When Constellations Form (Light in the Dark 4)

“Recalculating,” the navigation system announces.

Thea gives me a pursed lip look. “See? We’re lost. We’re going to die out here and all they’re going to find is our vulture-eaten bones and maggots covering our clothes. Let me tell you, my dress and Louboutin heels are not going to look good on a skeleton. I better text Rae my back up.” She types furiously on her phone.

“We’re not going to die, don’t be dramatic, we’re just a little turned around.”

“Which is code for lost. Uh-oh.”

“What?” I ask, stopping so I can mess with the navigation system. I’m not worried about stopping in the middle of the road, since so far there’s been nobody but us. I guess in hindsight, that’s not a good thing. At least if there were other people we could ask for help.

She wags her phone in front of my face. “I lost cell reception.”

“Recalculating,” the navigation system interrupts again.

Thea gives me a look that says she’s not impressed. “We’re lost, and now we have no phones, or navigation system.”

“All right, so we’re lost,” I finally agree, letting out an aggravated sigh.

Someone told us about some natural spring that exists out in the woods of the complex our cabin is a part of, and we both wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, the directions they gave us were the shittiest directions known to man.

“It’s okay,” I say, remaining calm and in control of the situation, since neither is something Thea’s capable of. “I’ll just turn around and head back the way we came.”

She eyes me. “How? It wasn’t really much of a road and more of a path through the forest.”

“It should be easy enough to follow my tire tracks.”

“Whatever you say, Indiana Jones.”

I shake my head and back up the truck to turn around. The road is narrow, only one lane, with lots of trees like Thea said, so it takes me a while to turn around without hitting anything.

Once I’m turned around I start the slow drive back to where we started.

Thankfully, I make it there without incident. There’s a road that leads back to our cabin, and another that leads to the resort.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask, putting the ball in her court.

“Would you hate me if I said I wanted to go back to the cabin and watch movies?”

“We can do that at home,” I tell her.

“I know.” She shrugs. “But it’s my favorite thing to do with you … besides the obvious.”

I grin slowly. “What’s the obvious?”

She rolls her eyes, fighting a smile. “Sex, of course.”

“Ah.” I nod, fighting a smile. “Of course,” I echo, matching her tone.

I turn to head back to the cabin. Considering we’re spending the weekend away, I think we should go do something but if Thea wants to sit around and watch movies, who am I to tell her no?

I park the truck and we head inside. I got popcorn when we went to the grocery store, so I start popping it while Thea selects a movie.

“How do you feel about Dirty Dancing?” she asks.

“I guess that depends—is anybody naked? Because it sounds like they’re naked,” I joke.

The family room is open to the kitchen, and she launches the remote at my head. I duck behind the counter and it bounces off the top, where it would have missed me anyway.

“You need to work on your aim,” I tell her.