"It's true that you only live once."
Sometimes I think it can only happen in fantasy. But this was just a Friday night that started with beers and wings.
He said as we pulled back to his place at almost midnight, "There's a place of the walking trail where you can get to the river. Want to go?"
I don't turn down offers for adventure. Not anymore. I said, "As cringey as it is to say now, it's true that you only live once."
So we doused in bug spray and walked a mile on a dark urban trail to the fork in the path. We descended a still muddy, even darker and overgrown path another quarter mile into the woods. And there, surrounding us on all sides were dozens of fireflies flickering in the grass and trees.
"They're pretty," he said quietly. "Look at this tree, it's lit up like a Christmas tree."
And we paused and watched, listening to the chirps of frogs and crickets of a southern summer night, there in the bottomland of a southern river.
Only a few steps more, and we were at its swampy edge. We dared not step too close, lest an alligator creep up on us in the dark. There, for just a brief moment, I hugged him tightly. We kissed. We counted the stars.
And then it was back into the woods, another pause for the fireflies, another duck beneath a fallen tree, and then onto the dark path taking us back to his place.