"Oh, thank you!"
I looked up to see who had steadied me. He was younger than me, wiry. His grasp was strong.
"Saw you going over," he chuckled.
His laugh was easy, not harmful, but friendly, as if to say, "it could have been me". But it was his eyes that made me stare. Clear blue, wrinkled, caring, helpful, loving.
"Thanks," I repeated.
He was still holding my hand, though I was no longer in any danger of falling. And I held his. "As long as you want!" I thought, my smile matching his as it grew across his face.
When the seconds ticked by, I felt the blush in my cheeks, hoped he wouldn't notice, since I was hot, sweaty, and sunburned from the morning's work.
"John," he said, giving my hand a gentle, friendly squeeze.
"Jack," I answered.
"Hey you two! We could use some help moving this tree!"
We both quickly dropped our hands, looking over to our leader. We were out for the day on trail cleanup, something I loved to do. I used the trail often, and felt a need to give back, to support the trail. So I had signed up for a volunteer work day. I hadn't planned on meeting anyone. I wasn't much of a social person. My wife and I were homebodies. But since the pandemic, I wanted to get out more. My wife didn't see any reason to, and left it to me to do what I had to do.
"Okay, on three," our leader said. "One, two, three!"
The six of us, though not spring chickens, worked well together. The tree budged, then swung. We quickly had it off the trail.
"Great work!"
I was smiling at John. He was smiling back. "God, he's good-looking!" I thought.
"Okay, Jack, Joan, and Keith, I need you to clear the trash from here to that red flag. Shelly, John, we'll trim the low-hanging branches and bushes. I'll show you how."
I smiled, now embarrassed that I had been ogling John all this time, and headed off with Joan and Keith. Joan and Keith were a married couple, in their 80's. I was a very fit 65, and didn't mind that I picked up twice the litter they did. It took us another hour, and the sun was bearing down.
"It's getting hot," our leader said, bringing us some bottled waters. "We can call it quits."
Joan and Keith moaned a sigh of relief, were already heading back to the parking lot with their bag of collected litter. I looked at the red flag. It was only 50 more feet down the trail.
"I'll finish this up," I said. "To the flag."
The leader smiled, patted me on the back.
"Thanks," she said.
I continued my quest, finding that I worked even faster when I wasn't keeping an eye on the older couple. I was done in just 30 minutes. As I stuffed the last bit of plastic into my trash bag, I looked back down the trail we had just cleaned. My heart sank as nobody else had stayed.
"What did I think?" I mumbled to myself.
But I HAD been thinking, for 30 minutes of uninterrupted, focused bending over, picking up, putting in. I had been fantasizing, about John, especially when I bent over...
"There you are!"
I looked up, having tied the garbage bag. It was John! I swung the garbage up over my shoulder, onto my back, and walked briskly, tall and strong.
"I thought everybody had gone home," I said.
"I thought I better come out and see if you were all right," John said.
When I reached John, he took the bag from me, hefting it on to his back with much more ease than I had. He led as we followed the last bit of trail to the parking lot.
"I've been waiting for you," John said, turning to look over his shoulder.
I was beaming! My stomach felt warm and cozy. He had been waiting, for me! He stopped, turned to face me. His face became much more serious.
"I've been getting some mixed signals," he said.
I took a step towards him, coming up closer than was normal.