Next To Me

by Amabel Daniels

  Each rain-slicked tree bark looked exactly like the one before it. Having to sprint away from a rustle in a shrub didn’t help my course either. Then walking into a dripping spiderweb between branches sent me spinning and flapping and jumping like an interpretive tribal dancer as I pulled the strands off my face and out of my hair. It’d taken me a solid half-hour of feeling for anything crawling on me before I attempted a return to Mav at the car again.

  I wouldn’t say I was lost, but…

  I set my hands on my hips and scowled at the squirrel on a moss-covered log. “I’m fucking lost, you little beast.”

  It stared at me and nibbled on something in its hands.

  “Uh-huh. You don’t say.”

  Another nibble.

  “Oh. That’s nice.”

  “Are you talking to a squirrel?”

  I screamed at Mav’s voice at my left. “Where the hell did you come from? Jesus. Warn a woman before spooking her in the woods, huh?”

  I hadn’t heard him walking over, maybe because I was talking to Alvin. No, Alvin was a chipmunk. I turned toward him, huffing. Wait. I glared to the right. I thought the car was that way.

  “I went to pee.” He cocked a brow at me and rubbed at his stubble. It was even darker and sexier, and now I knew how delicious the scraping friction of it was against my breast. “And found you getting chatty with wildlife.” He glanced at the squirrel for a moment then said, “Uh, we should get going though, right? To the trail.”

  Like I could forget. “Okie dokie,” I said between clenched teeth. We should get going and get gone from this damn place.

  A half-hour later, dressed in my dollar-store-meets-Al Bundy gear, I waited for Mav to tie his shoe at the trailhead.

  “You got the—”

  “Ring.” I patted my pocket.

  “What about a cell phone?” He stood and brushed off his hands. “Mine’s still charging in the car.”

  “What for?” I’d left mine too. As if I’d want to risk dropping it and having to replace it. Have you looked at the prices of those things lately? My God. “There’s no service anyway.”

  He shrugged.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” I said and started down the Upper East Trail. Blue circles were spray-painted on the occasional tree, indicating the path we wanted.

  “I thought you might be warming up to the great outdoors.” He inhaled deeply and had such a Paul Bunyan, I’m-a-man-in-tune-with-our-land air to him that I wanted to flip him off.

  I could swear I still felt something crawling in my hair.

  “Befriending an innocent squirrel like that.”

  I scoffed as he came to meet me at my side. “Innocent? It was probably snacking on the remains of a human.”

  “I don’t think the carnivorous squirrels are in this part of the woods.”

  Smartass.

  Without the reception to use my phone, I hadn’t been able to research precisely where Felicia’s spot on the trail might be. We had no clue if it’d take an hour or ten minutes. Two and a half hours later, we still hadn’t found her, or anyone else who’d seen a group of hipsters hiking about.

  My feet hurt. Blisters the size of quarters had popped at my heels. Sweat had dampened and then chilled my tank top under my boobs. Countless scratches lined my shins, despite the almost knee-high socks. My ass ached from all the stepping over boulders and roots and trees and— I was miserable. Stuck in the middle of nowhere of trees and spiders and God knew what else, the last place I could ever imagine myself willingly going.

  All because of that goddamn cupcake.

  “We’re not even on the trail anymore.” Mav stood in front of me. I’d sat down to finish the last of my water bottle and surveyed the damage on my legs. He balanced on one foot and brought his other shoe to his butt, stretching his quads.

  “We are if we continue along that slope with those dead trees.” I pointed to the west. West? I squinted at the sky. Where the hell is that sun… Shadows were falling thataway, so… Hell, if it wasn’t west, I still knew it was the way to go. We’d been following the blue markers on the trees so far and there was one on the tall trunk up a way.

  “No.” Mav frowned and eyed the other viable path. A narrow trail—maybe?—along the edge of a ravine. “It’s gotta be that way.”

