There’s only one way

“There’s nothing wrong with being enthusiastic,” David decided, not wanting to destroy Amanda’s enthusiasm.

“So, where do you keep your maps?” David hurried to ask, trying to establish the fact that the prospect of just the two of them heading out into the wilderness together wasn’t exactly one which he was opposed to.

“They’re out here,” Amanda revealed, and David found it very challenging to keep from staring at her ass as she led him back into the outer room of the archive, where she ended up standing in front of a large metal cabinet.

“What were those coordinates again?” Amanda asked, and once David had read them out to her she pulled out one of the cabinet’s thin, long shelves and helped herself to one of the thick tubes which were stored inside it.

“Let’s see,” Amanda had spread out the detailed topographic map stored inside the case and was examining it while David stood by her side, “here it is!”

“Huh,” David looked at the point on the map where Amanda was holding her finger, noting that there weren’t any signs of there being anything there which set it apart from the rest of the woods in which it was located, “looks like it’s located at least a day and a half from the nearest road.”

“Yeah, but it’s still kind of weird that everyone’s seems to have missed it. It isn’t even on the map.” Amanda remarked, once more bubbling with enthusiasm.

“You know,” Amanda broke eye-contact with David and looked straight ahead, “I’m a pretty keen hiker, and I’ve got almost everything you’d need for a three- or four-day trip into the woods… apart from an extra sleeping bag.”

“Well,” David liked how Amanda’s cheeks had gotten a bit more colour as she said that last bit, “I don’t have to be back in school before early Wednesday afternoon, and sleeping bags aren’t that expensive?”

“You… you mean…?” Amanda began, stuttering a bit as she tried coming up with a coherent response.

“Uh,” David considered it weird how much it felt like he was asking Amanda out on a date or something, and hadn’t really been expecting to feel so nervous about it, “I mean that if you think that you could get away with it, I’d be happy to head out for the fort pretty soon.”

“When?” Amanda asked, the way in which she was looking at David resulting in his heart fluttering rather a lot.

“I was thinking… tomorrow?” David said, rather expecting Amanda to say no to heading out for the fort on such short notice. Regretting his question as soon as he had asked it, David was now hoping that Amanda would at least want to travel to it with him at some point in the future.