I couldn't move. The wind was battering us now, and clouds were coming in over the lake. I still couldn't move.

            "Do storms come in pretty fast here?" I asked.

            Her face was buried next to my heart. She nodded, but she clearly didn't want to go anywhere either.

            "As long as there's no polar skinny dipping in our direct future." She mumbled. Her fingers clutched my hoodie, but it was a light weight hoodie.

            My toes were numb. The water in the lake was disturbed as the wind picked up. I pulled back, smoothing her stray strands of hair down, holding them close to her cheek, but out of her eyes. I smiled at her shivering form.

            "I think it is possible that you're my diamond."

            She nodded, her lips curling into a sweet accepting smile of her own. "Yeah. Forming right now in a coal mine."

            It seemed like we both valued the relationship enough to know when to back off of controversial subjects, even though we sensed they had to be broached. We were willing, and determined--- because there was something between us--- something worth fighting for.

            "It doesn't seem entirely possible that---"

            "That we're only on day five? We seem destined to talk about hard things right off the bat." She laughed.

            "I was going to say---" I shrugged against her. "That it didn't seem possible that we haven't had sex yet. I'm not usually one to wait."

            "Yeah, you've said that one before. It must be a real shock."

            I laughed and hugged her close. She snuggled against me and I closed my eyes feeling the wind in my face and against my clothes.

            "After we record--I'm taking you to--dinner or lunch-- or out, anyway, and I'm going to educate you."

            She blinked up at me dubiously. I laughed at her expression.

            "Not in sex. Not yet. You goof! I'm going to tell you about my girlfriends. I think you need to hear it all from me."

            She buried her face against me one more time. I stroked her hair, again and again, feeling the way she fit to me, not like anyone else, really--truly she fit differently and better.

            And I heard new music in the wind. A melody I had not thought of before. I loved when songs came to me in response to emotional moments. It made me eager to repeat it. But for the life of me-- with the ADHD habit of running off and saying stupid things-- today, holding her in this crazy freezing wind, now bringing a mist off the lake, I couldn't move. I couldn't say anything. I just knew I was making a memory with her that would have to hold me through long nights in a tour bus in the near future.

            "Rafe, I don't think I need to hear all about your old girlfriends."

            "Maybe not all at once."

            "Maybe not at all."

            "There will come a time when you need to hear it."

            "You are so funny. So determined to tell me all this negative stuff. Maybe I'm okay just knowing you the way you are now."

            "But I have to warn you off. That guy is crazy, Aubrey. I can't let you go out with him if you don't know how bad he can be. He's dangerous. He's a chameleon. He really is. He can tell you what you want to hear, be the guy you want him to be and then treat you disrespectfully, and with cruelty."

            She pulled back and looked into my eyes, filled with anguish at the reality I was trying to instill in her. She bit her lips. "Rafe." She wiped a snowflake off of my forehead. "Save it. I don't need it. I'll discover you for myself. Be whoever you want. The real man will shine through. Let's go back. It's really cold."

******