Something Wilder

The enormity of the situation really hit her when she glanced down at the clipboard and registered that there was only one name left. Lily took a slow inhale, steadying herself. “I guess that leaves… Leo,” she said as steadily as her throbbing pulse would allow.

With a resigned nod, he stood, and Lily mentally pleaded with her heart to stop its renewed, frantic pounding.

He cleared his throat, and she hoped he wouldn’t let on that they knew each other. She wasn’t proud of what his leaving had done to her. She didn’t need that ugly scar put on display today.

“My name is Leo. I’m thirty-two.” He paused, avoiding her gaze. “I have experience with horses.” Silence seemed to swallow the air around them for a few moments before he continued. “I live in Manhattan and I work in IT.”

After a beat where they were all clearly waiting for more, Bradley burst out laughing. “Riveting, dude. Don’t be shy.”

While the IT job didn’t surprise her, this manifestation of it did. This version of Leo seemed more remote and detached than sweetly shy. The Leo she knew had been a numbers geek but gently reverent about them the way a painter is about art. He’d tried his hardest to make her fall in love with math. He had a favorite equation, for Christ’s sake—something about cutting up the surface of a sphere that Lily was sure she still wouldn’t understand even if he’d spent the last decade explaining it.

She searched for the tiny clues that he was real, that he was the same man she’d known in that other life—a former lover with skin and bone and muscle right in front of her. When he reached to adjust his hat, Lily could see calluses across the insides of his palms. Not the roughened skin of someone who worked with his hands for a living, but the kind one got from hours at a gym or the occasional home remodeling project. The ruddy color in his cheeks meant he didn’t spend all day in an office; he probably took a bike out every weekend or ran in the park. His watch was bulky and expensive, telling him not just the time but date, direction, altitude. Lily wondered how often he really needed to know any of that in his day-to-day life. He wasn’t wearing a ring, and the fact that she noticed this—as well as the rush of relief it brought—made her want to break something.

Leo paused, like he was deciding how honest to be. The old version of him had been an open book, at least with her. She had no idea what this one was thinking. “Hobbies… I read a lot. I like biking, running—”

“Working,” Bradley cut in with a sharp laugh.

“Right.” Leo nodded with a wince. “As for what I hope to get from this…”

When he trailed off, she focused on the abused wood of the table. It had been worn smooth over the years, scored and burned in some places and buckling from the weight of time in others. Lily could relate.

“I guess I’m looking for adventure. My day-to-day life is pretty routine.” He turned his baseball cap over in his hands and seemed to note that the mood had grown solemn. “But maybe let’s set the low bar of just not dying,” he added, and his lips curved into a small grin when the others laughed at this. Even this tiny glimpse of his crinkly-eyed smile made Lily’s heart fall like a weight into her stomach.

Walter clapped again, louder this time.

“Okay, well.” Lily floundered a little and motioned for Nicole to come forward with a small metal box. “I need your phones.” If they’d read the orientation material ahead of time, they’d all know this was coming. But Lily found that it didn’t matter how much they warned guests; a collective wave of griping and moans would always ripple through the group. Nicole walked along the table, thanking each man as he reluctantly set his device inside the box.

“You can keep whatever medicine you have, of course,” she continued. “And if there’s anything else you need—within reason—just let us know. We’re supposed to be roughing it; the point is for it to be hard.”

Terry let out a crude snicker. This one was going to be a handful.

She nodded toward where she spotted a small GPS unit sticking out of a pocket in his complicated vest. “You might want to lock that up in the tack shed. It won’t do you any good.”

Terry closed his eyes, sighing. “It’s a global positioning system, honey. Working in the middle of nowhere is literally its job.”

“Well, whoever sold it to you didn’t ask where you’d be using it.”

He ran a hand down his beard. “Do you understand how GPS works?”

Lily pointed to where spires of red rock could be seen in the distance. “We’ll be going there. Batteries run out, cell phone coverage is nonexistent, canyon walls block satellites, and out there under the sun? Those tiny digital displays are almost impossible to see. You have a paper map in your backpack. You’ll need to pay attention to it and to me. Not a GPS. Is that clear?”