Darla Jones just kissed my face. But let me be clear when I say face: I mean full smack on the same mouth that up until this point has only reluctantly graced the cheeks of my grandmothers. I keep rubbing my hands up and down my face just reassure myself that it was actually my lips on which she planted hers, and not some other guy who happens to have my weak and lanky adventurer body. (Who needs a six pack when you have a jet pack, am I right, or am I right?) This has quite possibly been the best day of my life, besides that time I got my bedroom light switch balanced perfectly between on and off.

“Holy God in heaven,” I murmur, still in a daze. “I think you dropped something.”

Darla looks over her shoulder as we march through the tunnel, concerned. “Me, or the Good Lord in heaven?”

“You,” I rush to clarify. Now would not be a good time to encourage divine wrath when I’m on top of my game. “It must have been your standards, because I don’t know how else to explain what just happened.”

“Oh, cherub,” Darla says helplessly. She slides down the wall, hugging her knees as tears brim in the corner of her eyes. Do girls cry after they kiss the man of their dreams? I’m getting the feeling that no, no they don’t.

“Did I do something wrong, Darla?” Struggling with what to do with my hands, I fiddle quietly with the flashlight, playing the beam across the opposite wall, and resisting the urge to make more shadow puppets. There’s a time and a place for those things, Iowa, as my mother would say. My sensitive male ingenuity tells me this is not the time.

“Of course not, Iowa. I’m just…” Darla blows out a breath. “I’m just kind of a mess right now. None of this was supposed to happen.” She crushes something fiercely in her hand, and I realize the note we found in lieu of treasure is making her more upset than I originally thought. Here I am so caught up in my own manly whirlwind of emotions that I missed the fact that maybe this time it’s actually Darla who needs someone to hold her.

I open my arms and let her lean against me. “Hey, it’s going to be OK. Even if you held up eight roses in a front of a mirror this very second, I’d still see nine of the most beautiful things in the world. You know what,” I say, standing up and pulling her with me. “We’re not done here.”

Darla sniffles. “What do you mean, cherub?”

“We got together for one final adventure, right? We’re not going to stop until we’ve gone and borrowed back that treasure!”

“Don’t y’all mean steal?”

“Yes, Darla, but borrowing makes me sound like a much better person. I mean, I’m not trying to impress you or anything, but aside from my high moral integrity, I’m also Batman.”

Darla cocks her head, a faint smile playing on her lips. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“It was the thud of millions of girls fainting everywhere because I’m going treasure hunting with Batman.”

“Hmm, you know I didn’t hear that…” I pause as what she said begins to sink in. “Wait. We’re actually going to do this?”

“Sometimes you just make it impossible to say no, cherub.”

“Was it because I said I’m Batman? Because if this is going to be a successful partnership there’s something you really ought to know.”

Darla rolls those gorgeous green eyes. “I know you’re not Batman, cherub, but I realized y’all were right. These last few years have prob’ly been some the best times of my life, and there’s no one else I’d rather have spent them with. If this is our last hurrah, we’re gonna go out with a bang the size of my Uncle Buford’s birthday balloon after he filled it with alcohol fumes and lit it up real good. He gone now, but I believe in us Iowa.”

She gives me the crumpled piece of paper she found in the cave. I turn it over in my hand, and after dropping it a few times in the same puddle, I find the tiniest letters scrawled into the back corner of the paper: “See below: two brown envelopes.”

“Darla! Did you see any envelopes while you were in the cavern?” I shout in her face, because I’m a shouter when I get excited. But she’s already gone, footsteps slapping back down the direction we came.

“Darla!” I wheeze, tearing clumsily behind her. “You know,” I pause to gasp for breath, “I am NOT a runner!” I finally make it to the cavern where Darla digs around for the supposedly hidden envelopes, and hug the wall for dear life, trying to catch my breath. I can feel my eyes crossing from lack of oxygen. “I’ve always wanted my eyes to be crossed,” I manage, watching Darla crawl around, frantically searching. “This way I can see you twice.”

“Deep breaths, cherub!” Darla reminds me. “IN, OUT! IN OUT!”

