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On paper, it had sounded pretty sweet, if he did say so himself—a nice, quiet, scenic stroll through the Pines, just the two of them, none of the others’ yammering or arguing to ruin the ambience of the woods. They would have some kind of peace, so help him God, because he was going for a certain mood, and that mood was a romantic one.
So obviously it only made sense that something would go sideways.
“Well this is just fucking peachy.” The wind was so strong that Josh literally found himself turned around by it, one hand clamping down on the brim of his beanie, the other yanking the open neck of his vest closed. He had to figure most of his voice had been swallowed up by the gust, but Sam’s laughter told him otherwise.
“You’re such a baby!” she called over the wind, similarly holding her hat down over her ears to keep it from flying away. In that moment she was his perfect opposite, beaming widely as a few wisps of hair whipped at her face, cheeks bright from being buffeted by the wind. “It’ll die down in a second, you whiner!”
And, as though she and Mother Nature had some kind of understanding going on, it did die down, the wooded path going silent once more.
Sam dropped her hands to her sides and they made a fwump sound against her many, many layers. “Now was that really so bad?” she asked, using a cozening, teasing voice that he couldn’t even pretend he didn’t like.
“I, Samantha,” Josh began, mimicking the slow curl of her drawl, “Am what professionals refer to as ‘an indoor pet.’”
She laughed outright, though really it was more of a scoff than anything else. “An indoor pet, huh? That’s a new one.”
“I was meant to spend my life within the confines of walls. I thrive in warmer, darker, stuffier climates than…” he paused, gesturing towards the snowy landscape around them, “…this.”
“Uh huh,” Sam said, quirking an eyebrow. “You do know you just described yourself in pretty much the same way I’d describe a mushroom, right?”
Oh, come on. She had to know better than that. How long had she known him? And she was going to throw him a softball like that? “Yeah, well, the parallels abound, Sammy.”
“Really.”
“Mhm,” he hummed as they continued down the path, taking the opportunity to take her hand in his. “See, I too am a, uh,” he slid his eyes to hers in a calculated sidelong glance. “…fun guy.”
She groaned (but he knew it was absolutely just for show), reaching across herself with her other hand to land a weak smack on the front of his padded vest. The hand enveloped by his showed no sign of pulling away though, mysteriously enough…if anything, he thought he could feel her fingers tighten around his. “That was bad,” she said flatly. “Like…exceptionally bad. Even for you.”
Josh raised his shoulders in a self-satisfied shrug. “I thought it was pretty good.”
“Well it wasn’t. That’s the sort of crap I’d expect from Chris, maybe, but I really thought you were better than that.”
“If I’ve done anything to ever lead you to believe I’m better than that, Sammy, then let me be the first to apologize. Clearly I’ve given you the wrong impression.”
“Ha ha.” The snow crunched under their boots as they walked, the canopy of pine needles above them dampening the sound into something nostalgic and soft around the edges. Sam took it upon herself to swing their knotted hands a bit with each step. “If you hate the outdoors so much, wise guy, then I gotta say, you being the one to suggest a walk—”
He cleared his throat to interrupt her. “Fairly sure my exact phrasing was ‘stroll,’ actually.”
“Oh, well excuse me—suggesting a stroll—”
“Thank you.”
“—was a weird pick.”
“Yeah, well…” Using her momentum against her, Josh waited until Sam swung their arms back to make his move, dropping her hand in favor of sliding his arm around her waist. He pretended nothing had happened, still walking along the path with the same unaffected stride…but smiled all the same when he felt her lean against his side and—oho!—put her arm around him. “This will shock you, but underneath my dark, crusty exterior…”
“Not really helping with the mushroom imagery.”
“Excuse me, I was talking. As I was saying…” Josh’s smile only widened when Sam set her head on his shoulder, the fabric of her hair tickling his cheek. “I am an indoor pet, it’s true. But within my admittedly mushroom-adjacent body beats the heart of a compassionate man—”
“Oh please.”
“—some have even said magnanimous—”
“No one has ever said that to or about you. No one.”
“Plenty of people have called me magnanimous!”
“Josh,” she sighed, “The only friend of ours who has any idea what that word means is Ashley, and uh, I don’t think that’s exactly how she sees you.”
He pretended to roll his eyes, heaving a sigh of his own. The air around them clouded with the breath, adding to the (in his opinion at least) cozy atmosphere of it all. “Fine. Benevolent, then.”
Sam clucked her tongue but seemed to decide to let it go. A wise choice, honestly—he wasn’t really known for his ability to end a bit before he’d beaten it to death, so having her there to pull the plug usually worked out for the best. “Yeah. Okay. Sure, we’ll go with that one.”
“And as a benevolent man,” he continued, “I realize that maybe…possibly…perhaps…that if you’re willing to sit through schlocky horror movie after schlocky horror movie for me…I could probably stand to go outside and breathe fresh air every now and then for you.”
