees.

William’s mouth formed an O as he stared into the distance. “No wonder you guys didn’t come back.”

“That and we fell in the brush.” I needed to explain our appearances.

Grant leaned down. “Fell . . . or tumbled in a hot—”

I squeezed his arm. “Shhh!”

“The mountain crew is all set up,” William said, “and they’re taking dinner orders. You can choose from steak, chicken, shrimp, or be totally insane and go vegetarian. I seriously think these people are somehow related to D because they didn’t say ‘steak’; they asked if we wanted ‘rib eye with shishito pepper salsa.’”

“Ooo. What’s shishito pepper salsa?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but it made D squeal. I’m getting that.” William started walking again.

“Maybe later we can finish what you started,” Grant whispered.