Hooked

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Do you have one of those air filters in your bedroom?”

  He grinned and nodded as he bent over to lace up his hiking boots. “Christmas present from her a few years ago.”

  “I need to get one,” Tayla said. “And in the meantime, maybe I’ll just spend more time up here.” She batted a fly buzzing around her face. “Or maybe not.”

  “Come on.” Jeremy twisted a bandana and tied it around her neck. “It’s not that bad.”

  It wasn’t bad; it was great. The air was clear, the sun was warm. The quiet was unexpectedly soothing. But she couldn’t give in that easily.

  She bent over and dusted off her cute green hiking boots. “I can’t believe they’re already dirty.”

  Jeremy laughed. “They’re hiking boots.”

  “Yes. And I clean them every time I use them. Just because you wear something in the great dirty outdoors doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be cute and well cared for.”

  “Cute and Well Cared For should be the title of your album.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, it should be.”

  “Come on.” He reached in the back of the truck. “This one yours?”

  “Yep.” Tayla put her phone in the long zipper pocket on the side of her thigh and held her hand out to take her backpack. It was aqua blue and summer yellow, pretty colors that went well with the flower pattern on the pocket of her shorts and the fitted T-shirt they’d sent.

  “You know, if all brands sent stuff this coordinated, my job would be so much easier.” Tayla slung her backpack over her shoulder. She’d have to keep that in mind if she went to work for SOKA.

  “Can I ask how much you make for something like this?” Jeremy asked. “They send you free stuff, obviously, but do you make actual money from brands for posting their stuff?”

  “Yeah, a little.” She put her sunglasses on. “The free stuff accounts for a lot more. I looked on their website and all this stuff together would cost well over three hundred dollars if I ordered on my own. But I get it for free and then a hundred dollars or so for the post.”

  “A hundred dollars?” Jeremy’s eyes went wide. “Maybe I need to start doing Instagram.”

  She pointed to all the gear around his waist. “I’m guessing all that stuff is pretty expensive. You might get free stuff with enough of a following. You’re a good-looking guy.”

  “And black.” He smiled. “Advertisers might not go for that, especially in climbing, which isn’t exactly the most diverse sport out there.”

  “I’ve noticed that.” She’d maybe been doing a little research on rock climbing. Just out of curiosity. “Seems like it’s mostly a lot of skinny white guys.”

  Cary walked up. “And a few skinny Asian dudes. More and more women all the time, which is nice to see.”

  “And twelve black people,” Jeremy said. “In the entire world. There’s only twelve of us.”

  Tayla laughed. “That can’t be true.”

  He smiled. “It’s not, but there aren’t too many. More all the time, which is cool. I’m not the only black guy at the gym anymore.”

  “And not many big girls, I’ve noticed.” Tayla looked down. “But I guess that kind of makes sense. I don’t think these boobs would work with rock climbing.”

  Cary frowned and studied her body. “Yeah, that could be an issue, but you’ve got great legs.”

  Jeremy punched his shoulders. “Hey.”

  “What?” Cary shrugged. “She does. They’re strong and she’s got a low center of gravity. You could climb, Tayla. You’d just have to wear a really good sports bra.” Cary frowned and stared at her boobs. “Probably. I don’t have any, so I can’t speak with authority on that.”

  “Dude. You can quit staring at her tits anytime.”

  Cary shook his head and looked up. “Just trying to help.”

  Tayla bit back a laugh. She’d normally have been offended, but Cary really did seem to be evaluating her from a technical perspective. “I’m really okay with not climbing, but thanks for saying I have great legs.”

  “Sure. You guys ready to hike?”

  “Yep.”

  Jeremy nodded at the truck. “I got a little more gear to pack.”

  “Then stop flirting with your girlfriend and pack your shit up, dude.” Cary and Jeremy walked away, and Tayla stood frozen in the middle of the woods.

  Girlfriend?