I’m concentrating on sucking down air when Darla jumps up with a shrill cry. “I’ve found them!” She waves two tattered brown envelopes above her head. “Let’s read them above ground. This cave is harshing my vibes.”

“Speak for yourself,” I say, only pretending to wiggle my eyebrows because that’s a skill I never mastered. Darla sends me a wicked grin and darts back down the tunnel. I watch her disappear and moan. “Seriously? Not even a water break for the asthmatic?”

“Iowa, you aren’t an asthmatic.”

“Then maybe it’s just your beauty taking my breath away!” I jog after her. It’s more of a shuffle really, but my woman doesn’t complain. We trek all the way back to the beginning. Usually at this point, I’m exhausted and defeated, but this time, I’m just exhausted. This is progress, people! Our adventure has only just begun.

Darla peels back the large plastic bag concealing the hole in the Quikmart bathroom wall. “WHAT is that THING on your HAND?” I shout, grabbing up Darla’s hand in my own.

“What is it, cherub?”

“Oh nothing,” I shrug nonchalantly. “I just wanted to hold your hand. You know how much I hate public restrooms.”

Darla chuckles, clearly in awe of my cleverness. “Fair enough.” She steps up and into the bathroom, dragging me behind her and completely ignoring my fear. I cannot express to you how much public restrooms scare me, but I’ll try to educate you. Public bathrooms are like the color navy blue: constantly around you and just as terrifying.  Oh but Darla, usually she just struts right in like she owns the place. It’s one of the many things I admire about her, but this time, she stops, and her hand falls from mine.

The stalls of the bathroom are also covered in the same plastic tarping that covers the ragged hole in the wall, and the mirrors are gone, their empty frames hanging crookedly on the walls. Plaster dust coats the floor, our dusty footprints a stark trail left behind.

“It looks like a construction site,” Darla says. That’s my girl, sharp as a razor.

“Is your last name Gillette?” I ask. “Because you’re the best a man can get.”

“I don’t understand this. We’ve only been gone for twenty minutes, and nobody cares enough about Quikmart bathrooms to renovate them! What’s going on?”

Suddenly there’s a scream outside.

“I found it FIRST! Let it GO!” The fat woman who accosted me with her purse in the ladies’ room at the start of our little adventure is looming over the scrawny, pockmarked cashier who’s clinging desperately to what looks like a signed piece of cardboard. The woman has ditched her purse in favor of a menacing black umbrella and is advancing on the poor guy. Now, I’ve always been a supporter of underdogs, but damn, I’ve been in the cashier’s position before. My money is on the 300 pounds of flesh and fury.

I lean over to Darla, trying to be as discreet as possible. “What’s that thing he’s holding?”

“Not sure, cherub. That may a relic from before our time.”

“Ma’am please!” The cashier is cowering behind the object. “It’s just a record! It’s not important.”

“It’s more important than you!” the fat lady booms. “If a city wide treasure hunt demands it, I shall have it!” She rears up with her umbrella just as Darla intervenes.

“Excuse me, but y’all need to take this business elsewhere. I’ll have no casualties on my watch. Besides, you’re so large you’d need to get your group insurance to take care of this mess, and that sounds like too much exercise for y’all anyway. Y’all should be ashamed!”

“Darla Jones, you are so sexy when you’re feisty!” I cover my mouth quick after the look Darla shoots me.

“Well, never in all my years have I been treated with such insolence!” the woman sputters, but she backs off and waddles down the street, most likely uttering a thousand curses on my sidekick.

“What’s your name?” Darla asks, giving the cashier a hand.

He gets up and grins. “My name is Chance. Do I have one with you?”

DO MY EARS DECEIVE ME? “Hold. Up.”

Darla looks at me, eyes wide. This guy, who should be cowering in fear at the sight of me, just stands there looking slightly confused. It is so on.

“Darla?”

“Yes, cherub?”

“Do you believe in love at first sight, or do you want me to walk by again?”

Chancey-boy’s eyes narrow. “Darla, lovely name, have you gone to the doctor’s lately? Because I think you’re lacking some Vitamin Me.”

“Actually, Darla, I have been to the doctor’s already and he said I was lacking some Vitamin U.”

