We'd been talking about that viewpoint for weeks. A friend had described it to us as “the place where the sun takes its time going down”, and the phrase stuck with us. One Friday in September we left work, put a blanket and a flask of coffee in the boot and drove up into the hills without saying much, with that nervous calm you get when you know the evening is going to be special.
The dirt track was empty. We parked at the end, where the track opens out and the whole valley suddenly appears. There was a wooden bench half eaten away by the sun and, beyond it, a flat rock that looked as if it had been put there for us. We sat with our legs dangling and let the silence do its work.
I don't know who started it. I think it was a hand reaching for mine under the blanket, or maybe my head coming to rest on a shoulder. What I remember is the warmth of the stone still holding on to the day, the smell of thyme and the light turning orange on that face beside me. We kissed like we hadn't in a long time: no rush, no phones, nothing waiting for us.
When the sun touched the mountains, the blanket was no longer neatly folded and neither were we. We laughed when we heard a car in the distance, coming down another track, and we froze, holding our breath, until the noise faded away. That was all it was, a scare that ended in fits of laughter, but it took us back to the closeness of our first few months.
We drove home in the dark, hair tangled, feeling as if we'd stolen a few hours from the world. Since then, whenever the routine starts to bite, one of us says “viewpoint?” and the other is already looking for the keys.