  “It can’t be that way,” I whined, hating myself for the way I sounded. No. Scratch that. I hated the way I was here. Sweaty, blistered, in need of a shower, hungry, and with something in my hair. I dug my fingers through, checking again for a bug.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t look like the way.”

  He dropped his foot and smirked. “That makes sense.”

  “It doesn’t look like the way I’d like to go.”

  He volleyed his gaze between my route and his. “What’s so different?”

  I pointed at the drop-off from rockier earth to the muddy decline toward a stream of water. “It’s way up on that ledge.”

  He licked his lips like he’d hoped to taste patience there. “You’re afraid of spiders and heights now?”

  “I’m not afraid of spiders.” I stood and winced at putting weight on my foot. How could I fear them when I could crush them? “I dislike them. The battle lines have been drawn and I’ve declared them the enemy.”

  He shook his head. “You know, spiders are actually good for us. They’re natural predators who eat other bugs we—”

  “I. Don’t. Care!” I emphasized it with three stomps of my less-blistered foot. “If I want fascinating factoids of science, I-want-to-be-a-marine-biologist-science-lover Violet has me covered.”

  With hands raised in surrender, he said. “Fine. But if we want to get to Felicia, I’m telling you, this is the way. What’s the problem with this path if you’re not afraid of heights?”

  “It’s muddy down there.”

  “For the love of God…” He held his arms out. “We’re outside. In a forest. Mud happens.”

  Exactly, dammit.

  “If you get muddy, you can just wash it off later.”

  I crossed my arms. “Where?”

  He opened and shut his mouth, maybe realizing I may or may not be near tears. I just wanted to go home. Go anywhere out of these woods.

  “We’ll go this way, find Felicia, be done with the ring, and get a hotel.”

  I cracked up. It hit me, like a weird knee-jerk reaction to the stress of being in the great ol’ outdoors. This ring. Mav and I struggling along on this trail. Okay, I was struggling, he was like a strapping, athletic mountaineer from the Alps.

  “Carly?” He stepped closer, a frown deepening on his face as his eyes softened from his almost glare.

  “It’s…” I bent over, laughing harder. So hard I cried. Or I could have just been crying. Hell if I knew anymore. If you can’t cry, laugh? “It’s just… We’re like goddamn hobbits.”

  “Huh?”

  I wiped at my eyes, still chuckling around words. “Sam and Frodo with a stupid ring. Bringing it to the fires of Mormon.”

  “Mordor.” Now he barked a laugh. “Not Mormon.”

  I laughed harder. Oh, God. I was falling for a guy who spoke Lord of the Rings. Lexi was a die-hard fan. She’d definitely approve of Mav to be a guy I should finally give a chance.

  Lexi. If she could see me now. Thinking of her had me missing her something fierce. She’d be proud of me actually trekking through the wilderness like this. I needed to update her on the fact I didn’t hate men so much anymore, or at least not this man. Hormone-addled or not, I needed her advice, her listening ear.

  “It’s just mud, darling.”

  Darling. God. He always drawled that to me like a tease. When had he gotten more sincere when saying it? Like I was his darling?

  “We’ll get a five-star hotel. With a spa.”

  I didn’t need that. Just a real bathroom.

  “There’s freshwater parasites that thrive in standing pools, Mav. These larvae that can embed into your—” I squi
nted my eyes nearly shut and mimicked a needle pushing into my palm.

  “Fe-li-cia!” The yell came from the distance, somewhere past these trees.

  We froze and stared at each other with open mouths. He blinked first.

  “Felicia?” he asked.

  “Fe-liiii-cia!”

  I’d heard the same, echoing, almost yodeling call for the woman.

  “She’s up ahead,” he said and took my hand.

  And damned close if we can hear her friends looking for her.

  I winced as I realized it came from the direction Mav wanted to go in. Maybe. Sounds bounced off mountain walls. How could he know? No. It sounded like it came from the west. East? It came from that way. I stopped and Mav turned.

  “What—”

  “They are that way.” I pointed.