“Are you a campfire, Darla? Because you’re hot and I want s’more.”

“Darla, you’re so hot you make fire jealous!”

“Darla, if you were a transformer, you’d be HOT-obot, and you’re name would be Optimus Fine.”

“Hey Darla, you like Legos, I like Legos, so let’s build a relationship.”

“Darla, you must be French, because madaaaaamn!”

“Actually, she’s Australian because she meets all my koala-fications.”

“Well Darla, I’m not trying to impress you or anything, but I’m Batman.”

“Oh my,” Darla murmurs.

“HA!” I shout and turn, careful to catch Darla’s eyes. “Forget Spiderman, Superman, even Batman. I can be your man.” Darla smiles, and shakes her head. I’ve won this round, but Chance doesn’t know when to give up.

“If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together.”

“That’s funny,” Darla responds, “because if I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put F and U together.”

Chance’s jaw drops and I allow myself a small victory fist pump. “You are amazing,” I say as we walk away.

Darla laughs. “Thanks, cherub. Bless his heart, he was way outta his league.” She pauses. “Y’all wanna open these envelopes now? They’ve been burnin’ a hole in my pocket ever since we got back.” She expertly opens the first envelope and begins to read. “Iowa,” she breathes. “You’ll never guess what this says.”

“It’s from my future self! I’m a lot smoother by then and it says, ‘Dearest doll face, roses are red, bananas are yellow, won’t you go out with this nice little fellow?’”

“No, cherub. We’ve stumbled onto something much bigger than time travel. Our careers as adventurers could be in jeopardy!”

“Noooooooo!” I gasp, sinking to my knees and shaking my fist at this cruel world.

“It’s true, cherub! Read it.” She shoves the letter in my face. The words blur together, but “city-wide,”  “scavenger hunt,” and “prize,” blaze across my eyelids like burning red flags.

“This must’ve been what that fat lady was yellin’ ‘bout. And why the bathroom was torn apart. The prize is probably our treasure, the one that was stolen!” Darla paces back and forth. I’m still scolding the sky with my fist, which is why if Darla wasn’t my sidekick, I’d never get anything done. “Iowa, we need a copy of that scavenger hunt list.” She grabs both sides of my face, far enough away to be way too distracting. I nod dumbly.

“We’ve got to be the first to find everything on that list to get back our treasure!”

“Or,” I suggest, trying to be the hero, but hoping for another kiss, “we could just go straight to the source and take it back that way.” I wait for her to shut me down, laugh off my suggestion with a flick of her hair and an “oh cherub, ain’t you cute,” but she doesn’t.

“Iowa, cherub, you’re a genius!”

I scramble upright and look around wildly for another dude impersonating me, because that’s the only way “Iowa” and “genius” could be used in the same sentence without a punch line.

“The only problem,” Darla continues, “is that we don’t know who left the envelopes and spread the scavenger hunt lists.”

“I’m feeling my new neighbors. They look pretty shifty to me.”

“That’s just because you think anyone with a mustache has an alternate evil agenda.”

“But it’s the whole family!” I protest. “Evil is hereditary when even the newborn pops out with a ‘stache.”

“Fine, we’ll go check it out, ask a few questions. This is your idea after all. Do you know where they live?”

“Of course. I make it my business to know about the shifty characters that could potentially thwart all of our future adventuring expeditions. What would I do with my weekends if I could no longer save damsels in distress and set off traps? Just as if I had to live without you, my life without adventures would be like a broken pencil: pointless.” I gaze soulfully past Darla.

“The address?”

“Oh right. They live on that street that’s right behind mine, Evildis, I believe. 123 Evildis Way, if we want to be precise.”

Darla just looks at me. “What!” I shout. “You act like I make this stuff up! Come on, it’s not a far walk.”

We arrive right outside a cute little rancher with mint siding and a white picket fence, and Darla’s no doubt pointed look is poking holes in my back. To avoid her stare, I walk up the cobblestone path to the front porch, and standing on a welcome mat that reads, “Please be neat and wipe your feet!,” I ring the doorbell. A deep, sinister rumble echoes throughout the house. I turn back to Darla and stick out my tongue. “Was that an earthquake, or did I just rock your world?”

