Page 28 of Forest Proximity
My dadtsks. “Yeah, how wasChuck?” He shoves another bite in his mouth.
“He was aChuck.” I mimic my dad’s surly pronunciation. “We argued about Bigfoot until I found out his mom drove him to the diner.” I shrug. “And he drank from a straw.”
My dad snorts. “He looked like a guy who would ask his wife to smash a spider for him.”
I snort. “Or like a guy who says ‘righty-tighty, lefty-loosey’ when he uses a screwdriver,” I say with a laugh.
“A guy who would swing an invisible golf club in a social situation.” My dad’s face says he’s already met this guy.
“Wears no-show socks. The tiny kind, like foot underwear.” I scrunch my nose.
My dad rolls his eyes in agreement. “Doesn’t have any—”
“Enough, already.” My mom holds up both hands. This isn’t the first time my dad and I have done this bit. She loses patience quickly when we get going like this. She stands to rinse her plate. “When is your next date?”
“Ummm ... I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything from Marlow.” There are no men on my horizon, thank goodness. Well, I suppose I have one man on my horizon, but Adam and I never clarified the details of the rabbit spying outing. “Uh, do you guys know Shirtless Adam?”
The lines on my dad’s forehead deepen, and he shakes his head. “Adam who?”
“That’s what everyone calls him. I don’t know his last name, but he moved here a few years ago. He works for the Biddeford Land Trust.” He also has luxurious, wavy brown hair, is built like a machine, and tends to not wear a shirt. I leave out those details.
My mom purses her lips, and the sparkle in her brown eyes tells me that she knows exactly who I’m talking about. “Why?”
I shrug. “He wants me to help him with this New England cottontail rabbit project.”
My dad raises his eyebrows. “They’re endangered, you know.” There isn’t a plant or animal in those woods he isn't knowledgeable about. He’s the one who taught my brothers and me to love the forests of Maine the way we do. Come to think of it—
“Yeah, I heard. But hey, have you heard anything about lupine being invasive and harmful to local plant life?” I want Adam to be wrong about my favorite flowers.
“Mm-hmm,” my dad says, swallowing his eggs. Then he presents a five-minute lecture about the difference between Bigleaf lupine and the native Sundial lupine.
My mom makes a face at me from behind him that says “Look what you started. Nice going.”
I'm more irked that Adam was right, and I can’t love lupine without guilt.
My mom waits for my dad to take a breath. “Anyway. You're helping Adam with a rabbit thing?”
I nod. “Yeah. We’re looking for burrows.”
Now my mom’s the one raising her eyebrows. “Looking for endangered rabbit burrows isn’t on your asinine list of dealbreakers?”
The opposite, actually, but I don’t tell my mom that. “No, Adam’s just too ...” I consider his flaws. I can’t fault him for the lupine thing anymore, but all that's left is ... “He's too shirtless.”
Chapter 12
Stevie
After breakfast with my parents, I spent the afternoon recording a podcast episode about my morning hike, ignoring a group chat that has been dinging nonstop with messages from Marlow and Diana. They found another guy to set me up with. The pressure is on.
I ignored the string of texts and uploaded the new podcast episode. Now I’ve taken a long, hot Everything shower—washed my hair, did a conditioning mask, exfoliated, and shaved, then sang the soprano part of a song I did with my varsity choir this year while spinning in circles under the steaming hot showerhead—and I can’t put it off any longer.
With a sigh, I twist my wet hair over my shoulder and plop onto my yellow couch in my robe. My stomach gurgles, reminding me that I never ate lunch, and it’s well past dinnertime. I could put this off longer, but no. It’s the moment of reckoning. What fresh version of Hades have my friends concocted for me today? Propping my bare feet on the coffee table, I swipe open my phone.
One of these messages isn’t from Marlow or Diana. My heart is banging in my ears. There’s a text from Shirtless Adam(flexing biceps emoji, flexing biceps emoji), and he gets right to the point.
SHIRTLESS ADAM:
I’m going to monitor the rabbits tonight at eight. Would you like to join me?
