“Of course it’s legal,” I tell her.
Actually, I have no idea. I’ve been coming here since I was a teenager and I’ve never thought to ask that question before.
Kat’s skeptical look doesn’t change, though it’s hard to tell how much is honest skepticism and how much is her love of giving me a hard time. Might be about equal, so I put my hands on her shoulders and grin down at her. She relaxes as soon as I do, and I’m way too pleased about that.
“I promise you won’t fall in,” I tell her. “And you won’t drown, and if your glasses fall off and break, I’ll heroically carry you back to dry land and drive you to the glasses store myself.”
“If my glasses fall off and break you’ll be leading me around by the hand until I get my new ones,” she says.
“Then I won’t let you trip or walk into traffic,” I promise, bend down, give her a light kiss on the lips. “Come on.”
* * *
Unsurprisingly,Kat makes it across the river just fine. I think she even starts having fun by about halfway over, once she realizes I wasn’t kidding about the lack of danger. When she accidentally dunks one foot into the water, she laughs.
Then she rolls her eyes at me and pretends to frown, but it’s too late. Her laugh feels better than it should, soft and bright. Thrilling to think I can do that for her.
At the other riverbank, there’s a cliff. Not a huge one, maybe six feet high, made of crumbling red dirt and held together by tree branches, but high enough.
“Don’t tell me you’re gonna give me a boost,” she says.
“Of course not,” I tease. “You could fall. There’s a path this way.”
It’s not much of a path, but it’s better than the cliff. By the time we reach the tree line at the top, both her knees are covered in leaves and dirt and I’ve got a scrape on one shin from a stray branch. I brush it off, a few droplets of blood trailing across my leg.
“You okay?” she asks.
“It’s nothing,” I tell her.
“It’s bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse,” I point out. “Almost there. C’mon.”
When we reach the chain link fence, she stops again. She gives me a look, and I can’t help but grin.
“What?”
“There’s a fence,” she points out, helpfully gesturing at the fence. “Where are we going?”
“It’s not much further.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Technically, it is. It’s just not the answer you wanted.”
Kat takes a deep, patient breath. I think she’s trying not to look amused.
“Are you going to make me scale this fence?” she asks.
“Would you?”
She gives it a long, considering look, like: maybe. I watch her face as she considers trouble, surprised by how much I’m enjoying myself.
“It’s not that high,” she admits.
“Well, hopefully,” I say, and trail off, walking along the fence line. “There’s still a better… ah. Here.”
There’s a spot in the fence where a small oak tree’s grown into the links, and behind it, the metal is cut. I bend it back for Kat to go through, but she’s ten feet away looking at a sign.