There were supposed to be six of us on this tour. Well, seven total. Three couples plus the guide. But when Kitty and I make it to the meeting point, there's a guy standing with a clipboard, a loved-up couple with their hands in each other's pockets, and a girl on her own. Clipboard guy waves the board at us and says, "Is one of you Katherine?"

"That's me." Kitty raises her hand. When I arranged the tour, all it asked for was the name of the cardholder and how many guests, saving us an awkward conversation about why I'm not Levi.

"Awesome, this is everyone then, guys!"

I glance at the solo girl, short and curvy with freckles and a tan and her ash blonde curls in two fat plaits. It's entirely possible that she's solo on purpose, maybe she's taking an adventurous trip to find herself or get back to her roots or whatever, but from the look on her face, I get the feeling that's not the case. Behind her oversized wire-rimmed glasses, her eyes are projecting a mix of terror and sorrow.

"Right, so, we're about to spend three busy days together so we should get to know each other. My name's Dylan," says our guide, hand on his chest. He's about five ten with an athletic build and a rugged tan, like he spends his life outdoors, his dirty blonde hair sun-bleached with an I cut my own hair look about it. "I'm thirty-two and I was born and raised in Reno, but Vegas has been my home for the last seven years. I've been running tours for almost a decade now, so I know my shit. You got any questions, you fire 'em straight at me and if I don't know the answer, I got plenty of friends I can call. Start of every tour, I like to play a game with you guys."

I groan on the inside. Icebreaker games are not my idea of fun. Especially not at six o'clock in the morning.

"It's called like, dislike, free time. Simple, self-explanatory. When you introduce yourself, I wanna hear one thing you like, one thing you don't like, and what you get up to in your free time."

Okay, not a game. I can handle this.

"Example," Dylan says, one foot propped up on the van's front wheel. "I like really fuckin' ugly Christmas sweaters, I dislike bowling, and I don't have a ton of free time between this gig and my second job as a bartender, but when I do, I spend it hiking with my girlfriend and making blanket forts with her kid."

"Cute," Kitty says under her breath. Dylan hears and grins and gives her finger guns.

"You're up next, Katherine."

"Alright. I'm Kitty – never Katherine, unless you're my mom or I've really pissed you off," she says. Dylan laughs. "I'm twenty-eight and I'm from Boston. I like roller coasters, I dislike scary movies, and I spend my free time ... uh, I spend most of my free time reading books or hanging out on Instagram."

Way to downplay almost half a million followers, I think with a smile.

"Nice to meet you, Kitty." Dylan salutes. His eyes shift to me and he says, "You guys came together, right? How do you know each other?"

Kitty takes my hand and says, "We got married last week. This tour is part of a honeymoon surprise from my wife."

The words roll off her tongue with ease. She doesn't even hesitate anymore, and nothing in her expression gives away that it's a lie. Like she has fully convinced herself that it's the truth. Forget Levi, he never existed. This really is our honeymoon.

"Oh, nice. Congrats, guys. Alright, Kitty's wife, tell us all about yourself."

"Hey, I'm Fliss. Also twenty-eight, also from Boston." My mind goes blank. I forget everything I have ever loved or hated. Kitty squeezes my hand as I stand there blinking and thinking. "Um, I like coffee? Like, it's a need." I let out an awkward laugh. The solo girl gives me an encouraging smile. It helps. "I dislike the Big Shot at the top of the Strat. With a passion." Kitty laughs at that. "I spend my free time reading mystery books and exploring New England."

Code for: I spend most of my time in various Boston coffee shops and occasionally I venture as far as Salem to take pictures for Instagram.

The lovey-dovey couple is next. Sofia and Max. She's twenty-four, from Brazil, and she looks like a model, tall and thin with the shiniest chestnut-colored hair I've ever seen outside of a commercial. She tells us with her beautiful accent that she likes music (that's as much detail as we get), she dislikes chocolate, and she spends her free time partying with her friends in Hollywood. He's twenty-five, from Los Angeles, and he looks like a fitness instructor with his hyper defined muscles and too-white teeth. He likes going the gym, he dislikes television, and he spends his free time rollerskating with his friends and traveling with Sofia.

My spidey senses are tingling, telling me these are not my type of people. I don't like to judge a book by it's cover, but ... you know what, I absolutely fucking do. I dare Sofia and Max to prove me wrong, but I don't think we're going to be friends by the end of this trip.

Solo girl is up next. She's looking at her feet, playing with her septum piercing. "I'm Leila," she says. "I'm twenty-three and I'm from Amber Creek. It's, um, this little town in the Cascade Mountains, like, a couple hours from Seattle."

