Джеймс Паттерсон - First Love

“Well, well, well,” Robinson said as he watched me skewer mushrooms and peppers on sticks I’d stripped of their bark. “I guess you’d do all right on Survivor .”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I paid for this stuff, Robinson. I didn’t forage for wild green peppers and cheese. Now, are you going to gather some sticks for the fire or what?”

“You couldn’t buy firewood, too?” he asked, but he ambled good-naturedly into the brush to find things to burn.

Soon we had a nice fire going, and we roasted our kebabs over the flickering flames. I stuck slices of cheese between pieces of lavash, wrapped them in foil, and set them near the fire until the cheese melted. When everything was ready, we leaned against a fallen log that was covered with springy green moss, which made a surprisingly comfortable backrest. We didn’t have plates, and the vegetables were a bit burned in places, but it was the best dinner I’d ever had. It tasted like freedom.

Robinson complimented my cooking, but within the hour he was raiding my backpack for junk food, claiming to be suffering from vitamin overdose.

“What else do you have in here?” he demanded. “I know you’re keeping Fritos or Oreos or something terrible and delicious from me.” I watched as he pulled out the map, two feather-light rain ponchos, my Dr. Bronner’s, my toothbrush, and my journal.

“Open that on pain of death,” I warned.

Finally Robinson held up a chocolate bar, triumphant.

“Half for you, half for me,” he said.

“A quarter for you and a quarter for me,” I corrected. “I’m rationing.”

Robinson laughed. “You’re a planner, I know. You always have everything figured out. But do you really think there’s a shortage of chocolate bars on the West Coast?” He reached out and handed me a small piece of chocolate. When our fingertips touched, I twitched as if I’d been shocked. It surprised both of us.

“You’re jittery all of a sudden,” he said. “We’re safe here, Axi. No one’s going to find us.” He walked over to the bike and lovingly patted its seat. “Or the hot Harley.”

While Robinson fondled his new toy, I tried to calm down, breathing in that “sweeter, rarer, healthier air,” as old Walt Whitman would say. Night was coming, bringing darkness and deeper silence. It seemed like in all the world, there were only the two of us.

I’d always told Robinson pretty much everything I thought about, but I couldn’t tell him this: I wasn’t nervous about being discovered. I was suddenly nervous about something else.

Sleeping arrangements.

8

INSIDE THE TENT, I UNROLLED OUR SLEEPING bags. There wasn’t an inch to spare. We were going to be thisclose to each other, Robinson and me.

He was still outside the tent, throwing leaves into the fire and watching them curl and blacken. “Do we need to string up the packs? You know, to protect them from bears?” he called.

“There aren’t any bears around here,” I assured him, smoothing out my bag. It was pink camo. Hideously ugly, but it’d been on sale. “Only elk. Spotted owls. That sort of thing.”

Robinson poked his head inside the tent. “Do you know that for real?” he asked. “Or are you just saying it to make yourself feel better?” He looked me right in the eyes. He knew me too well.

“I’m, like, sixty percent positive,” I admitted. “Or less.”

Robinson was unsurprised. “I’m stringing up the packs, then.”

He ducked back out and I heard him rustling around. He took a long time, whether because he was new to the demands of camping or because he was sneaking more of the chocolate bar… well, that could be his secret.

When he popped his head in again, he was grinning. There was a tiny spot of melted chocolate in the corner of his mouth. “Cozy in here, isn’t it?”

Then he slipped off his boots and climbed all the way inside, and cozy became something of an understatement. I felt weirdly shy. Like suddenly my body was bigger and more awkward—and more female —than it had ever been before. I wondered if I smelled like motor oil and BO. I noticed that Robinson smelled like campfire, like soap, like boy .

Robinson could have had his pick of girls from our high school. Even after he dropped out (which for everyone else who’d done it was the social kiss of death), all the cheerleaders and the student council girls still wanted to take him to prom. Sometimes I pictured them hanging off his arms, like those little game pieces in Barrel of Monkeys, brightly colored and plastic.

“I’m not interested in them,” he’d say. Eventually, I’d gotten up the nerve to ask: who—or what—was he interested in? He’d laughed and slung his arm around my shoulders the way he did sometimes.

“I’m interested in you, GG,” he’d said lightly. As if that settled it.

But what did that mean, really? Because as far as I could tell, he wasn’t interested in me in that way. We’d held hands a few times, like when we were in the movie theater watching Cabin in the Woods or Paranormal Activity . And once when I’d drunk three-quarters of a beer, I had kissed him, sloppily, good night.

But that was all, folks.

Now we lay side by side, staring at the tent ceiling only three feet above our heads. I listened to the wind in the tops of the trees and the sound of Robinson’s breathing, and for the first time considered what traveling together would mean in practical terms. Where was I supposed to change? What if I wanted to sleep in my underwear? What would Robinson think when he saw me in the morning, mussed and sleepy, with tousled hair and flushed cheeks and breath that could kill a small animal?

Not that that was the problem. No, the problem—or, at the very least, the Thing That Mattered—was that we would be sleeping right next to each other. Alone. Not even a stuffed teddy bear between us.

Robinson shifted, trying to make himself comfortable. No doubt he was realizing the same thing I was. I cleared my throat.

“Before you say anything,” Robinson said, “here’s the deal.”

I could almost hear my heart doing a tiny shuffling dance.

“Stealing is—well, it’s not a good thing, Axi, but it’s not necessarily that bad, either. I mean, we’re taking good care of the bike. And this guy’s going to get it back.”

That dancing ticker of mine slowed. I’d thought we were going to talk about us . Honestly, I was already over the stealing. Regret is a waste of time , my mom used to say. She’d served up that platitude a lot before she split town. Maybe it made her feel better about leaving.

“And if for some reason he doesn’t get it back,” Robinson went on, “his insurance covers the loss and he gets a brand-new one.”

He made it sound so simple. And maybe it was. In some ways it was simpler than talking about us .

Robinson rolled over so he was facing me. His nose, I noticed, was sunburned. His chin was covered in faint dark stubble. I watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. Our eyes met, but I quickly looked away.

He reached out and brushed a piece of hair from my forehead. I held my breath.

Suddenly I understood that running away was all the thrill I could stand today. If Robinson touched any other part of me, I might explode into a million pieces.

But he didn’t touch me again. He smiled. “Sweet dreams, Axi Moore,” he said softly. Then he rolled back over.

Inside I ached a little, but I wasn’t sure what for.

9

I STARED INTO THE DARKNESS FOR A long time, feeling the contrast between the cold, hard ground beneath me and the soft warmth of Robinson beside me. Thoughts raced through my mind endlessly: What if Robinson and I get caught? Or if we chicken out and go back home? Or if we keep on and each night lie side by side, chaste as children? If we kiss? If we whisper the word love, or if it remains unsaid forever?