by Eva Luxe
James sat down on his swivel chair and put his magnifying glasses on his nose. Jeremy opened his mouth.
The worst was the drill. Jeremy squirmed when it went on and I had to talk him through it until he was calm again.
Bit by bit, James and I worked together. I handed him what he needed and he took care of Jeremy’s fillings one by one until they were done. The kid had three holes in his teeth already and he was only nine. He still had half his baby teeth. But it wasn’t my place to comment on how people raised their kids and what they fed him. I wasn’t a mother and I wasn’t planning to be any time soon.
Halfway through, James looked up at me and winked. I ignored him, unsure if he had a crush on me or if he was just messing with me to see my reaction, but he was always hitting on me in some way or another.
Finally, the last filling was done and Jeremy was allowed to rinse his mouth. He made a face after he spat the pink liquid into the little sink.
“It tastes funny, doesn’t it?” I asked.
“I hate it.”
I laughed. Jeremy climbed out of the dentist chair, relaxed now that it was all over. I handed him a piece of candy.
“Sometimes I wish Cara would give me candy, too,” James said. “You lucky fish.”
I wasn’t blind to the double meaning, but it went right over Jeremy’s head and hopefully that of his mother. Of that I was glad. Jeremy beamed, proud of his little reward and his mom thanked us before leaving the examination office, leaving us alone.
“I’m glad that’s over,” I said. “He was really nervous.”
“He should have been,” James said. “I was so distracted by you I don’t even know if I filled the right teeth.”
I shook my head but I was smiling. “You have no limits.”
“With a beauty like yours, a man is inspired to break the rules,” James said and winked at me for the second time in the past hour. I sighed. James was always like this with me. I didn’t see him flirting with anyone else like this, but I didn’t spend time with him aside from what we did in the office. Maybe he was just a dirty old man and he made every woman in his wake feel uncomfortable.
We had two more patients, only consultations, and then a particularly gruesome root canal that made me glad that my lunch break was coming up. I needed to get out of the office for a while. I hated it when patients suffered, and the poor woman with the root canal had been a patient for years. It was one tooth after the other, no matter how hard she tried with her dental hygiene and general nutrition. Some people just have bad teeth.
When I emerged from the consultation room, Rachel sat in the waiting area. She smiled and stood up when she saw me. Her brown hair was piled in a messy bun on top of her head, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. She rarely ever did. Rachel did the bare minimum when it came to getting dressed.
“Well, if it isn’t the pretty friend,” James said, following behind me. “I wish you were my patient so I could stare at you more.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Keep your compliments for someone who gives a shit, James,” she snapped. “Whatever you’re aiming for here isn’t going to happen.”
James laughed as if Rachel’s tongue lashing was a joke.
“She’s cute when she’s angry,” he said to me. It was condescending and flirtatious at the same time.
“Creepy old man isn’t a good look on you,” Rachel said, without missing a beat. “You might want to look into that.”
“I’ll let you look into it if you want,” James said with a cocky grin but he hurried along before Rachel could respond. It was better that way, Rachel was pissed off now.
“Calm down,” I said, when she started after him. “He’s only egging you on.”
“He does it every time.”
“It’s because he gets a reaction from you. You should know how the game works by now.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and turned toward the door. I swallowed my laughter and followed her. We walked to a bistro a few blocks away and found a table outside. I took a deep breath, finally able to relax. The air was crisp and fresh, a light breeze bringing it straight from Snake River. Spring had only just started and everything was still fresh and clean, the way new life generally was. I had never considered leaving Twin Falls. It was a city with everything I needed but we were smack in the middle of a beautiful state. I loved it here, surrounded by the nature everyone else traveled here to see. I had never even left Idaho and was more than happy right here.
“You know James is a pervert, right?” Rachel said, after we’d ordered drinks. I had opted for orange juice. Rachel had ordered a cappuccino.
“He’s not so bad,” I said. “He’s just messing around. He’s not going to do anything.”
“It’s still disgusting. He can’t hit on everyone like that.”
“I don’t think he does. But he knows it pisses you off, so he’s taking you for a ride.”
Rachel shook her head. “I wouldn’t have put up with that.
“I know,” I said. “But he’s been good to me, too. He’s nice to work with, not like the people I’ve had before. I like my job.”
Rachel shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “New topic. Take Friday off and come hiking with me.”
“What?”
“Hiking. It’s not a foreign concept.”
“No, I know what it was. But you don’t hike.”
Rachel pulled up her shoulders. She was doing it a lot today. Something was up with her. She was in a weird mood.
“So? I want to try something new.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have a lot on my plate right now.”
“Like what? Are you running overtime with cleaning teeth?”
I laughed. “You make my job sound so romantic.”
We laughed together.
“Stop making excuses and come with me. You deserve a break and I need a wing woman.”
“That you’ll ditch again when you find some guy.”