She's so nervous, I want to hug her and tell her it's okay, we don't bite.

"Sorry, I was supposed to be here with my boyfriend," Leila says, now tugging on the end of one of her plaits. "We booked this trip for our two year anniversary but he left me last week for his high school girlfriend and I figured I might as well make the most of it."

Oh, god. My heart goes out to her. Kitty's grip on my hand tightens. I hadn't noticed we were still touching. It's become second nature.

"I'm so sorry," I say, because I have to say something. "That jackass doesn't know what he's missing – this is going to be an amazing few days."

Leila gives me a grateful smile, her hunched shoulders lowering. "Thank you. Fliss, right?"

"That's me." I give her my warmest smile. I hold up my hand, joined with Kitty's, and say, "Forget about your ex. We'll take you under our wing."

"You'll be okay," Kitty says, her voice soft and low. "It sucks right now but everything's going to be just fine."

"Thanks. I appreciate it," Leila says. She has no idea how much she and Kitty have in common. I can hear in Kitty's voice that she's speaking from experience; I know she's thinking of Levi. He may not have cheated, but she sure as hell knows what it's like for a relationship to fall apart after two years. Leila wraps the end of a braid around her finger and says, "Um, I like romance books. I dislike my cheating ex-boyfriend. I spend my free time ice skating and trying to find the best sunset spots in Washington state."

Dylan surveys the group once the introductions are done and he says, "I don't know about you guys, but I have a great feeling about this trip. We're going to have an epic time exploring some of the finest sights the mountain states have to offer. Ready to go?"

With that, we load our bags into the van, and we set off.

*

The itinerary for today is packed tight. After two hours on the road, we stop in Hurricane, Utah, for a quick break before another forty minutes brings us to Zion National Park. The downside of packing so much into three days is that each place we're visiting deserves at least a day to itself, but we are squeezing almost a hundred and fifty thousand acres of park into a few hours.

"I'm gonna park up here," Dylan says, pulling into the parking lot near the visitor center. "Even before we've stepped foot out of the van, look at that." He points through the windshield at a collection of sandstone rock formations rising out of the desert and the brush. "That's the Temple and the Towers of the Virgin, one of the most famous views in Zion, and you don't even have to get out of your car to see it."

"Temple of the Virgin? Sounds a bit ... sacrificial," I say. Kitty snorts.

"It's named for the river," Dylan explains. "The Virgin River runs through the park – if you do the Riverside Walk or you head into The Narrows, that's the water you'll see." He twists around in his seat and says, "Technically, the only rule for this section of the trip is that you have to be back here at twelve."

I check my phone. It's just gone nine. Three hours to explore.

"However, I do have a couple more rules to keep you guys safe." He holds up a finger. "One: nobody except me goes off alone. Even with trails and signage, it's easy to get lost or hurt in a place like this and the last thing we need is to lose one of you and nobody knows where you are." His eyes shift to Leila and he says, "Sorry, Leila, that means you're gonna have to buddy up at all times. We might end up all hanging out as a group anyway, but if there's something you desperately want to see, you'll need to persuade one of us five to check it out with you."

"That's fine," she says. She looks relieved to have an excuse to cling to someone else, and when she looks over her shoulder at Kitty and me, I nod at her with what I hope comes off as my warmest smile.

"We'll stick together," Kitty says. Without having exchanged a word on the subject, I know we're on the same page about looking after Leila.

"Rule number two," Dylan says, sticking up another finger. "No wandering off the paths. Rule three: leave no trace. Don't disturb the land and absolutely no littering or damaging of park property. I hope that one goes without saying."

We get out of the van and everyone makes sure they have sturdy shoes, laces firmly tied. Sofia and Max are limbering up ahead of us like they're about to run a marathon.

"Personally," Dylan says, "I'm going to be taking the shuttle to the last stop, the Temple of Sinawava, and hiking on from there. It's where you can find the Riverside Walk. It's an easy trail, about an hour, and it takes you to The Narrows. I don't recommend heading up the gorge, but only because it means walking in the river and you'd end up sitting in the van with wet feet for the rest of the day. If you ever come back on your own with time to spare, you should definitely check out that walk."

"Sounds like a plan," Kitty says, turning to me. "We'll go with Dylan, right? Makes sense to stick with the guy who knows what he's doing. I don't wanna get lost."

"You could never get lost with me by your side," I say, "but yeah, absolutely. Leila?"

She gives me two thumbs up. All of us glance over at Sofia and Max.

"We don't want to take the shuttle," he says. "We're going to run."

Of course they are.

"Whatever floats your boat," Dylan says. "The rest of you, head this way."