Suddenly the floorboards come out from under me and a find myself falling fast, yanked to a halt by none other than another net. “Ah, hey Darla?” I call up.

“What is it, cherub?”

“You wanna save me first, then get the treasure, or get the treasure first?”

She pokes her head over the trap door in the porch to look down at me, snug in my net. “I’ll come back for y’all,” she says.

I struggle to give her a thumbs up. “Yeah, that’s probably safer!” I give my net a spin and offer her a salute. “I’ll be here. Go kick some ass, girlfriend.”

Darla returns my salute and disappears over the top. Soon after I feel the net begin to shift slightly, almost as if it is being pulled up. “Darla?”

“Did you really think I would leave you there, cherub? If y’all remember, it didn’t end so well last time. We’re doing this together.” She reaches down to offer me a hand up, and I grab on gratefully.

“And here I thought you brought me along just to admire me stuck in traps. I mean, that’s why I bring me.”

“Let’s go, cherub. We have ourselves a villain to catch.” Darla kicks through a window because doors are for normal people. She slides gracefully through and helps me up after I face plant not-so-gracefully.

The house seems to be empty. Everything is polished and pristine, almost as if no one has been here in a while. It’s also quiet… too quiet. The kind of “too quiet” that gets the pretty people eaten in horror movies.  Lying on a table is a box topped with tangled ribbon, the folded paper next to it claiming the box to be the prize for the scavenger hunt.

“Well,” I said, walking forward. “They made this easy for us. That sign practically says come take me.”

Darla yanks me back by my shirt collar. “I don’t trust it, Iowa. This could be another trap.”

“Which is why I’m going first, duh.” I pick up the present and shake it. “Yup, there’s definitely something in here. Should I open it?”

“Stop right zere. Drop ze box, thief!”

Standing behind Darla is a large man with a mustache that promotes his evilness like nothing I’ve ever seen before. If Darla hadn’t believed me earlier, she believes me now. The black beret on his balding head and the fake French accent just make him even more authentic. If I wasn’t so intimidated, I would totally ask for an autograph. My mother believes I never do anything useful, but this would totally be refrigerator worthy!

Something inside me forces me to stand my ground and look the man in the eye. “Never! This box is rightfully ours. You stole it from us!”

“Is zat what you zinks? Bah, zis box was sold to us wit specific instructions on what to do wit it. If you really want it, take it. We were paid in advance, stupid Americans.”

I toss the box to Darla, who catches it with just enough ease to flaunt her athletic prowess. Have I mentioned how hot she is?

“But wait one hot second, y’all. If it wasn’t you who stole it in the first place, who did?”

“If you want ze name of ze person who sold us zis box, I cannot give it to you, my sweet, misguided southern girl.”

My fist closes around the box. Ever since my throw down with Chance, I feel like everyone is trying to hit on my woman. I have to step up my game, but Darla’s type isn’t old and fat Frenchmen, right? She’s related to my keyboard! She’s my type! The man says something else, and Darla giggles. Giggles! Jealousy curls up inside me.

“I wish I could help out ze young lady, but all I can offer you is zis receipt and a kiss for good luck.” He lifts Darla’s hand to his bushy lips and I burst.

“Darla Jones! What’s wrong with me? Can’t you see how hard I’ve been trying? After everything we’ve been through together, you’re still going to drop me for this guy?” I chuck the box with our treasure feebly in the fat man’s direction.  It lands about five feet short, but she must see the look on my face because she directs all her attention towards me.

“We’re gonna go now,” she says to the man while looking at me. She breaks eye contact to scoop up the box, and then walks out the door. I follow forlornly behind her, around the trap door, back down the porch steps, and onto the sidewalk. She stops so suddenly I bump into her.

“Darla, I –”

She spins and takes my legs out from under me. We sprawl onto the grass together, and I begin to apologize for my inability to stand upright, but she has something else in mind. A kiss from Darla Jones always leaves me speechless, and I find myself gaping at her like a fish.

“Can’t you see?” Darla says with a small laugh. “It’s not my fault I fell in love when it was you that tripped me, cherub.”

And despite every pickup line I’ve heard today, that’s the best one by far.