Читать книгу Geogirl - Kelly Rysten - Страница 11

Chapter 5

“Morrison the Moving Moose,” Twiggy read from the website at lunch. “It wants to travel overseas.”

“Well, if you win that trip you’ll be going overseas,” I pointed out.

He hesitated before he said, “We shouldn’t hang onto it that long. It should be dropped off in a week or two unless we’re nearly finished traveling. It shouldn’t stay in one place very long.”

“Why?”

“Because Travel Bugs are sent out into the geocaching world to travel. It’s not nice to keep them a long time.”

“Do you think we should drop it off at the airport or the train station?”

“Nah, Morrison can travel with us for a little while. Oh, and surprisingly, he likes blue M&Ms.”

“Let me see that,” I said.

I read the web page and, sure enough, it said he liked to eat blue M&Ms.

“I get the brown ones,” I said.

“To match your eyes,” he said.

“Uh, I guess, though I just like the brown ones. You can have the other colors. If we have to buy M&Ms and he gets the blue ones and I take the brown ones that ought to leave enough for you.”

“Maybe.”

“Too bad there are no purple ones for the rabbit.”

After lunch we went to the nearest convenience store and bought a package of M&Ms. We took a picture of Morrison sitting on the dash of the van with his blue M&Ms. Then we shared the rest of the package.

“Whatcha doing for dinner tonight?” Twiggy asked.

“I don’t know, considering I am basically homeless.”

“Hey, you are not homeless. I’m here. You’re not going to go hungry.”

“I know. It’s just sort of humbling not knowing when I will ever see a shower again, or where my next meal will come from.”

“No worries. Repeat.”

“No… worries.”

“It’ll be all right.”

“Okay.”

We spent the afternoon in the university library downloading caches from the geocaching website. We sat shoulder to shoulder laughing at odd cache descriptions and the stories people had written when they logged the cache finds. Then we had fun writing the tale of our find at the bridge, making sure to note that the cache was safe and sound despite its trip down the river.

My mom would have been horrified to see me eating fast food on a futon mattress hunched over a computer, parked next to a business that advertised free wifi. It was cozy. Stinky and gaudy and cozy. It felt like a campout in a zebra striped blanket fort. And when night fell and we couldn’t really do anything because of the darkness we lay side by side wondering what was going to happen.

Would he come on to me? I could imagine the lecture from my mom. I didn’t need to hear it. I thought Twiggy respected me enough to not push, but I knew the subject would come up eventually, and how would I respond? How did I feel about spending the night with a guy? No, a man. I might still feel like a lost little kid but we were both old enough to be called man and woman. And it was only natural that eventually we would have to relate to each other as a man and a woman instead of BFF. Just the acronym sounded high schoolish and immature. BFF. Who ever knew if any friend was a best friend forever? My friends from high school had sworn to stay in contact. After three semesters of college, where were they? I didn’t know. Friendships were something I enjoyed at the time and didn’t hold onto tightly.

“Gabby, I won’t bite. And I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

Lethal words. And step one in the cycle. If I scooted over that would be step two. Gulp. Maybe talking would make him feel better.

“I know.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. That is an insult to a man. And it’s not true. “I mean… Twig… I think this is a process.”

He turned on his side and propped himself up on his elbow.

“I’m sorry we’re stuck out on the street in the van.”

“That’s not a problem. I knew we’d be doing this occasionally.”

“At least trust me enough to relax.”

“Okay.”

Five minutes ticked by and he sighed. “You can start trusting me now.”

“I’ve never slept with a friend before.”

He laughed.

“I’ve never slept in the same bed with anybody, not even my parents when I was little. They said kids needed space just like parents and they always sent me back to bed. I went to a camp once where we all slept together on the floor in sleeping bags. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to… to this.”

“I tell you what. I won’t do anything in bed that I haven’t done out of bed. How far have we gone out of bed?”

“Uh, shoulder hugs, sitting close.”

“And I tied your shoe once. Don’t forget that. Your knee was sore and you didn’t want to bend it. I tied your shoe. I almost saw your ankle that time, too.”

I smiled in the dark.

“I didn’t know my mom very well, but one thing she always told me,” he said. “Is the best ones are worth the wait. It means you have pride and grit and stand up for what you know is right. And I want it to be right for you. So you don’t have to worry.”

I scooted closer. And I tried to relax.

“I take one thing back. I might do one thing that I haven’t done while we were out of bed.”

“What’s that?”

“Snore. I haven’t heard complaints but I can’t promise not to.”

“No worries.”

“Atta girl.”