Kira cut herself off, realizing suddenly how much she’d said, and how stridently she’d said it. She glanced up at Caleb, but he didn’t look perturbed. The opposite, in fact – he seemed to be listening intently.
“Sorry,” she said, nonetheless. “I guess I just get a little carried away sometimes. I just feel really passionately about this stuff.”
“I can tell, but it’s really not a problem,” Caleb assured her, his voice warm. “It’s good to see people talking about what they feel passionately about. I don’t mind at all.”
“Well, what about you?” Kira said, feeling a little self-conscious despite Caleb’s reassuring words. “Do you have anything you’re passionate about?”
Caleb seemed to hesitate for a moment before he spoke. “Film,” he said, laughing a little. “Well – film preservation. I guess you could call it my family’s business. We run a small movie theater, where we show old and rare movies. Some popular things too, of course, since they’re profitable. But mainly we attract an audience through showing things no one would really get to see in any cinema but ours. Stuff people may not have seen at all, if we didn’t show it.”
Kira blinked, looking up at him. “Oh, wow. That’s actually really interesting,” she said, meaning it. “I never really thought about that kind of thing before. We don’t have a movie theater here, and the last time I went was when I was studying in the city. So I wouldn’t really call myself a movie buff, to put it mildly. What kinds of movies are your personal favorites, then?”
“Oh, I like anything,” Caleb said, grinning. “I’m not a snob – but to be honest, I really like old Westerns. That, and samurai movies. But they have a lot more in common than you’d think!”
Kira laughed – she couldn’t help it. The enthusiasm in Caleb’s voice was infectious. “Well, I can’t really say I’ve ever actually thought about it, or even seen a samurai movie to begin with. So I really will have to take your word for it. But I’ll definitely keep it in mind, just in case I ever do see one.”
Just in case you ever want to invite me to watch one,she added silently, though she couldn’t quite make the flirtatious line come out of her mouth.
“Well, I’ll have to see what I can do about that,” Caleb said. He glanced at her, smiling, but then held up his hands. “Not that I’m trying to bore you by trying to make you watch some old movies you don’t care about!”
“Oh – no, no, I wouldn’t be bored!” Kira stuttered out. Had Caleb seen her thoughts on her face? “In fact I’d… I’d kind of like to learn more about it. I mean. I don’t really know anything about either, so learning anything would be learning more about it.”
Caleb swallowed, blinking as if he was kind of surprised. “Well, I’d really like to show you, then. Soon. I mean, I didn’t exactly bring any movies with me, but…”
Kira looked down. She could feel a mortifying blush rising on her cheeks again.
Why am I so bad at this?!she thought furiously. A hot guy is asking me to watch movies with him, and I’m totally tongue-tied!
“… But for the moment, since we’re out here, maybe you can just teach me more about the forest,” Caleb finished, before Kira could think of something even mildly witty, or funny, or sexy to say. Though to be honest, she thought, being any of those things had never really been her forte.
But I do know about the forest!
“Well,” she said, smiling at him, “what would you like to learn first?”
* * *
“… So that one’s a red cedar?” Caleb asked, pointing to the massive tree to their left.
“Nope, sorry – red cedars have a fluted trunk and the bark doesn’t shed like that,” Kira said. “That’s a shagbark hickory. You can tell by – wait for it – the shaggy bark.”
“Oh, right, that should’ve been a giveaway,” Caleb laughed. “But that one over there is a white pine.”
“Yes! Correct!” Kira grinned at him. “Wow, you’re getting this way quicker than the fourth graders I usually do this with.”
“Well, I guess that’s a relief,” Caleb said. “But then again, kids are pretty sharp.”
“You can say that again. Usually we give them a little list and a description, and then they draw a picture of the bark, the trunk, the leaves – it’s fun, and it’s kind of like a little scavenger hunt for them. Whoever can fill in all their tree descriptions first wins. It’s not every day you get to see kids being so excited about a tree.”
Caleb laughed. “Sounds like you really enjoy your job.”
“Yeah, I do.” Kira smiled. “It’s great – I get to be out in nature, and I get to teach people about the forest. It’s kind of my dream job, really.”
“And you said you’d lived here all your life?”
Kira nodded. “Yeah – I mean, I moved away while I was getting my qualifications. But I came back, like I always knew I would. It’s not that I’m such a homebody, or anything like that, but… there’s just something about Girdwood Springs, you know? It was a great place to grow up, a great place to live now, and I think it’d be a great place to raise my own kids one day –”
Kira cut herself off, glancing at Caleb. He’d been hinting at wanting to ask her out on a date just before, and now she’d dreamily let slip stuff about wanting to raise kids here – which might have been moving just a bit too fast.
He’ll think I’m already planning our wedding or something!