Greyson grunts noncommittally.
Russel seizes the marshmallow bag, grabs some, and declares, “What! It’s a compliment!”
Greyson’s looking at the fire, doesn’t seem to see anything else. “In some ways.”
“Oh?”
“I won’t badmouth the dead,” Greyson says flatly.
“Oh,” Russel says, “But he was a good father?”
“Yeah,” Greyson says. “He was that.”
Russel rubs his hands together contemplatively. “And a good businessman?”
“Depends on your definition of good.”
“But he did what he had to, yes? Paid the price.”
The silence after his words stretches so long that it seems like Greyson isn’t going to respond at all, until he finally murmurs, “Some prices aren’t worth paying.”
“Maybe,” Russel says, after a pause of his own. “But in your personal life, your brothers and you are like him, no? All grown men and perpetual bachelors.”
Greyson shrugs.
“Come now!” Russel exclaims. “Remember, I have partied with you in LA! I’ve seen the beautiful, work-of-art beauties you all have enjoyed, I—”
“Russel,” Greyson says curtly, “Shut up.”
As if remembering the rest of us for the first time in a while, Russel casts a musing look around. “Ah. Yes. OK, boss.”
As I eat the rest of my sausage, and roast and eat another, and chat with Manuel and Jorge about their own backgrounds (Manuel is from Spain, and Jorge grew up on a remote farm in BC), I can’t get a weird twist out of my belly. A weird twist that came right after Russel’s words.
Oh well.
**
The next morning, we set out bright and early. Russel doesn’t find the path, but we do stumble on a mother puma and her cubs. As we are slowly creeping away, with Greyson coolly hissing instructions to us and Russel blubbering about how he doesn’t want to die, I manage to get a good shot of the mother puma hissing ferociously at us, probably puma for: “Come any closer and I’ll bite off your face.”
By the time we choose our campsite, Greyson’s decided that we have enough footage to head on back, alligators or no. He’s also successfully avoided being alone with me for the entire day, while also making sure I don’t wander as much as two feet away from the others without him noticing.
Which isn’t as much of a burden as it sounds, considering we trekked a good eight hours, on and off, and I’m dead tired.
It’s a nice kind of tiredness, though, one that doesn’t allow any extraneous thought other than a sluggish awareness of itself and how many times I’ve yawned lately.
The others are busy getting dinner started, while Greyson and I are fetching firewood, when suddenly Greyson freezes.
“Hey—” I begin.
He shushes me, points.
A few feet away from us, a weird grey-brown creature is eyeing us uncertainly, its curled snout twitching.
“Camera,” Greyson hisses. “Slowly.”
I’m on it in seconds that feel like hours. And to think I was beginning to wonder if hauling around this heavy-ass thing 24/7 was worth it.
“Don’t move, though,” Greyson mutters, as if reading my mind for my next thought.
Not that I was about to bound at the thing with camera flailing, but it would be nice if I didn’t have to rely on my unreliable zoom-in function.
“Sweep a shot over it, nice and slow,” he says, “Then get the baby tapir in the woods a bit ahead.”
As he’s saying it, I’m already doing it, swallowing back my gasp of surprise that there’s another equally weird and actually cute little creature a few steps back from the first.
“Now, I’m going to hold out this leafy branch and…” To my surprise, the tapir slowly advances to nibble on Greyson’s extended leafy branch.
“You should probably also get…” he sounds awkward as he trails off, but I know exactly what he’s getting at. I capture of shot of his pleasantly surprised face.
“Greyson!” Russel calls from behind us.
As the tapir races away, Greyson instructs me, “Get it,” and I am, and I’m laughing. We’re laughing.
“Coming!” Greyson calls back, although he doesn’t move.
I grin at him. “That was…” I feel like hugging him, even though the tapir scene probably won’t even be a main shot in the show, maybe won’t even be included in the final version. It’s more how seamlessly we work together.
Next thing I know, he’s swept me up in his arms and spun me around. “That was amazing, you were…”
He sets me back on my feet, a sheepish look amidst the excitement on his face.
I find I can’t quite meet his eye, can’t trust myself not to kiss him if I do. “I can see why they call you a legend. You were so in the zone, like you knew exactly what that tapir was going to do before it even did.”
“Baird’s Tapir,” he explains. “It’s mainly nocturnal, so we lucked out, but… it was perfect. We just went with it.”
I stifle a little prickle of joy at his ‘we’.
“I’m no legend, though,” he continues, although he can’t manage to wipe that big goofy smile off his face. “I just… this is what I love. This…” He trails off, gestures around him then shrugs helplessly.