The views from the shuttle are incredible. I don't mind sitting on a bus for another forty-five minutes on the way to the Temple of Sinawava when it means we get to see so much of the park so easily. There are incredible peaks everywhere we look, towering stone in various shades of brown and pink and orange.

"This park used to be flat," Dylan says, sitting in front of us with his arm hooked around the back of his seat. "Like, hundreds of millions of years ago, it was a basin at sea level. All the monoliths this park is famous for were formed by streams carrying material that eroded from nearby mountains over millions of years, as well as shifting under the earth's surface pushing the park's elevation from zero to over ten thousand feet."

"In another life, I should've been a geographer," Kitty says, gazing out of the window. "This stuff is fascinating. I wish I understood it better."

"Water plus time plus erosion plus crust uplift equals pretty cool park," Dylan says with a laugh. "Don't worry, I've been doing these tours for years and I can't count how many times I've been to this park and I still can't get my head around how places like this exist."

It takes us forty-five minutes to get to the Temple of Sinawava, a natural amphitheater deep in the heart of the Zion Canyon. The walls of the canyon are high around us and it could feel claustrophobic, but it's so beautiful, I can only admire how hard nature has worked to carve out this gorge. It's a balmy seventy-five degrees right now, a nice break from the city heat of Vegas, and people are splashing in the wide river near the shuttle stop. Dylan leads us to the Riverside Walk trailhead. He tells us to turn back when we reach The Narrows and there's no longer anywhere to walk alongside the river before heading off on his own walk, something more challenging, and the three of us are alone.

Leila tucks her thumbs under the straps of her backpack as we set off along the path and says, "I'm sorry for cramping your style."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Kitty says.

"You guys are here on your honeymoon and now you've had to adopt me. It's hardly romantic, having some heartbroken rando following you around."

"Hey." There's that sharp side of Kitty again, the one I rarely see, the one that demands attention. "You're not cramping our style, Leila. Trust me. We're here to see some of the coolest shit nature has to offer, not to be some gross couple who want to be left alone to do their own thing."

Like Sofia and Max, I think. I don't think we'll be seeing much of them any time we have a choice over what to do.

"Trust me, I've been in your position. Well, not exactly, but close enough," Kitty continues. "I didn't want to be alone and I bet you don't either."

"I don't," Leila says, her voice small.

"So stick with us, and we'll help you forget all about your shitty ex," I say. "Who needs some guy when you've got Kitty and Fliss and the kind of terrifying beauty of Utah?"

"God, I can't believe we're in Utah!" Kitty cries, spinning in a circle as we walk. She grabs my hand, swinging it between us. "You are the best at honeymoon surprises."

"I try," I say, and I decide that if Kitty's going to go all out with this deception for the next three days, I have no choice but to go along else we're going to be found out, so I lift her hand to my lips and kiss the back and I taste her lotion. A Thousand Wishes from Bath & Body Works. I watched her rub it into her skin this morning and tried my hardest not to imagine her doing the same to me.

"How'd you guys meet?" Leila asks.

"College," I say before Kitty can come up with something ridiculous. "We both went to Boston University and we were roommates our freshman year." The best way to lie and get away with it is for the lie to be rooted in truth, and Kitty and I have a long history for our lie to wrap its roots around.

"Roommates, huh? That could've been awkward, right? Like, what if you broke up?"

"When it's meant to be, it's meant to be," Kitty says. "But we gave it a year before we acted on anything and made it official." I wonder if she plans out what she's going to say or if it's all off the cuff. I need to keep a list of things we tell Leila and the rest of the group because unlike bartenders and gondoliers and day trip guides, we are going to see these people again. Every moment for the next three days.

"She wanted me from the moment we met, though," I say. If we're doing this, I'm going to have fun with it. "Kitty won't admit it but I know she spent that year pining after me."

Kitty laughs and thumps me. "I did not, I don't pine."

"Oh, you do! You are such a piner, Kitty Cohen."

"That's Kitty Campbell-Cohen now, darling," she says, and a shiver runs down my spine.

Leila's watching us with big gray eyes and the hint of a smile on her lips. She has a perfect cupid's bow. "What'd you guys study at college?"

"I did business management; Kitty studied advertising," I say, "and now I work in marketing and she's an advertiser, so I guess we're a pair of success stories. Did you go?"

"Mmm. Graduated last year," Leila says. "I studied English Lit 'cause I love reading but it made me hate books for a while and now I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do to work in the field of my degree and pay off my student loans."

"What do you do at the moment?"

"I work in a bookstore," Leila says. "I love it, but, like, what was the point in going to college only to end up back in my home town, living with my parents and making fifteen bucks an hour in a job I could've gotten without a degree?"