  She’d avoided being a girlfriend for twenty-eight years. What was happening? Jeremy hadn’t objected when Cary said it. Did he think of Tayla as his girlfriend? Had she agreed to any of that? Didn’t that have to be a mutually-agreed-upon label?

  “What’s wrong with you?” Emmie walked up to her. “You look like you feel sick.”

  “I’m okay.” She forced one foot in front of the other. “Just… fine. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, you sound like you’re totally fine. Sure.” She started walking. “Just let me know if I need to kill someone.”

  “See? This is the reason you’re my best friend.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jeremy watched from the base of the rock as Cary hooked another nut in the seam of cracked granite. The soft metal square stuck in the rock as Cary tugged on it. He clipped an extender into the metal loop and hooked the rope into the carabiner.

  “There’s a bolt up here,” he called down, “but it’s old.”

  Jeremy quickly made a notation in his climbing journal, keeping one hand on the belay rope. “Got it.”

  Cary worked his way up the granite face. He was almost to the crux of the climb, a sheer, crumbly stretch of granite with very few holds. It was a good section to practice on, however. The rock wasn’t that high, but it was more challenging than what they’d done in the past.

  “I’m glad we came up to check this out,” Cary yelled. “A lot of information on that website is old.”

  “There’s been a lot of snow the past few seasons.”

  “Yeah.”

  Snow and ice led to widening cracks and rusted bolts. Rusted bolts could be deceiving. Jeremy glanced over his shoulder to see Ox arranging a rough camp stove with rocks and a folding metal grate Cary had brought. Tayla and Emmie were off near the creek, taking pictures of Tayla doing yoga.

  “You with me down there?”

  “Yeah.” Jeremy looked back up at Cary. “I’m here.”

  “This stretch is deceiving. Lotta holds.”

  “Crimps?”

  “Mostly, but they’re decent.”

  Jeremy made another note in his journal and watched Cary as he set the last two anchors before he reached the top. “Nice, man.”

  Cary disappeared past the edge of the rock only to reappear a few moments later. “Safe! Nice permanent anchors up here.”

  Jeremy kept the rope in his hands as Cary began to pull it up to set the belay for Jeremy to climb.

  “Ready?”

  “On belay?” He tugged on his harness and checked the knot for the third time.

  “On belay. Climb when ready.”

  “Climbing.” Jeremy turned his face to the cool granite, dusted his hands with chalk, and began to climb. Everything but the rock fell out of focus. There was only the mountain, the rope, his body pressed against the rock. His lead’s occasional direction as he pointed out anchors.

  The stretch of every muscle came into sharp focus. The complete and utter awareness of the mountain, the rock, and his body. Balance and focus.

  Reach, grip.

  Shift, unclip. Clip.

  Reach. Shift.

  Hold by hold, Jeremy lifted himself off the ground and up the face of the rock, removing the anchors as methodically as Cary had placed them.

  Nothing cleared his mind like climbing.

  Cary stepped back as Jeremy pulled himself over the edge. He felt the surge of adrenaline and the rush of pleasure when he looked out over the tops of the trees.

  “Damn.” He let out a long breath and slapped Cary’s hand in a firm grip. “That was awesome.”

  The rock stretched
back in a long, easy slope away from the face that jutted up through the forest. A long black granite slab warmed by the sun. Jeremy stretched out and let the wind cool the sweat over his body as Cary got out his camera and began to take pictures.

  “The guide was right. Great views of Grand Sentinel.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jeremy didn’t care about taking pictures. For him, the thrill was being in a place few others could reach. It was about the quiet and the focus of the climb. He rolled over and pressed his cheek to the granite.

  “Gonna take a nap now.”

  Cary chuckled. “Okay. I’ll wake you up when I’m ready to go.”

  “Cool.”

  He closed his eyes and drifted for a while, listening to a pair of hawks as they hunted. The sun was fully overhead when he realized he could smell the scent of meat cooking below them.