Their pace had slowed significantly when Sam had folded herself into his side, but then they stopped entirely; she looked up at him in feigned disbelief, her eyebrows high. “Wow. That is benevolent of you.”
He smirked, “Magnanimous, even.”
“Yeah, still wouldn’t go that far.”
“No? Even after all that, huh? I was sure that would net me some kinda brownie points…” He turned just a bit so they were almost face-to-face instead of side-to-side, reaching down to tuck a stray piece of hair out of Sam’s face and behind her ear, adjusting the flaps of her hat afterwards. “Also? Just saying? If we were to sit down and compare ideal date scenarios, I gotta tell you…this doesn’t really hold a candle to scary movie night.”
The look on her face told him in no uncertain terms that she had his number. It was hard to pull one over on Sam, he knew, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t constantly trying his luck. She watched him carefully as he delicately fixed her hair for her, her lips pursed to the side in thought. Then, for better or worse, he saw her reach some sort of decision.
“Oh no? You really think weird old movies tops a wa—stroll through the snow, do you?”
“In terms of overall flirtation opportunities? Absolutely.” He adopted a more serious expression even as he felt her posture begin to shift. “Just statistically here, the possibilities are endless…we’re talking fingers brushing when grabbing for popcorn, you burying your face in my shoulder every time—and I mean literally every single time, Sammy—there’s a sudden noise or someone jumps out…”
“I don’t do that every time.”
“Except you do, so…” His smirk only grew as he felt the familiar weight of her feet stepping up onto his toes—a tell if ever there was one. Snickering, he slid his hands to the curve of her waist, fingers creeping to hook into the open zippers of her pockets and pull her closer to him. Even with her little boost he had to tilt his head down to meet her lips, but that was just fine by him. Better than fine, really. He grinned into the kiss despite how unbelievably cold Sam’s lips were at first, mentally patting himself on the back for a victory well earned…until he felt an intriguing nip of teeth at his lower lip, surprising a hum of appreciation out of him.
Of course that was the moment Sam chose to pull away, leaving him to dip his head just a bit further down to try and catch her again. “My two cents? Winter wonderland kinda blows crappy movies out of the water every day of the week.” She gave the front of his shoulder two brief pats as if to say ‘good game, sport!,’ smirked, and stepped onto the path again, clearly very proud of herself.
“Okay, okay…” Josh lifted his hands in surrender, still grinning, himself. “I’m willing to put a couple points in the column for the great outdoors…”
“Mhm…”
“And—”
That time when the wind picked up, he was too distracted by the smile crinkling Sam’s eyes and the memory of her teeth against his lip to react in time. Like a scene straight out of a shitty infomercial, he watched as the gust blew his beanie off and into the air, sending it flying up and over the path…until it was caught by the spindly branches of a dead bush hanging over an outcropping of mountain above them.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. They both just looked up the sheer face of rock and waited out the wind.
Sam, he noticed, still had her hat.
“…and there they go,” Josh finished once the wind died down. “Into the garbage can. Where they belong.” He gave her a flat, sardonic look. “Know where this wouldn’t have happened? On my couch. Inside.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Sam laughed, pulling at each of the fingers of her glove before sliding it off, making short work of the other right after.
“Uh, I think I’m pretty confident that no, that wouldn’t have happened indoors.”
She rolled her eyes (not without a heaping helping of affection, he thought), and pressed her gloves into his chest. “Here. Hold these.”
He took them but narrowed his eyes, more than a little perplexed. “Your hands are gonna freeze out here, but okay I guess?” When he glanced up from her gloves, he saw her leave the trail, approaching the mountain wall instead. “Uh…and what’s all this, then?” He’d meant to say it in the best Oliver Twist voice he could, but between the wind and Sam’s sudden bout of odd behavior, the cockney was (thankfully) caught up in a bottleneck somewhere in his frontal lobe.
“I’m getting your stupid hat so you’ll quit being such a bellyacher.”
“You’re…Sam.” He swallowed down the wave of vertigo the realization brought with it, hurrying over to her. “You couldn’t reach that if I put you on my shoulders, so I don’t see how you’re planning to—wait, holy fuck don’t do that!”
Sam, moving with an ease that was nothing short of mystifying, was already reaching well over his head. Her boots found faults and shelves in the rock invisible to him, her fingers reaching, grabbing, and pulling her weight up and up and up. “It’s fine,” she said, turning her head only enough for her voice to carry. “This is nothing compared to the one at the gym, trust me.”
Her confidence was, in a word, upsetting.
“Sam!” He jammed her gloves into his pockets as he watched her climb the rock cool as a cucumber, his own body suddenly thrumming with icy-hot anxiety. “Don’t—Jesus Christ! It’s just a goddamn hat!”