"Are you happy?" Kitty asks.

Leila thinks about it. There's a moment of quiet as we focus on navigating the path. There are plenty of people out today, more than I expected for a random Monday in October, a lot of them older, gray-haired people with proper hiking gear who probably plan to wade into The Narrows. We're surrounded by the vibrant colors of fall, something I didn't expect to see in Utah of all places, but the trees around us are decorated in shades of red and yellow, orange and green.

"I am," Leila says at last, after several seconds have passed. "I mean, kind of. I will be. I'm happy in general. It's difficult at the moment, because I was so excited to come on this trip with Andy and I feel sick every time I think about the fact that I'm single after two years and I got cheated on."

I wince, and not just because a stone has found its way into my shoe. "Oof. That's rough. I'm sorry, Leila. Kudos to you for coming out here anyway."

"I've been excited about this for weeks," she says. "I told Andy that the least he could do after fucking his ex-girlfriend and stomping all over my heart was to pay up for his half of the hotel in Vegas so I could still do this trip."

"I hope the bastard paid up." Kitty's voice is low and threatening.

"Oh, yeah." She smiles and says, "He must've been feeling guilty as fuck because he paid for my half, too."

"How long've you been staying there?"

"I stayed in a crappy hostel last night but after this tour is over, I'm staying on for a few days in a nicer place, until the twenty-ninth."

"Hey, same! That's when we fly back to Boston," I say. "If you get lonely once we're back in Vegas or if you want any recommendations, hit us up."

"You guys are so nice already, you don't even know me," Leila says with a quiet, awkward laugh. We turn a corner and the sun shines on her face, illuminating her watery eyes, the dampness of her eyelashes.

"You're a broken-hearted girl making the best of a bad situation and putting herself out of her comfort zone," Kitty says. She sees what I see, that Leila's trying her best not to cry, and she pulls her into a one-armed hug as we navigate the rocky terrain. "You're one of us, now. You're gonna be okay. We'll make sure of it."

After thirty minutes, we reach the end of the paved path, and the temperature is increasing. Still nothing like the weather we've had in Vegas, but I guess the high sides of the canyon must hold the heat because I'm sweating by the time we reach the point where there's no space between the river and the edge of the gorge. There are steps down from the end of the path onto a rocky, sandy little beach area where people are paddling in the water, shoes in their hands. The walls are much closer now, a mile down the river from the trailhead, the pine trees tall and thin to stretch towards the sky that seems like it's miles above us.

I slip off my shoes, empty out the couple of stones I've accumulated, and walk into the green water. Instant relief, cold water rushing around my ankles. The others soon follow. We have time. It'll take us thirty minutes to walk back to the trailhead, forty-five to take the shuttle back to the parking lot. That gives us thirty minutes of leeway, and I want to bask in the beauty surrounding us. I take a photo looking downriver, towards The Narrows, where people of all ages are calf-deep in the river as they continue the trail. I already know that I will have to come back here one day, that someday I will see where the river leads.

I wade out into the middle. Kitty follows me.

"I feel so bad for her," she says, leaning against me for balance. The riverbed is uneven and the current is stronger than it looks, though not strong enough for the park to close The Narrows. "She's such a nice girl."

"Your mama bird is kicking in," I say.

"It is. I just want to wrap her up in a big hug and have her believe me when I tell her that she'll be okay, but her heart's pretty freshly broken. I can't imagine what kind of fucking asshole would cheat on someone so sweet."

"Assholes will be assholes. Cheaters will cheat no matter how nice the person they're dating is."

"Poor kid."

"Hardly a kid," I say with a laugh. "She's twenty-three."

"I'm pretty sure I was still a kid at twenty-three," Kitty says. "I'm not sure I'm an adult yet."

"Trust me, you're an adult."

"Do I have to be?"

"If you're not, then I am really not comfortable being your wife."

She grins. Throws an arm around my shoulders and presses her lips to my cheek and says, "Fine, I'll be an adult for you, Felicity."

"Hey, guys, look!" Leila calls, her soft voice already familiar. Kitty and I both turn around, only to see that she's standing with only her toes in the river, holding up her phone to take a picture of us out in the middle. As she turns, Kitty loses her balance again. She slips on a rock and as I lurch to grab her, she flings both arms around my middle, holding on tight like I'm a life raft, laughing as she looks up at me. The sun is directly over us, pouring into the gorge, painting us with its honeyed rays, and Leila still has her phone trained on us. Another moment captured on camera, another picture that I bet will make my chest ache.

*

welcome leila! she'll feature a fair bit in the rest of the book so i hope you like her!