  Emmie had packed kebabs, fruit, and a pasta salad. Tayla had said something about brownies.

  “Cary!” Jeremy sat up. “You about ready to head down?”

  “In a few. Smells good.”

  “I know. We need to climb with girls more often,” Jeremy said. “The food is always better.”

  “We could pack food and cook like grown-ups.”

  “But we always end up grabbing beef jerky and trail mix instead.”

  “True.”

  Jeremy took a deep breath. “Hey, Cary?”

  “Yeah?” The older man was still taking pictures.

  “I’m falling hard for this girl.”

  Cary walked back up the granite slope and started packing up his camera. “Dude, you’ve already fallen. Bad. This has been going on for months.”

  “But it’s only getting worse. And she’s moving to San Francisco.”

  “You don’t know that yet.”

  “She said the interview went really well.”

  Cary paused and looked at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cary took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “I can’t leave Metlin.” His shop was here, but even more, his family was here. He couldn’t leave his pop. He couldn’t leave his parents, his sisters, his nieces and nephew. Not even if he was falling in love with Tayla.

  “No.” Cary shook his head. “You can’t leave Metlin.”

  “And I can’t ask her to stay.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it. If she stays, it has to be her choice.” Cary looked down at him. “Be careful, man.”

  Jeremy had a feeling that being careful with Tayla wasn’t in the cards. He was nuts about the girl. Every moment he spent with her made him fall harder. In rock climbing, you anticipated a route, saw what falls could happen, and changed course to keep yourself safe. Any other attitude meant you were dancing with death.

  With Tayla, he could see the route, see where the problem was, but he couldn’t seem to change direction. He didn’t want to, even though the fall would crush him.

  Jeremy and Cary readied for their descent, checking anchors and counting nuts and cams to make sure Jeremy had grabbed everything on the way up. They double-checked, rechecked their harnesses and knots, and then carefully rappelled down the cliff.

  When they reached the bottom, Tayla was standing at the base of the rock, scrolling through pictures on her phone. “I got some great shots of you—”

  Jeremy bent down, hooked an arm around her waist, and brought his mouth to hers.

  She tasted delectable. Like mango and chili pepper. He licked the bottom of her lip. “Hi. You’re sweet.”

  “Hi to you. I was eating fruit salad.” She hooked her thumbs in his climbing harness. “You hungry, mountain man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then unstrap all the… things and come eat. Lunch is ready.”

  He smiled. “I will unstrap all the things and come eat.”

  She walked away, turned back, saw him staring. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I’m just in love with you and pretty convinced this is all going to end with my heart at the bottom of a cliff. “I’m good.”

  The shots of Jeremy and Cary rappelling down the cliff had garnered more likes and comments on her feed than anything since she’d posted about finding a vintage Alma bag at a yard sale.

  Hawt.

  Mmmmmmountain men. Yes plz.

  #silverfox

  #rockzaddy

  Where are u finding these men?

  I’ll take both. Is both an option?

  And many, many fire emojis.

  She bit her lip and decided to wait to post the yoga shots. She didn’t even want to attempt to compete with shirtless Jeremy and Cary. She scrolled through the pics of the hike on Sunday while she waited for coffee to brew.

  Jeremy, Cary, and Ox standing against the cliff, Jeremy and Cary still in climbing harnesses, laughing at Ox in his apron and grilling tongs.

  Jeremy and Ox holding Emmie between them, raising her like they were overhead lifting.

  Tayla and Jeremy holding warrior pose at the base of a sequoia tree.

  Cary crouched by the fire, poking at the coals with a come-hither look. He’d been looking at the brownies. The man liked brownies a lot.

  Ox wandered out of his and Emmie’s room, scratching his unshaven face.

  “Hey,” he grunted. “Coffee?”

  “Making.” She continued to scroll through the pics. “I got a bunch of cute ones of you and Emmie yesterday.”

  “Send ’em to me.”

  “I will.”