  “You have some echolocation talent now, Nature Hater?”

  I scowled at him. “No. But I swear, it came from there.” I pointed again as if he didn’t know.

  “Carly…”

  “Fine!” I borrowed his staple word. “Fine! Go your way.”

  It killed me to give in, but hell, going somewhere was better than standing here and bickering.

  We headed off and he glanced back at me. “Trust me.”

  I took his hand as I navigated my way over a tricky patch of roots. “I do, dammit. I always have even if I’d never say it. And I’m damn well counting on you to get us the hell out of here as fast as damn possible so we can get a damn room with a damn bed and can enjoy a damn shower.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Not sure you said damn enough yet.”

  “I damn well have.” I held his hand tighter.

  “Just one damn bed and room and shower?” he asked.

  I wanted to grin at the smile in his voice as I wobbled in my step. “Yes. One damn—” The rest of my conviction was lost to a yell, which was sharpened to a scream.

  One minute he was hiking in front of me, his strong legs eating up the distance while he still held my hand. The next, he was gone. Sliding down the ravine and dragging me along behind him.

  Twelve

  Mav

  For the three hours I didn’t see Carly, I went insane. I lost my mind because I’d, in fact, lost her. When she’d wavered in her step behind me, I’d tried to pull her back from the edge of the drop-off. I must have overcompensated protecting her from a fall because she’d pitched forward in reaction.

  Bringing us falling and sliding

  all

  the

  way

  to

  the

  bottom.

  That wasn’t our final destination. Nope. Of course, not. We’d managed to slip-n-slide down a damn mountain into a fast-enough current of water to push us further away from the trail I knew Felicia had to be on. As we splashed and kicked our way through the slight rapids, we’d lost our grip on one another. After a fork in the eroded path of earth, we’d split.

  I’d lost Carly. The nature-loathing, spider-fearing—sorry—spider-battling, mud-hating woman who’d been as much of a good sport about camping as she probably could be.

  Once I finally found her, sitting on a boulder and smacking her boot free of something, I knew this wasn’t a case of something trivial.

  Of lust.

  Of hey, we’re friends and now we’ll give each other some bennies.

  Of I need to get laid and you are always right there.

  This was a matter of never wanting to be far from this woman ever again. At least not without her knowing what she meant to me.

  Zero to sixty on the relationship goal chart? You bet.

  “Mav?” She stood and asked the question as though I might have appeared as a walking oasis.

  “Holy shit. Mav.”

  I ran to her, pulled her face to mine, and kissed her.

  Her answering sigh only made our reunion that much more real, poignant, perfect—

  Until she pushed me back with both hands and growled. “I told you we should have gone the other way with the dead Christmas trees along the path!”

  I laughed once, despite her fuming fury at me. Carly, the ball of fire I knew—and love. Even her sass, especially that. Stupid that it took me a three-hour absence in Rio Grande National Forest to accept that fact, but there it was. If I couldn’t find her… I’d had no answer to that. It was simply unfathomable. She belonged at my side, if that wasn’t too cavemanish to think.

  Even if she was angry, my world felt right again with her next to me.

  By the glinting fury in her eyes and the steeled, firm set of her lips, now might not be the opportune time to get poetic and explain my realization of the depth of my affection. Especially not now when she was coated in mud. Yet I opened my big mouth and said, “Actually, I still think she was on that trail.”

  Where was a tree to smack my head on? Was that really necessary?

  Her profanity got lost as she came at me and pummeled fists at my chest again.

  “Which doesn’t matter now!” I rushed to amend. I held her earth-caked arms to her side and ducked to meet her eye level. “She’s gotta be long gone now.”

  “And the ring isn’t!”

  I sighed and let her go.

  “At least it isn’t yet,” she retorted.

  “What do you mean?”

  She rolled her eyes, the whites so damn bright and clear in contrast to the dirt smeared…everywhere. So much of the slimy earth coated her I wondered if she’d doggy-paddled through a mud pit.

