Three Hours at the Orchard

"Picking our food off of trees? What are we amish now?...No. No, I don't think we're supposed to do this. I don't like this" David huffed gesturing around the orchard.

Sarah yanked a dark red apple off of a branch and with a huff turned back towards David. "My God. This isn't torture, it's supposed to be fun David. Remember what that's like?" she said with an eye roll.

"Fun? FUN?" David retorted, "There is nothing fun about manual labor."

"Manual labor?! David, it's apple picking." Sarah said while turning back around and picking another apple off the branch. She threw the apple into the mesh sack and turned around and dramatically thrust it into David's arms. Without another word Sarah pivoted and began to walk away.

"Anyways I thought you'd enjoy this," Sarah shouted over her shoulder as they marched down towards another part of the orchard, David begrudgingly trailing a few feet behind. "Think of all the cute fall photos we can take!"

"Well, we could've gotten cute photos if it weren't for the fact that I'm completely sweating bullets over here! This sweat can't possibly pass as an October glow." David snapped while wiping his forehead with the heel of his hand and lazily dragging the heavy sack of apples along the dewy grass.

"Welllll, maybe next time you will actually take my advice and not wear a thick cashmere sweater in 75 degree heat!" Sarah said with a chuckle.

Before David could come up with an equally snarky reply, Sarah abruptly stopped walking and David stumbled right into her. Looking up at the trees to their left she nodded to herself, looked at David, and said "Let's get to it."

Sarah began reaching up and picking apples while throwing them into the sack that David held open beside her. After about five apples or so and no movement on David’s end, Sarah stopped and with an eye roll of utter exasperation turned towards him.

"Really?" she said, "Is that all you're going to do for the next two hours? Hold the damn bag? Why'd you even agree to come with me? I would've had more fun by myself at this point."

Sarah watched as David dramatically dropped the sack and brought his hands to his cheeks in horror. "We're going to be here TWO MORE HOURS? What are we- Granny Smith reincarnate?!"

"Really David? That's all you got from this? Yes, we're going to be here two more hours. This is supposed to be a fun fall outing! Maybe if you stop being such a grump we can get some cute pictures before we go and make it look like we have a damn social life" Sarah replied.

Annoyed as can be, she and David both reached down to pick up the sack and the few apples that had come rolling out in David's dramatic fit. As David went to throw one of the apples back into the sack Sarah whacked his hand away and the apple went falling.

"Nope!" she said, "You had your chance for fun apple picking. Give me forty five minutes to pick some more apples without your incessant whining in my ear and then mayyybe we can just go home."

"But what am I supposed to do here?" David said while gesturing around. "It's just endless apple trees!"

"I don't know David!! Figure it our! Wander the trees, make a new friend, quite frankly I don't care what it is you do. Just give me a bit of peace and quite to get some more apples and then we can go from there."

David stood there unsure of what he should do, but with a glare and a shooing motion from Sarah, David pivoted and began to make his way through the rest of the orchard alone.

*** An Hour and a Half Later ***

"Ugh I knew this day wasn't made for "fall fun". Now how the fuck to get out of here is the real question..." David thought to himself looking around the mountain high stacks of hay.

After a few minutes of wandering the orchard and making the mistake of eating one of the disgustingly bitter apples right off the tree, David had grown painstakingly bored. So when a sign indicating a "Funky Fall Festival" ahead caught his eye, (despite how tacky he thought that sounded), he felt he had no other option but to walk over and check it out.

Shockingly all had been fine at first. He had checked the time and saw he had about thirty more minutes until he should head back to the orchard and look for Sarah. In the mean time he got a nice simmering hot chocolate to take away the bitter taste of the apple he had eaten before and watched drunken men try and fail at apple bobbing. Then he even had a stranger snap a cute candid of him in the pumpkin patch. It had seemed that there was potential to turn this mess of an afternoon around. But all had been going well- too well, so of course David had to go and push his luck and take a go at the hay maze. The man at the entrance wished him luck and said it shouldn't take more than 25 minutes for David to find his way out.

