Chapter 295: Surprise and Surprise
** Eli **
In the dimming blue light of dusk, they found a small clearing among the shrubs and rolled out their picnic blanket. Eli unpacked the simple meal he had assembled on the last-minute whim — bubbling lemonade, roasted corn, lobster rolls that thankfully stayed fresh and chilled in the cooling compartment of his backpack — and set it out in a family-style arrangement.
"What, no wine and cheese this time?" Harper teased him as she reached for the supplies to make her sandwich. "Oh how I miss Hawaii."
"No seagulls either to steal your lobsters though," Eli reminded her with a smirk.
"That was not a seagull. There are no seagulls in Hawaii, I looked up the animal facts after you told me chickens are not their state bird."
"..." Eli almost did a spit-take on his lemonade.
They dug into their mountain-top dinner, taking their time just like they did on their hike. It was true that the simple preparation wasn’t as exquisite as their beach excursion in Hawaii, but it served a good purpose, reminding them of the family picnics they had shared so many times in the past. The two of them reminisced about those lovely memories as they ate, taking turns laughing or wishing to bury themselves in embarrassment from the almost forgotten anecdotes.
"Hey, I was not afraid of heights the first time we got up here!"
"You so were. Remember the picture that all of us took together at the summit lookout point? You wouldn’t even get close to the edge to pose, and you claimed the rock was too slippery so we had to stand on the grass farther from the cliff for that picture instead."