Caching In (28 page)

This particular day, Kate dropped her dad off with her aunt so she focus on work while Seth and I went on a special geocache. He told me with much excitement that morning about a possible first to find. Someone hid a cache in a gazebo nearby, per a post he found just that morning. He called his sister right away so we could go searching for it. The description listed the cache as pretty simple, so I didn’t know why we needed a whole day, but he suggested we geocache for most of the morning, do lunch, and visit my mom. She and Paul got married seven months prior. I grew to like him over the past year, but, at times, seeing them together still was difficult.

We arrived at the gazebo to no other cars in the little lot next to it. In all the years I lived here, I never stopped by the area. The gazebo sat on the corner of a busy intersection, but offset from a little stream, picnic tables lined up inside. Seth grabbed my phone and brought up the cache. Handing me back the phone, he said, “Go.”

“Go? I thought you wanted to find this. It’s a first to find, Seth!”

“I know. I want
you
to find it.”

“But-”

“Just go!”

He pushed me out of the car, and I slowly walked toward the gazebo, the phone in my hand. I stood in the center, the app indicating I needed to move northwest slightly, only about five feet. I did so, and the gap between me and the cache closed tremendously. “I’m close,” I called to Seth, who began walking toward me. “I don’t see where it could be, though.” I started to run my hands along the wood cylinders, nothing sticking out in the least to indicate anything was there. This brought back memories to the first time we met and I searched Aunt Shelly’s stones for what seemed like hours trying to find my first cache. Of course, the whole experience took only minutes, but I got pretty impatient quickly.

“Nothing?” Seth asked.

“No.” I looked at the app. “Should I click for a hint?”

He shrugged. “Up to you. Couldn’t hurt.”

I clicked the button and one line of text appeared. “Only One Direction exists, and that’s down.” Okay, so it was on the ground somewhere? And why was One Direction capitalized? Oh! Maybe I was finding Harry Styles. Ha, I doubted that to be true, but a fun thought nonetheless. I put my phone in my pocket, got on my hands and knees and began searching under the picnic tables and in between the cracks in the concrete.

“Okay, Cinderella, maybe I
should
help a bit.” Seth glanced at his phone. “It’s magnetic.”

“And on the ground?”

“Check by an electrical outlet or something.”

Glancing around, an outlet didn’t catch my eye. I did, however, see several silver plates. I touched them all, but they didn’t seem to budge.

“Try to put your fingers behind to pry the plate off.”

While I’d been geocaching for over a year now, he definitely still knew the ropes better than me. “This is why
you
should be doing this.” I touched the first one, but broke a nail trying to pull it off. “Shit.” I sucked on the finger for a second before continuing to the next one. Bingo. The silver piece detached, in it a plastic baggie with a paper inside, which I waved in the air. “I got it!”

“Are you first to find?” Seth raced over and knelt down next to me. “Open it!”

Shaking, I pulled the bag apart and took out the paper, already filled with writing. “I don’t think I am. There’s a lot on here already.” Damn. One day, Seth and I would find something first. Today was not that day.

“Read it. Let’s see!” Seth radiated confidence, even though it was apparent we didn’t find the cache first.

I unfolded the paper anyway and read out loud:

There are MOMENTS in life

That keep you UP ALL NIGHT

NOBODY COMPARES to you
I WANT, I WISH, to be with you
WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL
is EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU

You STOLE MY HEART

I don’t want YOU & I to ever be apart

You make me STRONG and I’M YOURS

I’d do it all, all OVER AGAIN

ONE THING
for sure

Is I’ve never wanted anything MORE THAN THIS

RIGHT NOW I only want to ask you

One simple little thing

You are the STORY OF MY LIFE

And, will you, please, be my wife?

Tears streamed down my face as I read the last sentence, and drops smeared the words as they landed on the paper. Seth knelt beside me, a Princess cut diamond ring in his hand. “Ally Couper, please, marry me.”

With the poem in my hand, I wrapped my arms around him, and he stumbled to the ground. “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you.” My lips crashed onto his, and I tasted my own tears.

We found our grounding again, and he placed the ring on my finger. We stood, hand in hand. “I’m really glad you were the first to find, or someone could be pretty embarrassed!”

“I don’t want to put this back!” I waved the paper at him. “You wrote me a poem almost entirely in One Direction song titles. You are, simply, the perfect man.”

“You can keep the poem.” He pulled something out of his back pocket. “Sign this one. This will be the official log.”

I signed my name through the tears and shaking, and placed the plate back on the gazebo. I began geocaching only a year ago, and along the way, found my treasure.

THANK YOU!

Thank you so much for reading
CACHING IN
, and I hope you loved the book as much as I did when I wrote it. Ally and Seth’s story poked at my brain and I needed to write it. I’m so glad I did.

If you liked this book, consider my other works:

Novels

PIECES OF IT ALL
on Amazon.
http://www.tracykrimmer.com/PiecesAmazon

Short Stories

THE RIGHT EQUATION
on Amazon.
http://www.tracykrimmer.com/TREAmazon

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL
on Amazon.
http://www.tracykrimmer.com/EBSAmazon

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CACHING IN
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