A Beginner's Guide to the American West ✓

chapter thirty-five

t h i r t y - f i v e

*

About ninety minutes after we leave Tenaya Lake, my cheeks have finally cooled and my embarrassment has dissipated at last, aided by Arjun's touch and his murmurs. Every now and then, he whispers jokes in my ear, trying to make me laugh. Every now and then, he succeeds.

"Hey, March," he says. That's how each of his jokes starts, even if it's only been a couple of minutes since the last.

"Yeah?"

"How do you make holy water?"

"I don't know."

"You boil the hell out of it."

I roll my head against his shoulder to look up at him. "You can do better than that. Some of your jokes are actually funny."

"You're a tough crowd," he says. He's still idly stroking my back, his hand moving on autopilot. "Hey, March, did I tell you about the book I'm reading? It's all about anti-gravity. Totally unputdownable."

"Ugh," I groan, rolling my eyes at him. "You're so unbelievably cheesy."

He grins and stretches, my back going cold for a moment before his arm returns and his fingers lace in my hair. "More like unbelievably cosy."

"Mmm. That too. You make a very good pillow." I make a point of burying my face in his neck, draping my arm across his body. My hand is splayed over his side and I can feel his warm skin through his shirt, the tight definition of his muscles. I trace my thumb over his abs and try not to salivate.

Considering I've held back from throwing myself at him for ten days, I do pretty well.

I only peel myself off him when we pull into the car park of a little grocery store along the River Merced. Driving along the Merced Gorge has been pretty terrifying, the valley dropping away so close to the road that every turn feels as though it could be our last.

"Lunch stop!" Sam calls out. "We're gonna stock up here and then we'll drive a little further to find a nice spot for a picnic. To each their own for lunch, and we'll be heading out for dinner all together in San Francisco tonight."

Tonight. It seems so soon. Too soon.

Rather than try to hobble around the store clutching onto Arjun, I snag a trolley - after he tells me it's a shopping cart, and I tell him I won't give in to Americanisms - and lean on it like a crutch. I can just about walk without utter agony, but it's easier to rest my weight on the trolley and hop along.

"This," Arjun says between laughs, "is a recipe for a fucking disaster."

"What could possibly go wrong? I have stunning balance and an impeccable sense of direction, and I can wrangle a set of wheels like nobody's business," I say, right before he has to grab the end of the trolley to avoid slamming into a fruit display.

"How about you tell me what you want and you wait outside?" he offers. "I just can't see this ending well." He motions to the trolley, which, I must admit, isn't the easiest thing to control. "I don't want to tell you what to do, but I also don't want you to end up having to pay for half a shop's worth of destroyed stock."

He has a point. I'm about to let him take the trolley when Sam comes over, having made short work of buying himself something to eat. He takes one look at the situation, and he shakes his head like a mad man.

"Nope. No, no, no. I can't allow this," he says, taking me by the elbow. "Sorry, March, but I gotta put my foot down."

"Thank you," Arjun says, as though I was resisting. I make a show of rolling my eyes and relinquishing control. "Tell me what you want, March. I'll get it."