“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Trevor Reyes said. He brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes as he bent down to look under a rock overhang.
His friend Micah Lam stood up from where he was searching in the bushes nearby. “Then where is it, Trev? We’ve looked everywhere down here,” Micah said, gesturing to the surrounding bushes and rocks and the canyon walls that towered above them on both sides.
Micah and Trevor had gotten to the state park early for a day of geocaching and rock climbing. They’d spent the cool hours of the morning hiking a couple of miles through the surrounding desert to reach Gold Shadow Canyon. They’d used the GPS on Micah’s phone to search for the small boxes that previous hikers had hidden around the park. The treasure hunt aspect of trying to locate the boxes was half the fun, but it was also cool to see what items people had left. With geocaching, you could take any of the loot you found in the box, but you had to leave behind something of your own so that it was a fair trade.
The climb in through the north end of the canyon had been easy but had taken several hours. The stunning rock formations and cave pools had totally been worth it, and they had found four of the five geocaches they had hunted for.
There was still no sign of the fifth, but Trevor was reluctant to give up looking for it.
“Remember the one we almost missed last month?” he said. “It was a hollowed-out brick that you had to pull out of the wall. Or that one we found on vacation last year that looked like a seashell? Some people are really good at hiding these things.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Micah said, “but the other four we found this morning were all just normal geocache boxes, nothing fancy.” He checked the geocache app on his phone. “According to the spot marked on the map, it should be right around here. The comments all say that no one has seen this cache for months. Someone probably stole it.”
“You’re probably right,” Trevor said with a sigh. “And I am excited to try that climbing route.”
Micah checked his watch. “We should be good on time. It’s eleven now. I just need to make it back before my parents get home so I can change out of my climbing gear and back into school clothes. Otherwise they’ll figure out pretty quick that I wasn’t at school today.”
Trevor laughed. “Dude, you’re the one who convinced me to skip class in the first place.”
“Doesn’t mean my parents are cool with it,” Micah said. “And you’re the one who was stressed out about today’s chemistry quiz, or I wouldn’t have suggested this outing.”
“Fair enough,” Trevor chuckled, grabbing his backpack.
“C’mon,” Micah said as he walked backward toward the canyon wall, “the climbing route is over this way.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Trevor said. Then he noticed an odd-shaped rock near his foot that seemed out of place. On the off-chance that it might be concealing the missing geocache, he kicked it over—
Trevor jumped back with a startled shout as something darted out from under the rock. Half a second later, he realized that it was just a tiny lizard.
Micah was practically doubled-over laughing at Trevor’s overreaction to the small desert animal. And once Trevor got over his initial scare, he couldn’t help but join in.
* * *
Trevor busied himself with the final safety checks before they started their climb. Micah would go up the cliff first, securing the rope as he climbed. Trevor would be below, standing at the bottom of the canyon holding the other end of the climbing rope. The rope was fed through a metal braking device, so that if Micah fell, Trevor could stop him from falling all the way down.
Meanwhile, Micah adjusted his helmet and made sure his harness was correctly attached to the rope. He began his climb, and for the first couple minutes they were both quiet.
Suddenly Micah cleared his throat. “Once we get home,” he said with what sounded like forced casualness, “I think I’m going to ask Peyton to the homecoming dance.”
Trevor looked up at Micah with an amused half smile, wondering what had brought about this sudden confession. “For real?”
“Or is that a terrible idea?” Micah asked. “Do you think she’ll say yes? Am I kidding myself?”
Trevor snorted. “You and Peyton have been madly in love since freshman year. It’s about time one of you made a move.”
He could see by the red creeping up the back of Micah’s neck that he was blushing. “I’m not ‘in love’ with her,” he grumbled. “She’s just, ya know, nice.”
“The fact that she’s cute and smart and likes climbing doesn’t hurt either,” Trevor pointed out.
Micah seemed to have no argument there, and Trevor smiled to himself as he fed more of the rope through the line. He couldn’t resist teasing his friend, especially when Micah blushed so easily.
Peyton really was a great girl, and Trevor honestly hoped she and Micah started dating. At least it would be better than the two of them pretending they didn’t have crushes on each other.
Micah paused and looked over his shoulder at Trevor. “You’ve got to swear you won’t tell anyone though, okay? I’m serious, man.”
Trevor tried to suppress a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll take this secret to my grave,” he said with mock seriousness. “Scout’s honor.”
He was pretty sure the entire school knew that Micah and Peyton liked each other. Trevor, however, was one of the select few who knew that Peyton already planned to ask Micah to homecoming.
He wasn’t going to share that information with Micah, though. That would make it too easy on the poor guy.
Besides, he wanted to see which one of them got up the nerve first. If it got too close to homecoming and neither of them had made a move, then Trevor supposed he would have to stage an intervention. But there was still time.