  Tayla didn’t mind Ox as a roommate, mostly because he was minimally social before he got his coffee. He wasn’t a morning person. He didn’t attempt interaction when he wasn’t caffeinated, which suited Tayla just fine.

  They each poured a cup of coffee and doctored it to their liking, black with a lot of sugar for Tayla, cream and no sugar for Ox. They sat at the counter, checking their phones and drinking coffee for a good fifteen minutes.

  “Emmie still sleeping?”

  “Yeah. She woke up last night. I think she came out and read for a while.”

  “I heard her.”

  He took a few more gulps of coffee. “Is it stress?”

  “I don’t think so. She just does that. Always has, as far as I know.”

  He frowned. “Huh.”

  “Yeah, she’s weird.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “Touché.”

  Tayla got up to refill her mug, feeling slightly more social. She silently offered a warm-up to Ox and he held out his mug.

  “So what are you going to do about Jeremy if you get this job?”

  “Are you actually asking me about my love life?”

  “You’ve grilled me about Emmie roughly a million times. It only seems fair.”

  Tayla put the carafe back in the coffee maker. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’ll end. I don’t think there’s any point in trying to maintain something long distance when our lives are going in two different directions.” The thought made her queasy. Or maybe she just needed to eat something. She was drinking coffee on an empty stomach.

  She opened the fridge and got out a cup of yogurt.

  “That’s it?” Ox asked. “‘It’s been fun. See you on the occasional weekend and at Christmas’?”

  She set her mug down. “What do you suggest I do, Ox?”

  “Don’t leave Metlin. What’s so great in San Francisco that you can’t get here?”

  “Uh, a job—”

  “You have a job.”

  “A better job.” She picked up her coffee again. “And… culture. Art museums. Plays. Concerts.”

  “We have concerts here.”

  “GrizzlyFest doesn’t count.”

  He frowned. “Why the hell not? And you’re talking about stuff you do like… a few times a year. Why would you move for stuff you’re going to do a few times a year?”

  “I used to live by the Palace of Fine Arts. I went at least once a week.”

  “So here you can drive up to the mountains instead. You tr
ying to tell me art is more beautiful than nature?”

  She let out a breath. “It’s just different. I’m more of an art museum girl than a nature girl. That’s all. There’s nothing wrong with Metlin, it’s just not home.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” He reached for the bread box and got out a bagel, then bit into it.

  Tayla’s jaw dropped. “What are you doing?”

  He looked at the bagel. “Eating.”

  “What is wrong with you?” She grabbed the bagel from his hand and walked to the knife block. “You can’t just eat an untoasted bagel.”

  “You can, actually. I was doing it.”

  “Not in front of me, you heathen.”

  Ox watched her cut the bagel and toss it in the toaster. “I think you do think of this place as home. I think you’re being stubborn because this isn’t how you imagined your life going. But stuff that’s unplanned can be just as amazing. Sometimes it’s more amazing. You think I ever imagined opening a bookshop with Emmie?”

  “That was serendipity.”

  “Yeah. And what if your meeting Jeremy is just as serendip…”

  “Serendipitous.”

  “That. What if this is your destiny?”

  “You think my destiny is being a bookkeeper in Metlin, California?”

  He leaned across the counter. “What’s wrong with being a bookkeeper in Metlin, California? A bookkeeper with great friends who are there for each other and have a lot of fun on weekends. A bookkeeper who does yoga in sequoia groves and learns how to rock climb with her boyfriend. And hosts a book club for cool teenagers who think she’s the shit. What’s wrong with that life? Other than it wouldn’t shove success up your parents’ collective asses?”

  “You know what?” She popped the still-cold bagel out and put it on a paper towel. “Toast your own bagel, Ox.”

  “You know I’m right. That’s why you’re pissed off right now.”

  Tayla walked to her room and shut the door, taking her coffee with her.

  Stupid Ox. She’d never liked him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jeremy and his pop were talking on the front porch of his parents’ cabin.