That was over an hour ago.

Phone on nine percent and not another person in sight, David was seriously beginning to stress. Pacing back and forth he shook the collar of his sweater, his throat feeling tighter by the minute. After a few minutes with no bright ideas coming to mind, David plopped himself right there on the ground in the middle of the maze, wholeheartedly unsure of what he should do next.

Should he scream? Maybe, but that seemed quite dramatic considering somewhere out there not far beyond this never ending maze there were loads of families at the festival who would be quite freaked out if he were to do that.

Should he try and use his phone? He had been contemplating that over the last half hour or so, but he knew his phone likely wouldn't survive a phone call more than a minute, and if his phone died he would have absolutely no way of tracking Sarah down- and she was his ride home.

Should he keep walking and trying to find the end of the damn maze? Um YES. But in the midst of his near panic attack, David saw no other option but to sit and wait until his breathing returned to this universe. Or hopefully another maze goer would come along that he could follow out of this mess.

This was all Sarah's fault! David knew nothing good could come out of going apple picking!!

Looking up from where he sat, David began to panic even more, realizing the once blazing sun was on its way towards sunset over the next half hour or so. No phone charger and hot chocolate long gone, David folded his legs beneath him, closed his eyes, and attempted to find some sort of sanity. Or at least not have a freakin heart attack before the night was out.

"Meditating in a hay maze? Well there's something you don't see every day."

David snapped his eyes wide open to see three men around his age each with drinks in hand looking at him with a bit of humor and bemusement.

"Hi, oh my god you don't realize how glad I am to see you guys," David began to stammer, "You don't know how long I've been trying to escape this dumpster fire of a maze! Ugh I'm so glad to see humansss!"

David's eyes drifted between the three men, and double took when he caught the man behind the one who had spoken staring at him and quickly averted his eyes as a blush involuntarily colored his cheeks.

"What's your name?" the guy who spoke asked as David stood and dusted himself off.

"I'm David" he said as he brushed his hands off on the side of his pants once more before reaching out and shaking the man's hand.

"Dan," the man replied, "And behind me is Henry and next to me here is my boyfriend Arnie."

"Hi" Dan said with an awkward wave, eyes briefly catching Henry's once more before looking away.

Dan and Arnie gave one another a knowing look, and before Henry or David could speak they took it upon themselves to separate from the other two men.

"Well David," Dan drawled, "You seem like a nice guy, but Arnie and I here are trying to have a cute festive date, so if you'd be kind enough to take our dashing lil third wheel Henry here off our hands, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to escort you out of the maze."

"Wait wha-" Henry began, looking nervously at his friends.

"C'mon Henry! It'll be fine." Arnie said with a light shoulder shove to Henry.

Arnie then grabbed Dan's hand and the two began to saunter off deeper into the maze. "Have fun!" Dan shouted over his shoulder.

"Not too much fun!" Arnie shouted back to them in retort, the two men's laughter flitting down the maze.

A frazzled Henry turned and looked back at an equally uncomfortable David. For a moment neither of them said anything. Then both opened their mouths to speak.

"Uh sorry, you go" Henry said.

"No, no. You go. If I'm being honest I had nothing to say, I just am terrible with awkward silence" David replied with a slight chuckle, looking around unable to fully meet Henry's eyes.

"Okay, well I was just gonna say I'm sorry about my friends." Henry said while fidgeting about. "You know how it gets..."

"What do you mean?" David questioned, cocking his head to the side, finally taking a moment to really look Henry up and down.

"You know..." Henry trailed off, "Wingmen and all that shit?"

"Oh." David said, a small smile breaking. "Well maybe that's not what they were trying to do?"

"Oh they most definitely were." said Henry, as the two began walking shoulder to shoulder in the direction Dan and Arnie had began walking just moments before.

"How do you know?" David nervously asked, peering over at Henry from the side of his eye.

"Well, this is gonna sound embarrassing, like you might not wanna keep walking with me after I tell you this" Henry said, his face completely flushed.

"Well now you absolutely have to tell me." David said, and the two stopped walking.