“It’s fine!” she laughed, and if there was ever any question as to whether or not she was absolutely out of her mind, the amusement in her voice answered with a resounding ‘SURE IS!’ Willingly dating him? Well that was one thing. But if she fell, if she slipped on a patch of ice or snow or if the wet rock crumbled under her weight…
Josh kept himself directly under her as though that would help in any way, hands hovering halfway up his body as he tried to figure out what to do. “Sam I swear to God, if you fucking fall—”
“I’m not going to fall! Look, I’m already…ha!” A moment later she’d pulled herself up onto the outcropping, disappearing for a moment before managing to skirt over to the bush and rescue his hat. “See?” she called down, making a show of sitting at the lip of the drop, letting her legs dangle. In her hand, she spun his beanie by its brim, twirling it around her finger before balling it up and throwing it down to him. “And you doubted me!”
He snatched the beanie out of the air, worrying it in his hands instead of putting it on right away. Her sitting on the edge like that had his heart in his fucking throat. If the wind picked up again…
“Okay, yeah, woohoo, you go, Giddings. Now, like, could you maybe look for a path to—” Oh goddamn it. “Sam!”
Again, she’d already found the first foothold, carefully beginning her descent of the rock, and it had been bad enough when she’d been climbing up the damn thing, but now? Now she was going backwards! She was essentially blind! This was…oh this was not how he’d imagined the afternoon going.
The second she was close enough to grab, he did, his grip on her coat positively vise-like until her boots hit the ground…and even then he found he had some difficulty getting his fingers to unclench.
“Easy peasy,” Sam sniffed, acting maddeningly as though she hadn’t done anything more strenuous than bending over to pick his stupid hat up off the ground.
It took him a moment to convince his heart that she hadn’t actually fallen, crashing into a bloody, pulpy mess on the trail. After a couple exceedingly deep breaths, Josh jammed his beanie back on, fixing Sam with a pointed look the whole time. “That was,” he began slowly, realizing only then how badly his hands were shaking, “Very impressive, Samantha.”
“Thank you. Not really, though. I mean, I can usually—”
Instead of interrupting her the usual way, he grabbed her and hugged her close, hoping that pressing her head into his shoulder would be enough to shut her up for a second. “If you ever make me watch you do something that bafflingly dangerous again—” he felt an indignant vibration against his chest, suggesting she was trying to object, “—I swear on a stack of holy Bibles I will have to do something drastic. Volunteer you to help Jess and Emily work through their issues, maybe. Have you give Chris ‘the talk.’ I don’t know. I haven’t decided. But I will.”
She finally managed to wriggle out of his death grip, pulling away only enough to get a good look at him. Maybe she’d had something she’d been planning on saying, maybe she hadn’t, but he watched realization blossom in her eyes, closely followed by something that looked suspiciously like fondness. “Oh my God…you were actually freaked out!”
“Of course I was fucki—you just climbed a fucking mountain, woman! No harness! No rope! No comically large trampoline waiting below you! Jesus Christ…” He looked up into the sky, letting out another long breath before lowering his eyes…to find her still beaming up at him like that. “What? What?!”
“Nothing,” she smiled, “Just kinda cute that you were—”
“That I was what, Sam—worried my girlfriend was going to go the way of Humpty Dumpty? Do you have any idea how long it took me to find someone willing to put up with my particular brand of bullshit and still want to kiss me? A long fucking time!” Sam started laughing again, and he couldn’t help but join in, some small part of his tension flooding out of him with it. “This is why I’m an indoor pet. This right here. There aren’t any fucking cliffs indoors.”
As an apology, Sam popped up onto her tiptoes and smacked a loud kiss onto his cheek. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d left a bright red lipstick smear behind…but he wasn’t especially interested in wiping it away. “I won’t climb any more itty bitty rocks in front of you.” She held her hand out and wiggled her fingers until he remembered to return her gloves. She pulled them on and muttered under her breath, “Big baby.”
“Mature. Very mature.”
When she held her hand out again, he pretended to be disgusted, pulling his own away only for her to playfully grab at him until she managed to cup their palms together.
“Don’t pout! What are you, five?”
“I don’t pout.”
“You’re so pouting.”
He gave in, swinging their arms once before resuming their walk along the winding path, feeling his heart rate slowly but surely return to normal. “Fine, know what? I’m a big enough man to admit there might be a hint of a pout occurring.”
“You don’t say,” Sam joked. “How about this—will you feel better if I agree to watch one of your gross movies once we make it to the guest cabin?”
“Sam, you know there’s not tv in there. We’re lucky there’s a toilet. Besides, you think I hid a sleeve of DVDs somewhere on my person before we headed out?” After a moment he realized that did actually sound like something he might do…but as he opened his mouth to say as much, Sam spoke up.
“Oh man…” she said, sighing way too dramatically to be genuine. She shook her head, squeezing his hand once. Then, innocently as a sinner sweating in church, she added, “Guess we’ll have to find something else to do, then.”
“…shoot,” he agreed, going along with her innocent act as much as he could, given the smirk threatening to cut his head in two. “I mean…I guess we will.”
Yeah, all right…maybe being in the great outdoors wasn’t that bad, after all.