Page 92 of Head Over Heels

Liv tracked down her foster sister, the one who taught her to carry her home on her back, and they spent a weekend together. Her foster sister is married now, with kids, so Liv discovered a foster niece and nephew. The niece is Katie’s age, and we’re going to get them together as soon as we can arrange a visit. Maybe we’ll take her on a camping trip with us.

And speaking of camping: Brooks and I manage a good haul of bluegill, and we cook it over an open fire. Katie sticks with pita and peanut butter, but the rest of us are in heaven, because there isnothingbetter than fresh-caught, fire-cooked bluegill.

“I would rather eat like this than in any fancy restaurant in the world,” Liv says.

It might be the bluegill talking or it might be the wineskin full of merlot she humped up here. She and Eve have been drinking straight from the canteen for several hours…

After dinner, Liv and I tuck Katie into the tent that she and Liv and I will share. By the time we get to the last sentence of her new favorite book—“And then Super Sara hung her cape on the hook and got into her bed with Big Dog and Leo the Lion tucked in next to her and closed her eyes and fell asleep.”—her eyes are already closed.

We both kiss Katie, then back out of the tent to rejoin Eve and Brooks at the fire.

Liv grabs my arm. “Chase. Wait.”

I look at what’s grabbed her attention, and my eyes almost fall out of my head. There, at the side of the campfire, are Eve and Brooks—kissing. And it’s not a little peck, either. It’s one of those kisses that instantly makes you feel like a dirty old man for watching.

“Whoa.”

“Yeah, whoa. Didn’t they sleep together after the barbecue?”

I nod.

“Evenevergoes back for seconds. Never.”

“It’s just a kiss,” I say, shrugging, although my mind’s a bit blown, too. How did they get fromawkwardto this so fast?

She grins at me. “It’s never just a kiss. Not if it’s any good at all.”

“So, um, this might be our cue to find a different place to hang out for a bit?”

“Walk down to the water?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Soak up the scenery?”

“Yup.”

Remember how I said that Liv had made camping her own? She’s changed it for me, too. Aside from all the other good stuff—how being with her makes everything more fun, how great she is with Katie on the trail, and how her camping cooking is about ten thousand times better than what I’m used to—I now get hard basically every time I see a mountain lake. Because let’s face it, for all the things Liv and I can turn into an argument, we’re completely in agreement about one thing: on that first date when we said we’d be a disaster together?

We were so unbelievably wrong.

We’re so good together.