“I wish we had a canoe,” Roman said.
She looked at him in surprise. Really, she was surprised that he wore jeans, a t-shirt, and an athletic jacket on their hike instead of a suit. But when she pictured Roman in a canoe, she had a hard time imagining him without the suit, and the mental image just looked wrong. “You like to canoe?”
“It’s been a while. Since I was a kid.”
“You were a Boy Scout, right?”
He nodded. “This one time, we were camping by Estacada Lake, and a bunch of us were out in canoes. Justin Peay was with me in mine, and another canoe with a couple of scouts paddled over to us. We were all just horsing around and splashing each other, and then Justin leaped out of the canoe, nearly capsizing ours.
“As I was getting low in the canoe, holding onto the sides and steadying it, Justin reached over the side and grabbed out our oars. Then he dragged them to the other canoe, tossed them inside, and climbed inside himself. As they were paddling away, he was laughing and telling me good luck on getting back in time for mess duty.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried paddling with my arms, of course, which didn’t work at all. I could barely touch the water. So then I decided that one of the leaders would eventually figure out what had happened and come bring me some oars, and I should just kick back and enjoy myself while I could.
“So I just lay down in the boat, pulled my hat down low to keep the sun out of my eyes, and enjoyed the most peaceful nap of my life. Two hours later, the Scoutmaster showed up in a canoe, gave mine a little shake to wake me up, and I was back on the shore not long after. When I got back into camp, dinner was ready, and Justin didn’t look too happy that he’d had to take my place making it.”
And suddenly the mental picture of him in a canoe on the lake wasn’t just him in it by himself, wearing a suit, but it was the two of them in it together. In shorts and t-shirts. They were both rowing, him putting those strong shoulder muscles to good use. And she looked blissful.
Then she realized that she was probably staring at him with that blissful face—on camera!—so she quickly shook herself out of it. But she didn’t stop marveling at the look on his face. It was like the facade he’d been hiding behind had dropped at least partway, and she was seeing him.
But then Enoch moved to the side for a different shot, his feet scuffling across the rocky dirt as he did, and it was as if the sound made the facade shoot right back up into place. The guarded Roman was back.
As they headed back down the trail, Roman glanced to where Enoch was walking beside them. “By the time we get back, you’ll probably have over an hour of footage. How long will the video be when it airs?”
“Twelve to fifteen minutes, depending on which angle we decide to take, and how much we have that will keep the pacing moving along well.”
“Then you’ll be able to take out the story I told.”
“Probably not.”
“It’s irrelevant.”
“Nope.”
“I want to approve the video before it goes up.”
“You don’t seem to have a lot of faith in what I do. Why did you say yes to the interview?”
He squinted off into the woods. “I want our product to launch well.”
“Okay, but why did you say yes to me? There are other ways to launch a product well.”
“Off the record?”
She nodded, but he looked at the camera. Enoch did a good job of trying to be unobtrusive and becoming invisible to most people she interviewed. But still, Roman couldn’t seem to forget he was there. And, of course, Enoch knew to not stop the camera no matter what. She’d just edit out the stuff that shouldn’t be there later.
He shook his head. “I know better than to fall for that ‘off the record’ trick.”
She didn’t hide her eye roll or her annoyed hand on her hip. Of course he’d answer that way. This conversation was about how he didn’t trust her, after all.
“Let’s turn the question to you instead. Why did you say yes to interviewing a guy who wouldn’t give you as good of a show as Corbin Shields when you have an award on the line?”
She stopped and looked at him for a long time. She had to respect the fact that he would just come right out and say it like it was. “Because my fans are loyal to me and I am loyal to them. They said they most wanted me to interview you, and we have each other’s backs, so I’m interviewing you.”
The tiniest bit of movement caught her eye from just off the path beside them, and she looked to see a deer staring at them. Bex sucked in a breath of air and mumbled, barely moving her lips, “Don’t make any sudden movements. There is a deer watching us from your seven o’clock.”
To his credit, Roman did actually turn to look very slowly. The deer didn’t move. “Wow. Deer are usually afraid of people. It’s unusual to see one this close without spooking it.”
“I don’t think she’s afraid of us. I think that if it could kill us just with the power of an intense stare, we’d be goners.”
“She doesn’t want to kill us. Deer don’t go after people.”
“Are you sure? Like one hundred percent of the time they don’t?” She didn’t dare move an inch for fear that if she moved, the deer would, too.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time. My Scoutmaster said that sometimes when people feed deer, they can become aggressive toward humans.”
“They’re aggressive because people give them food? That’s the definition of biting the hand that feeds you,” she hissed.
“I don’t make up the rules.” He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, nudging her in the direction of the path. “Let’s just walk back, slowly.”
All three of them took a few hesitant steps, Enoch still aiming the camera at the action. But she couldn’t keep her eyes on the trail ahead—she had to keep looking off into the woods at the doe. The look the deer was giving them told her that it had definitely woken up and stepped in coyote dung first thing in the morning. “I’m pretty sure people have been feeding this one.” She could hear the quiver in her own voice.
Roman turned to look, and the deer took that as her cue to attack. It lowered its head and came charging at them.
The three of them took off running the opposite direction—through the trees and brush and weeds and dirt and rocks. Roman grabbed her hand and they jumped over a fallen tree trunk. Enoch raced past them, his long legs and thin body propelling him over their obstacles with no problem, even with the camera. He managed to get quite a bit in front of them quickly, and then stopped so he could aim the camera at the action.
After seeing him run on this uneven terrain, she knew she didn’t need to worry about him. She needed to worry about the angry deer that was still running after them, like they were the embodiment of everything wrong in Deer World and chasing them away was the only path to justice.
Then the deer made a sound that was somewhere between bark and gigantic prehistoric bird squawk, and she picked up the pace. The doe was definitely looking to murder them. She didn’t have antlers, so maybe she planned to kick them or stomp on them or… she had no idea how deer typically took down humans they were inexplicably angry at. Were deer like cheetahs and could only run for a short amount of time? Or could they run indefinitely?