They've reached California.

The warm sun beats down on them as they speed past orange groves. The pungent scent of citrus and sunshine mixed with smog comes in through the cool air vents, lingering subtly. The sky is an immense, perfect blue, so perfect that it almost seems fake.

That describes California well.

They speed down freeways and byways, loops and clovers, swimming in a sea of metal and cement as they head towards the coast. She likes stopping at the little convenience stores, taking stock of how the food changes across the nation.

She hops into the car, throwing down a plastic bag.

"What is it this time?"

She grins, holding up her prize.

"What else? A "phat" burrito and a Zip coke. This is the Zipmart. The turkey wraps were Wawa, the Jamaican beef patties and hot dogs were 7-11, and the Bengal coffee and Krispy Kreme were all Motomart. I can't even remember all the other ones."

"Rory, Rory……….Eating our way through the USA?" he quips, turning the wheel under his steady hands.

"Have a Twinkie."

"Gross."

"Health nut."

"Carbohydrate addict. I can't wait till you hit 30 and lose your metabolism and turn into one of those fat women on Ricki Lake. You'll have to buy Richard Simmons tapes and velour track suits from Lane Bryant and I'll be laughing my ass off."

"You're such a sweetheart," she says, with some sort of indelicate sarcastic snort. Her mouth is pinched up.

But in a few minutes and a few bites, she's happy again. She blames it on the insane sunshine and the fake blue perfection, palm fronds waving in the wind, white houses whipping past.

"Let's go to the beach," he says out of the blue, and she looks at him surprised, because he usually doesn't care where they go. She's always the one with maps and red markers and plans, always the one with a sense of direction and a determined itinerary.

"Sure," she smiles dreamily, fading off into a reverie of Orange County clichés……..he watches her long lashes resting on her cheeks, her half smile, her toes tapping on the dashboard.

"We'll rent a beach shack," he goes on, fueling her sleepy imagination. She tastes saltwater and oranges under her tongue. "We'll wake up early and go to sleep late, we'll swim and walk through Venice Beach, we'll smoke some weed, surf a little……."

"Nix the weed," she whispers. "Keep the rest. Jess, let's go see UCLA. We'll have a grand time."

Yes, he thinks, a great time. You'll get those freckles on your nose and shoulders, you'll get sunburned pink lips, I will wake up everyday to your smile, your rapacious eating, the sound of you turning pages, skin against paper. I love you.

However, he does not say this out loud.

Maybe she is thinking it also.

Neither one of them speaks; they open the windows and let the sun warm their blood, making it speed through their veins with anticipation.

"Good God."

They are standing inside a partly lit room. Light is streaming in from the windows.. In the middle there is one acid orange velour couch; to the side there is one mattress, and on the other side, there is a tv, a closet, and a microwave.

"Is that a praise the lord kind of good god, as in god is good, or is that a good god as in, wow look at that orange, am I tripping or is this what I really think it is?" asks Jess, raising one eyebrow with a slightly amused expression.

"It's a good god as in, wow, we get a microwave too?"

"So it's not the Sheraton. We'll survive."

"You better not kick, sleepwalk, snore, or unconsciously cuddle," she grins, inspecting the closet with a girly kind of curiosity.

His eyebrow goes up even further.

"You're letting me share the mattress?"

She stands there, shoulders at an awkward angle, pink cheeked.

"I didn't……I wasn't trying to imply…….."

"Relax. I'm just messing with you."

She glares without subtlety, muttering something less than complimentary.

"What did you bring in from the car?" he says, eyeing the bursting army duffel with a  bewildered look.

She blushes even more, fidgeting.

"Not much stuff. Just….some pajamas and such."

He sighs.

"Unbelievable. Let me see."

"No."

He snatches her pack, dumping it out. She crosses her arms defensively.

"Bunny slippers? A robe? Kant and Hegel? Rory, sometimes you leave no words to be said."

"Packing light is for girls," she mutters, remembering her mother's words from a long time ago. "Kant has a lot to say about what we're doing."

"Indirectly, Kant could apply to anything."

"You're misusing Kant."

"He won't mind."

They stand there, looking around, satisfied.

"Swim?"

She nods, pulling out a swimsuit with pink stripes, and then stands there solemnly, looking at him. He realizes the situation.

"Want me to turn around? Cause I can……"

But he is frozen, because she has already taken off her shirt, holding his gaze steadily, eyes pinning him down. He has forgotten to breathe, and is careful not to move, or say anything. Her face is serious and calm, expressionless, eyes burning and blue; she pulls off the rest of her clothes, standing graceful and lanky-limbed like a heron. Her warm brown skin is lightly freckled, an almost invisible layer of downy blond hair on her arms and stomach. He has to fight not to break eye contact.

She slips into the suit and disappears through the door, into the blinding sunlight, her form melting like a shadow, then gone.

He stands inside the cool darkness of the room, breathing again, silent.

They don't talk about it. They don't talk about anything at all. Instead, they swim until they are so tired they cannot speak, and then lay on the sand, letting the last rays of the sun warm their bodies. They are exhausted, sand dry and sticky eyelashed. Music is drifting over from the sidewalk above the beach, some loose and lazy ska and reggae……..they are mellow and relaxed, languid. Her hand drifts lazily through the air, letting sand pound through her fingers onto his chest, thin rivers of gold sliding down his stomach.

"I see the ghost of Kerouac, Moriarty racing…….punk rockers, senator's daughters, surfers, drug addicts, animal right's activists……….California is one long, warm dream," she whispers, her voice like the sound of the pouring sand.

"Poetic."

"Are you mocking?"

"At least you didn't go all delirious on me with your Ferlinghetti California dreams or start singing Tupac," he grins, earning a light sandy slap. There is a moment of silence, after which he hears her quietly humming.

"California, knows how to party…."

She breaks into a girlish kind of laughter that makes him smile, springing up, leaning over him, shaking her thick, sandy hair in his face, covering it, and he's suffocating in her hair, her neck, her smile, her gleaming eyes.

She gets up, slowly meandering towards the shack.

"I'm making dinner," she calls over her shoulder.

"Put a paper towel down under the mini pizza this time. And only three minutes or the sauce will jump and I'll have to clean it again."

She rolls her eyes, moving in long, languid strides.

He gets up to follow her before long.

It is night, and they are both soundly sleeping. She is cold, and curls up; in his sleep, he childishly pulls towards her, unafraid and relaxed. They clutch the blanket, windows open to the ocean breeze, while the waves rhythmically sing outside in the night, advancing and receding in the infinite darkness beyond the water.

She wakes up before him, and pulls away a little, stiffly. It is morning and the first rosy rays of the dawn are breaking through, illuminating the room in a pale gold light. She studies him, eyes soft. His hair is thick and dark, beginning to curl in on the edges; his thick eyelashes and indented lip make him look like a petulant child. All the harshness, the pain, the guarded sarcasm are gone from his features.

She cannot explain her desire to kiss him, to place her lips between those slightly open ones and steal the breath that comes out. She is afraid and hesitant all of a sudden.

But she does is anyway.

When she pulls away, she sees his dark eyes watching her silently, the eyes of a little boy, big and dark brown, hooded by those butterfly lashes. He does not say anything as she lays down, her hair splayed on the pillow, still looking into his eyes. They lay there for a while like that, not saying anything. He suddenly raises his hand, taking her chin in it, placing his thumb in that little dent, then tracing her ear.

He retreats.

"We should talk," he says simply, and for the first time, they both want to.