Rachel always did that. We started off together, going out as two friends on a girl’s night or a girl’s trip. The moment Rachel met a guy she would leave and I was left alone to enjoy my night, pick up the bill, and trot around alone. Rachel always settled up with me afterward for the bill, though. That was something, at least.
“Yeah, of course. I’m not going to let you watch if that’s what you mean.”
I made a face and we laughed again.
“Can’t argue with your logic,” I said.
“So? Are you in?”
I nodded. “Why not? Maybe it will be fun.”
“Of course it will be. We always have fun together.”
“You’re in danger of sounding like you have a big head,” I said with a grin.
Rachel was messy and unorganized, and because of it, she was free in a lot of ways that I wasn’t. I was organized and neat, borderline OCD, and I struggled to even bend the rules, much less break them. We balanced each other out.
I could do with a break. I’d been working a lot lately and needed to get away from reality for a bit. Seeing that we lived in a city that was surrounded by hiking trails, there was no reason not to go with Rachel on her hiking trip. Even if she had never been one to enjoy exercise, I liked working out. I did yoga four times a week and I went for a jog twice a week. A hike could be fun.
“I’ll send you details tonight,” Rachel said, pleased with herself for getting me to join her.
I wouldn’t have gone if I truly didn’t want to, but she could believe she had managed to convince me. I didn’t mind. Rachel was my best friend and we had found a stride with each other, accepting who we were and allowing the other to be the person they wanted to be.
Chapter 3
Greyson
I arrived at Perry’s place early in the morning, my motorbike loaded with everything I needed for a weekend of hiking. Perry was barely three years older than I was, but he sat on the porch reading the newspaper like an old man.
“What kind of a thirty-year-old doesn’t use
social media to stay up to date with current events?” I teased, when I walked to him.
“You can’t believe anything you read on the internet.
“Everything. You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
Perry shrugged and flipped the page with a rustle.
“In an ideal world, there would be no social media. It has made the world so small there are no unique people left. Only those who are ‘trending’ and their clones.” I chuckled when he put his newspaper down to make air quotes when he said ‘trending.’
I laughed. “Oh, excuse us. There was a time when newspapers were filled with propaganda, you know.”
Perry laughed. “Those days are long gone. It’s all about the right to knowledge, now. And I prefer to hold that knowledge in my hand as something tangible.”
I snorted and sat down on the other chair on the porch. Perry carried on with his reading and we sat in silence for a while.
“Are we going to sit here like old men all day or are we hitting the road?” I asked.
Perry folded his newspaper closed and I stood up.
“I was just waiting for you.”
I laughed. “Asshole.”
We walked to my bike and transferred my luggage to Perry’s truck which was already loaded. On the way out, we stopped at a store to buy a couple of snacks for the road before we headed on.
Perry was one of my best friends. I had driven a couple of hours to get to him. He lived in Idaho and I traveled to see him and hiked with him at least half of the time I went out into the mountains. He was an old soul who never used a cellphone, read newspapers, and talked about belonging in a different era.
“It’s busy this time of years at the Falls,” Perrin said. We were headed toward Twin Falls in Idaho, a popular hiking place I hadn’t visited yet.
“I hope it’s not too busy.” I wanted to be alone. I didn’t go out into nature to meet other people. I lived in the city for that.
“It will be fine.”
I looked out of the window at the changing landscape. It was beautiful out here. I hadn’t been at the restaurant in a month, but I had still been at home. Maybe it was time for a longer break. Maybe I could move down to Idaho for a while, live a different life. Perry was always talking about living the simple life and belonging in an era and I always gave him shit about it, but I agreed. I would have fit better into the times when people had to live off the land and survive the wrath of nature. The era Perry spoke about was only a couple of decades ago, but I could relate to the stories of the first people who landed on American soil, the fur traders and the lumberjacks.
Of course, if I conceded the point and told Perry that, I’d never hear the end of it. It was something I had never told anyone. Besides, my life now had a lot to offer. The camping gear was amazingly efficient now, and I loved my motorbike. Back in those days, all they had were horses.
We arrived in Twin Falls shortly after noon and signed into the campground where we would set up camp for the night. I had never been to these hiking trails and I was excited to get started.
“This is fucking stunning,” I said, looking around. The Snake River sliced through the landscape that it had been cutting into for thousands of years, and I couldn’t help but envision what it had to be like out here centuries ago when there were no manmade structures that altered the place, and when Perrine Bridge that stretched over the river didn’t even exist yet.
“Let’s set up camp,” Perry said.
I shook my head. “We can do that later. I want to head out there while we still have plenty of sunlight.”
Perry mumbled something about not being prepared, but didn’t argue with me. We had done enough trails together that he knew how I felt about it and knew better than to try and negotiate different terms.
We walked to the visitor center and started out, heading onto the Snake River Canyon Rim Trail.
The view was breathtaking. The river was like a teal ribbon that shimmered in the sun while the canyon walls stretched up on both sides, cupping it.
