His Naughty Lessons

** Eli **

As soon as the words left his lips, Eli felt an embarrassing urge to ... blush. Damn, that was cheesy. Since when had he ever said such a cheesy thing in such a serious tone?

Fortunately, again, Harper was too hazy-minded to notice anything odd. She fluttered those pretty lashes and chuckled at the prompt. "Oh, we’ve got a long list to go through then," she declared. "Let’s see ... I want to go on a camping roadtrip again. Just the two of us, on that mountain where we first saw those shooting stars. I have lots of new wishes to make and lots of new checkboxes to complete, now that I finally get to share a tent with you."

Eli raised an amused eyebrow, recalling the reminisce of their last camping trip a few nights ago under the stars. Alright, maybe that previous conversation had been just as cheesy as the current one ... and he didn’t mind tracking back into the same territory again.

"Sure, that can easily be arranged," he promised, secretly reminding himself to start shopping for the smallest two-person tent as soon as they returned home. That should help to make the checkbox-ticking process more convenient.

"And I want to learn cooking from you." The girl was quick to move on to the next bullet point. "I want to surprise you someday with a romantic dinner of my own. Veal and risotto, the exact same way you made it for me last time. I’ll decorate it nicely too ... Flowers and chocolates and candles, all that."

"... But how do you make it a surprise if you’re telling me about it now already?"

"... Oh, hmm, that’s a good point. Ok, then forget I just told you about it." Harper nodded in agreement. "What’s next then ... Ah, how about I want to see where you lived on the west coast? Not the place for the past four years, but your home as a kid before we met."

That was the type of topic that would usually give Eli pause. This time, though, he only looked at her softly. "Why do you want to see it?" he asked.

Harper considered the question in glassy-eyed seriousness. Her thumb traced a pensive pattern at the center of his palm, and after a few moments, she said, "I want to share all the important memories of your life with you. Both the good ones and the bad ones. We can laugh and smile about the good ones together, and we can replace the bad ones with something new. When you think back about the same places later, I want the first scene to come up in your mind to be better, happier. I want you to be able to find something to like about that part of your life again, so you don’t have to keep hiding everything about it from yourself."

A chord was struck so deep within him that for a long while, Eli was left without words.