Laurel forced herself not to wrinkle her nose at the Twinkies and looked around the kitchen instead. Her eyes found a fruit bowl. “Can I have one of those?” she asked, pointing to a fresh green pear.

“Yeah. Grab it and bring it along.” He held up a water bottle. “Water?”

She grinned. “Sure.”

They pocketed their snacks and David pointed toward the back door. “This way.” They walked to the back of the house and he opened the sliding door.

Laurel stepped out into a well-kept, fenced backyard. “Looks like a dead end to me.”

David laughed. “To the untrained eye, perhaps.”

He approached the cinder-block fence, and with a quick, leaping bound, he pulled himself to the top and perched there.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll help you.”

Laurel looked up at him skeptically but extended her hand. With surprisingly little effort, they hopped over the fence.

The tree line came right up to the fence, so with that one small jump they stood in a forest with damp, fallen leaves forming a thick carpet under their feet. The dense canopy hushed the sound of cars in the distance, and Laurel looked around appreciatively. “This is nice.”

David looked up with his hands on his hips. “It is, I guess. I’ve never been a big outdoors person, but I do find a lot of different plants in here that I can look at under my microscope.”

Laurel squinted up at him. “You have a microscope?” She snickered. “You really are a science geek.”

David laughed. “Yeah, but everyone thought Clark Kent was a nerd too, and look how that turned out.”

“You telling me you’re Superman?” Laurel asked.

“You never know,” David said teasingly.

Laurel laughed and looked down, suddenly shy. When she looked up, David was staring at her. The glade seemed even quieter as their eyes met. She liked the way he looked at her, his eyes soft and probing. As if he could learn more about her just by studying her face.