Every Little Thing by Chad Pelley Page B

up,” she said, and she hit him. “But. Did you know there’s actually a bird called a blue-footed Booby ? I mean, booby , c’mon, right?”
    â€œActually, there’s three boobys, in the genus Sula , and the term, booby , is innocent. It means clumsy, in Portuguese or something, because boobys look clumsy on land.”
    â€œWho the fuck knows something like that?”
    â€œNow who’s immature?”
    It was a forty-five-minute walk out to Bird Rock from the parking lot, but Allie said she knew a shortcut through the woods. Five minutes into her shortcut, the spaces between the trees were getting closer and closer until they had to sidestep through crusty and closely spaced spruce. The pokes from serrated sticks weren’t far off jabs from knives. Sometimes they’d have to duck under immoveable branches. They played limbo under one branch, and Allie won.
    Every couple of steps, he’d turn around and see her taking a picture of something. Sometimes him when he wasn’t looking. The snaps of her shutter. He liked the way she’d point the camera at something like it was the only thing on earth. And the way she’d pace around a thing, trying to find the right composition and light. Her tongue sometimes bit between teeth. At one point, he turned around and she was knelt into a patch of bright pink wildflowers, her camera in them like a bee. Without turning to face him, she shouted out an inquisitive, “Are these ones rare or anything?” not looking at him as she snapped the picture.
    â€œBird’s eye primrose. Not common, not uncommon.”
    â€œWhat kind of answer is that,” she said, turning to face him as she launched herself up from her kneeling.
    The army of branches had already hitched Cohen’s shirt twice, as warning, before a third one took action and cut the back of his neck deeply enough that Allie winced when he showed her and asked her how bad it was. No words, just a wince, and she offered him some tissues from her purse.
    â€œAre you sure about this detour? I mean, maybe we should turn around. Unless...you have a machete in your bag and want to clear the way.”He put a hand up, Look at all these trees . He turned around and Allie was right there; she brought her lips to his. Put a hand on his face to make the kiss count.
    She pressed her body into him, leaned hard, so he’d know to lay down on the ground, and she crawled on top of him. There were tufts of lichens crunching under his head; twigs like dull forks in his ass and elbows, and she was wrestling his pants off, impatient with his belt. She left his shirt on, and scooped a hand up her skirt to shed her underwear.
    Her skirt curtained over his knees and belly, rising and falling, up and down. And then she took it all off: all of her bare there in front of him. His hands on her hips. She fell forward, planted her hands on the forest floor; her hair dangling over him like a tunnel blocking out everything but her face. That smell of cinnamon or cloves: the first time he’d been close enough to notice it. She reached down and put one hand to use on her clit, finished first, everything tightening, that infinite exhale, as her hand, under his armpit, grabbed a fistful of dirt. She laughed, as she rolled over, like there was something funny about it. She knelt beside him, naked still, and did something fast with her hands, something practiced and to the point, that finished him off in a minute.
    There was nothing awkward about it as they dressed, and she was surprisingly nonchalant about being naked in broad daylight: the shadows of tree branches flickering over her body like TV static. She stepped into her orange panties; let the elastic snap hard as she took her thumbs away. He had his arms wrapped around her before she’d gotten her bra back on, for a waltzing, swaying bear hug. He ran a finger up her spine, ran it back down. The bumps and ridges of her backbone drumming