When The Lights Go Out

The music stopped and the headlights dimmed. She felt the truck tremor when he shut the door.

"Are you cold?", he asked, proffering an afghan.

Her arms wrapped around his neck and her lips met his, picking right up where they had left off. She was certainly not cold, he realized. The afghan fell in a heap at their feet.

~

"You seem to be prepared for just about any occasion," she said a while later, running her fingers along the ridges of the afghan. She surmised from the thickness of the blanket that it was crochet and not knit. Just a few trips to the yarn shop and she was already learning the difference.

"It's my grandmother's," he replied, rolling on his side to face her. "She's always cold, and I like to drive with the windows down, so I keep it in the truck for her."

Her messy, wind whipped hair was the direct result of driving in his truck with the windows down, not that she minded a bit what her hair looked like at this point. She would just have to bring a rubber band for her hair next time. Next time. Already she couldn't wait for next time.

Her stomach growled.

"Was that you or me?", he asked.

"Guilty," she confessed. Her appetite had not exactly been sated, and neither had her stomach. He had been a gentleman, only exploring, never assuming to conquer.

"I'm famished too. I've got a loaf of bread and a bag of cherries from the market. I'll run to the truck and grab it," he said, jumping up and disappearing into the dark. To tell the truth, she didn't know where the truck was or where they were. Didn't even know how they got there. Maybe they had floated from the side of the road.

She laced her fingers behind her head and looked up. The limbs of a giant tree cast black silhouettes against an indigo sky. A bat flew round and round in circles a few feet above her. She had never seen so many stars at one time. Growing up in the city, she had been lucky to see a dozen stars on a clear night.

He cut between two rows of the orchard and saw her stretched out on the blanket right at the base of an old walnut tree. He hoped she wasn't asleep. His step quickened when she sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees.

"Here we go. Baguette, cherries, a jar of honey and a bag of sugar snap peas," he said, spreading the impromptu picnic on the blanket.

"Mmmmm. The perfect dinner for a perfect evening. No, make that a perfect day. Thank you for inviting me to church with you," she said, then popped a cherry in her mouth. She turned her head and spit out the seed. It landed a couple feet away. She leaned over and kissed his lips, soft and slow.

First strawberries, now cherries. She was certainly the most delicious fruit he had ever tasted. He couldn't wait until she tried the honey.