"Um, okay, so the thing is I saw you earlier today." Henry said, looking anywhere but David.

"What? What does that mean you saw me?" David asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"I saw you earlier this afternoon over at the apple orchard. My friends, ugh.." Henry began fidgeting, pulling on his sweater, " Well my friends saw me checking you out and made a HUGE thing. It wasn't until we saw your friend picking apples alone a little later that they finally let it go! And that's only because they dragged me over to her and told her that I had a thing for you, it was so embarrassing!"

"Embarrassing?" David asked, "So you don't have a thing for me?"

"Uh well I do find you attractive if that's what you're asking." Henry said, his face completely pink at this point. " But I didn't even know you! For all I knew that girl could've been your girlfriend!

Imagine how mortifying that would've been..."

"Oy. Sarah and I are NOT an item" David laughed.

"Well I know that now " Henry exclaimed, "But you can only imagine how horrified I was when Dan and Arnie literally grabbed me by the arms and dragged me all the way over to this poor girl. There are probably marks in the grass from where I dragged my feet!"

"Well, I guess my next question is what did Sarah say exactly?" David asked, the two men beginning to meander through the maze once again.

Henry turned to look David directly in the eyes, "She said and I quote wow David is so gonna thank me for this, and then went on to give me your phone number."

David began to laugh, "I would say you've gotta be kidding me, but that's Sarah for ya!"

The two chuckled a bit more and continued to walk chatting a bit and getting to know each other. Soon they came to a peaceful silence and the light of the exit began to appear about a hundred feet away. The two continued forward towards the exit until David stopped walking and broke the quiet, asking the burning question he just couldn't hold in any longer.

"Okay I just have to ask before we part ways. Were you going to call?" he asked.

Henry stopped walking as well and gave David a nervous smile. "Honestly I'm not sure. I think I would've been too nervous about what your reaction would've been."

"Oh. Well, okay." David replied and turned to continue walking towards the maze's exit.

"But-" continued Henry, "When I saw you of all people sitting on the floor in the middle of this goddamn maze, well it might sound corny as hell, but it just felt like, I dunno- a sign."

David couldn't help himself, he turned around back towards Henry, a full smile broke out across his face. "No, no in fact that actually doesn't sound corny at all."

"So," continued David, "Do I get to have your number? Just in case you chicken out or something" he said with a wink while moving closer to Henry.

"Oh, yeah of course!" Henry said, taking David's phone and plugging his number in. "I'm really glad you got lost."

"Me too. Me too." murmured David as the two finally reached the exit.

The two passed the exit, stopped, and turned to one another. Big smiles on both their faces neither said anything for a moment.

"Well, uh-"

"Umm,"

They both awkwardly laughed and unsure of what to do, Henry awkwardly stuck his hand out to shake.

David stood there for a moment, looking between Henry's hand and face, and with a sudden moment of decisiveness stepped forward and engulfed Henry in a hug.

Henry remained frozen for a split second before he wrapped his arms around David in return.

"I'll be looking for that text." David whispered in Henry's ear.

They each broke away from one another and each pivoted and walked off in opposite directions in search of their respective friends. From the hooting and hollering he heard behind him, David was sure Dan and Arnie had found Henry and were already demanding to find out what had happened between them.

Luckily it only took a few minutes for David to spot Sarah while maneuvering amongst the jostling families. Guiltily he looked at her sitting on a bench worriedly typing away on her phone.

"Sarah!" David shouted out and waved at her as he pushed past a group of families walking by. Sarah looked up, relief washing over her.

She quickly stood and put her hands on her hips, her relief turning to anger. "Where the hell have you been?" she demanded, "I have been worried sick! You were supposed to bug off for 30 minutes, not two hours! And your phone keeps going directly to--" she was cut off as David engulfed her in a hug.

He pulled back, still holding Sarah by the shoulders, a big smile across his face.

"Uh oh" Sarah said with a look of suspicion, "What did you do David?"

"Nothingggg." sang David, " I'm just really glad we went apple picking."