enchanted.

The camping lantern sitting on my pickup indicates a broad circle of light, combating the dimmer shadows cast by the moon's insistent white glow. The trees are sparse here. The sun had sunk earlier into the furthest end of this field, which is now an impressionist sketch in dark blues and greens and flickering luminescent shades.

Her hands fly up to swat, meander through the humid August air, and come to rest in the grass next to mine.

"Mosquitoes are the worst," she says passionately. "It's not even funny. I get these huge welts, see." She points with a grimace to a sizable redness on her calf. "It's so gross. I hate bug spray, though. I should have brought one of those, like, candles."

"You could wear pants," I suggest.

Her laugh is quick, almost reflexive; her smile, wide and infectious. Especially right now, with a strand of hair falling in front of it that she doesn't bother to brush away just yet. ("Right? Let me just go grab the extra pair I keep in my purse.") One easy toss of her head in the other direction and it's all good.

I reach up into a plastic bag sprawled in the back of the pickup. "This is the best thing ever for itching. No lie," I say as I toss her a bottle of aloe vera gel, half-used from treating sunburned shoulders over the past week out here.

She wrinkles her nose in bemused caution, then looks up at stars that twinkle back in the dark pools of her eyes. "I'll take your word for it." She flips open the cap.

The fireflies sparkle in tempo with her breathing. Around us, the evening trembles with a gentle warmth, undercutting the heavy summer heat.