  “Do you know the way to the car?”

  I nodded. I’d found it and returned to it a couple of times, hoping she’d find it too.

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here.” She began to walk and I hated the slight limp she carried.

  “Are you injured?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Okay. Fine. We were too in tune with each other to ever get away with bullshit.

  “Where are you hurt?”

  “I said I’m okay. And if you don’t start guiding me to the car right now, I will ensure your balls are—”

  “Fine!”

  She scoffed. Then after a minute of walking, she said, “It’s just a few blisters.” Her hand wrapped around my elbow and pulled me to a stop. “What happened to you?”

  I probably could have hidden it from her a little longer if she hadn’t had to walk to my left, but the blood must have seeped more than I’d realized. “Ran into a bush that found me irresistible.”

  She reached for the mangled and torn sleeve.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said and resumed walking—slower.

  “Guess two can play that game,” she mumbled.

  “How about we play the game of what-did-you-mean-not-yet?”

  “We’ve been doing this all wrong.”

  I frowned at the dusk-darkened terrain as we carefully made our way to the car. “About the trails back there?”

  “Oh, definitely that. But Felicia. Why are we chasing her when we could just meet up with her?”

  I smiled since she couldn’t see me. “And ambush her with a ring?”

  “Bingo. As soon as I feel like a human again, and have reception, we’ll figure out where she’s going next.”

  *

  We made it to the car without issue—because I was a smart, smart man and kept my mouth shut—and I drove until we came upon the first semblance of a city. Town. Village? It was a small gathering of outdated buildings, and a motel with a shabby exterior was one of them. A restaurant was there as well. Most importantly, a gas station waited for us at the beginning of the single street.

  Carly’s goal must have been to bottle her anger and air vacuum that container tight, because on the drive out of Rio Grande National Forest, she refused to look at me and sat very, very still. Then again, with the dirt literally plastered on her entire body like she’d gotten caught in a tornado of mud, maybe she was stuck like that. When I stopped to get gas, she sat up straighter at the sudden illumination of her phone.

&nbs
p; “Richard,” she sullenly announced as I began to exit and tend to the fuel.

  “Hmmm.” I slanted half of my ass on the edge of the seat and waited to listen to our boss. My other foot pushed against the asphalt outside.

  She answered and set it for speakerphone. “Hi, Richard.”

  “Hey,” I answered, letting him know I was here, too.

  “Oh, good, you’re both there. Did you give her the ring? Where the hell have you been? Did you shut your phones off or something?”

  She licked her lips and glared at me for a moment. “No. Camping. No.”

  “Camping? What the hell for?”

  She squinted at the phone like it’d stave off a headache. “To get to Felicia.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I scratched at my eyebrow and said, “She’s not easy to locate.”

  “Have you considered just Fed-Ex-ing the ring to her?” Carly asked. She reached up to brush her hair back from her face. Clumps of dried mud broke free and flew to her lap. She sighed, knocking the debris to the floor.

  “You mean to tell me I should trust commercial priority mail service more than you?”

  “No, but—”

  Richard grunted. “Would you want a guy to propose to you via mail?”

  “No, I don’t want any man proposing to me to begin with.” She frowned at the device.

  Ever? I swallowed past the surety behind her words. Jumping ahead, man… Maybe see if she doesn’t hate your guts first? “Didn’t they do that back in the olden days out West? Mail-order brides?”

  Carly deadpanned at me then said, “If anything, I know I’d want the man to ask me himself.”

  “I don’t have time for that,” Richard countered. “I’m too busy to propose. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than there needs to be. I only need her to show she’ll marry me before tomorrow night.”

  Show she’d marry him? This was the first time we’d gotten a deadline to the task. And it was the only time he’d so clearly stated this wasn’t even about love. Then again, the fact he’s having his assistant give her the ring could cement that fact.

  Carly shifted in her seat and stared out the passenger window. “We’ll get it to her. Don’t worry, Richard.”