“Good choice, man,” I said to Perry.
“Now that you’re able to travel more, we can do these trails. We can head further down and stay longer.”
“You bet,” I said. “I love it out here.”
I loved cooking too, and it had been an honor to help Caden get his restaurant off the ground. I knew that it meant a lot to him and we had developed a good friendship. But being out here made me feel like I could breathe again. I was a good cook, but I had never been made to stand in a kitchen all day long. It was out here where I felt the most alive. Out here I felt like I was the man I was meant to be.
Again, it wasn’t something I would admit to anyone. There was no way I would explain to Perry that the way he saw the world, even when I gave him shit for it, was a hell of a lot closer to what I really thought and felt about life.
“So, how is the rich life treating you?” Perry asked, after we had been hiking for a while in silence, taking in the view all around us.
“It’s great, man. I never thought I would have the chance to just break away and do my own thing. The need for money is just a constant worry and you don’t even realize the pressure you’re always under until you don’t have it anymore.”
“I wouldn’t know that, now would I?” Perry teased. “What are you blowing your pile of cash on? I hope you’ve buried yourself in a pile of women at least once.”
I laughed. “I’m not really looking for anything right now,” I said.
“I’m not talking about a relationship. I’m talking about sex. Do you have any idea what kind of ass you can pick up with the right cash?”
“You’re disgusting,” I said.
Perry shrugged. “I’m a man. I’m entitled to think with my dick once in a while. And if my dick had as much money as yours does? Well, you should be a lot more creative than you are.”
I laughed. “When Caden gave me the cash, my first reaction wasn’t to calculate how many women I could get with it.”
“Weird,” Perry said.
“I do feel a certain freedom,” I admitted. “I don’t have to run around and worry about the next paycheck. I don’t have to slave away all day to be sure I have a roof over my head. Even though I love what I do.”
“I know what you’re saying,” Perry said. “You work all day only to make ends meet and tomorrow you start again.”
“Exactly. I don’t have to do that anymore.”
After Caden had given me the cash, my mind had jumped to a million things I could do. But I had taken a week to sleep on it. I had made lists of priorities and crossed out things that were pointless. I had worked on my list of things I wanted to do with the money over and over until I was happy with it. I hadn’t wanted to splurge purely because I could. I didn’t want to buy a lot of things because I had the money and it was burning a hole in my pocket. I had decided to think carefully about how I would spend any of it, to invest a good share of it, and to never spend the money on something that wouldn’t give back to me in the long run.
I wanted to be able to live without having to work another day in my life. I wanted to let this money work for me.
And I wanted to come back to my roots. Which was what I was doing here, hiking new trails and finding where I fit into the world. I loved it. Being in nature always made me feel alive.
A breeze picked up and I turned my face toward it, breathing in. The air was fresh, the smell of pine and fir trees hung in the air and the sun was warm on my skin. This was the life. When I was out here, I was glad I didn’t smoke anymore. It had been about two months, but already I could feel a difference when I hiked. And not messing up the air with cigarette smoke made it that much sweeter.
About an hour later, the sound of arguing floated to us on the breeze. I looked at Perry who raised his eyebrows. He had heard it, too.
“Oh, boy,” he said.
The downside of finding popular trails was that we had to share them with other peopl
e, and it didn’t always work out for them. Trails like these often tested relationships and sometimes found them lacking.
We walked past a man and a woman. She stood with her hand on her hips, radiating anger. Her partner tried his best not to laugh.
“I can’t believe you were such an asshole!” she cried. “I carried the stupid pack all the way because I was trying to be nice, and you were just testing me?”
“How else was I supposed to know how you would handle the pressure? If I want to be with someone, I need to know if she’s worth her salt.”
“This doesn’t have a damn thing with what I’m worth. You faked an injury to make me do all the work.”
He sighed. He still looked like he wanted to laugh and that only pissed her off more.
“You should see it as a compliment,” he said.
Perry and I slowed down a little to hear the rest of their conversation. I had to admit, I hadn’t heard that one before. It was amusing.
“How is that a compliment?” she asked, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
“I’m not going to put just any woman through the test now, am I? It means I’m serious about you.”
She trembled and he wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his shoulder and Perry and I shook our heads at each other. When we were well past them and out of earshot, Perry chuckled.
“She’s an idiot if she fell for that one.
“He got out of it beautifully,” I said. “But I agree, she’s stupid to fall for it. I don’t even want to know what the rest of their relationship is like. Can you imagine?”
“Sprained wrists every time he needs to do something to test if she’s worth her salt.”
We both laughed.
“I’m glad I don’t have to put up with that shit.”
Perry shot me a look.
“What?” I asked.
“Everyone needs love.”
“Yeah, right. Says the guy who has never dated.”
Perry shrugged. “I just haven’t found the right one yet.”
I laughed. “Sure. Let’s stick with that. Let’s pretend you and I aren’t in exactly the same spot in our lives so you can preach to me.”