We’re making great time, and I’m glad to be away from guitar-playing campers and all their tempting grilled meats. I’m also glad to be alone with my thoughts. For once, instead of worrying about my parents or cataloging my plans for the day, I spend my hiking time in the canyon watching Lennon. Thinking about Lennon. In my head, I revisit our make-out session from the night before and throw some additional fantasies into the mix that are 50 percent dirtier.
But by midday, my energy wanes. Not even filthy thoughts can sustain me. I’m sore and tired, and I just want to drop on the ground and sleep. “I need to stop,” I tell Lennon.
He glances at me, brows knitting together. “You all right?”
“Just tired.”
“Me too, actually. Come here,” he says, gesturing for me to come closer. “I want to check on your hives.”
“You just want to gawk at my deformity,” I tell him as he lifts the hem of my shirt to reveal a sliver of my stomach. The skin there is speckled with raised, pink bumps, but the bigger wheals are breaking up. “So sexy, right?”
“The sexiest,” Lennon agrees, running the backs of his fingers over the puffy welts. “Itchy?”
“I’m not sure. It’s hard to concentrate on feeling bad when you’re feeling me up.”
His lips curl at the corners. “Are you saying I’ve got magic hands, like Jesus?”
“Are you saying I’m a leper?”
He tugs the edge of my shirt back into place. “Totally. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Please stay away from me and definitely don’t kiss me.”
“Got it.”
“That was supposed to be reverse psychology.”
“I know. I was just realizing something.”
“Oh? What, pray tell?”
“You’re the only person besides Joy who isn’t afraid to touch my hives.”
“They aren’t contagious. And if you think a few splotches on your skin are going to stop me from touching you with my magic healing hands after what we did last night, think again.”
“Good. I mean, uh . . .”
“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” he says.
Am I blushing? My ears feel hot. And a few other parts of my body.
We never did a lot of flirting last fall. It wasn’t like this. We were friends in the daytime, make-out partners by night, and we managed both the secrecy of our relationship and this strange new world we were exploring together by keeping things separate.
Now there’s a different energy. A thrilling kind of tension.
I know I’m not the only one feeling this new energy between us. I’ve caught him sneaking glances at me out of the corner of his eyes, as if he’s trying to measure me. Study me. It’s exciting and maddening, and I feel as if I might have a heart attack if something doesn’t give soon.
There’s that smile again. “Anyhoo, your hives look a shit-ton better than last night, but you don’t need to overtax your body.”
“Is that your scientific opinion, Dr. Mackenzie?” Okay, maybe I have a little more energy for filthy thoughts. Definitely willing to overtax my body if he’s going to help.
“Gordon told me they had to airlift a guy out of here with hives last summer.”
“Gordon?” It takes my brain a second to crawl out of the gutter and realize it’s the Jamaican man from the camp last night.
“We chatted this morning.”
“Look at you, being all non-antisocial.”
Lennon rolls his eyes humorously and continues. “Gordon said that apparently this hiker, he’d never even had hives before, or not in a big way. But he was mildly allergic to peanuts, and even though he could have them in small quantities from time to time, he ate a bunch of candy with nuts while climbing. And that, combined with exhaustion . . . His throat swelled up so much, he lost consciousness.”
Angioedema. That’s when your face swells up like a balloon. A lot of people with chronic hives have it. Luckily, I’ve managed to avoid it.
And I hear what Lennon’s saying, but I’m more concerned about the source of the airlift story. “You told Gordon about my hives?”
“He camps here a lot, and I was just trying to find out if he knew what kind of grass was on that hill. It’s velvet grass and oxeye daisies, by the way.”
“Ooh, yeah. That oxeye daisy weed is on my no-fly list. High-risk allergen.”
He gives me a look that says there you go.
“And I’m sorry about that idiot hiker who decided to gorge on Snickers bars while climbing, but I’m not allergic to nuts,” I say. “I mean, God. Can you imagine a world without peanuts?”
Lennon’s mouth twists humorously. “The horror. You may not be allergic to peanuts, but look at all the other stuff that sets you off.” He ticks off a list on his fingers. “Stress, daisies, shrimp that Sunny cooks—”
“Bad shrimp,” I murmur cheerfully.
“Bad shrimp,” he repeats in Sunny’s voice. “Oh, and there was mean old Mr. McCrory’s dog. Remember? He licked your hand and five minutes later . . .”
“That was just bizarre. I’m not allergic to Andromeda’s kisses. How was I supposed to know his hellhound’s saliva was poison?”
“Maybe it had been chomping on daisies.”
“Or shrimp.”
“You’re an anomaly, Zorie Everhart.”
“I am nothing if not an original.”
“Well, OG, let’s feed your hive-ridden body some lunch, so we can get through this canyon before the storm hits.”
After finding a good place to sit, we eat a quick meal out
