Out On A Limb

Chapter One

“Is this a good spot?” Daphne asked.

To Richard, it was less of a question and more of an announcement: This is a good spot.

Fine, he thought. “Good as any, I suppose.”

“Oh come on,” she smiled. “I’m still enjoying this. Just tired is all.”

Richard smiled back, plopping his boulder-sized backpack onto the grass.

“Yeah, fine, fine,” he said. “I’m tired, too.”

The weather had panned out exactly as he’d hoped it would—sunny and blue-skied—with the added bonus of a silky Georgia breeze that cooled his damp skin. He looked back through the woods they’d traversed, wondering how many miles they were out from the camping office. The brochure said four miles, but he had to admit that it felt like they’d been walking much longer than that. It certainly didn’t help that the map had fallen out of Daphne’s pocket about a mile back. He wasn’t about to go back there to find it. Luckily for the both of them, he’d gone camping here about a dozen times in the past. All with different girls, but Daphne didn’t have to know that part.

“It ain’t the Ritz Carlton,” Daphne said, anchoring one corner of the tent into the dirt with a healthy stab of the stake. “But I suppose it’ll do.”

Sure, Richard had come here with other girls in the past, but Daphne seemed to be the first who genuinely shared his interests. Some of the other girls pretended to enjoy camping (while others downright hated it and had no issue expressing their disdain), but he had a keen sense for bullshit. He knew right away if those girls were faking their amusement. Daphne, however, was different. Or, he thought now, maybe she was just better at hiding it.

You hide things too, a voice in his mind quickly retorted.

“Hey, Kerouac, a little help here?”

Richard laughed and stepped to the other end of the tent, grabbing hold of the opposite stake.

“Sorry,” he said. “Hard not to get distracted by all this beauty.”

Daphne slumped to her knees and began tying a knot around the metal stake. “I hope you’re talking about me and not that dumb mountain over there.”

Richard chuckled. “Dumb mountain, huh?”

“I’m serious,” she said. “That thing was a bitch to climb.”

“I thought you said you loved being in nature.”

“Ah, yes,” she said. “But I’m always in nature simply by existing.”

Richard stood and swiped at his dirty shorts. “Who sounds like Jack Kerouac now?”

Together they erected the tent and Richard unzipped the oval storm flap.

“Our resort for the weekend. After you, my lady.” He extended his arm in regal presentation of their eight-by-eight quarters.

Daphne hunched into the tent and crawled the rest of the way to the center.

“Ah, room service left chocolate on our bed” she joked, lifting a brown stone that had found its way inside. She signaled for Richard to move his head then tossed it outside. Richard proceeded to crawl inside with her.

“Not bad,” he said.

Daphne rubbed her knees. “So is this where you bring all the ladies?”

He felt his body tense up.

“Of course not,” he lied. “I take them to the Ritz Carlton.”

For some reason, she didn’t laugh at that like he’d hoped. In fact, Richard could swear that she looked sad for a split second. Then a feigned smile crossed her lips.