Sierra
“What’s this?” I asked as Cameron pulled up in front of what looked like another house.
“It’s a bed and breakfast. It’s the closest to the trails. Keep your fingers crossed they have a room for us. I’ll be right back.”
Keeping my fingers crossed, not! I rolled down the window and stared at the wooden house with the long, wooden porch. I craved a plush hotel. The Trump would be nice right about now. Cameron emerged from the house and opened my door.
“I got us the last room!” He smiled as he held the key up in front of my face.
“An actual key? That you put into a lock? Who does that anymore?” I asked.
He sighed with a heavy breath as he grabbed both our bags and led me inside the bed and breakfast and up the stairs to our room. He inserted the key into the lock and twisted the knob to open the door. He reached to the left and flipped on the light switch. I approached with caution. Before stepping inside the incredibly small room, I examined it from the hallway. The entire room was wood, from the ceiling to the walls and right down to the floor. It was too much country for my taste.
“Are you coming in or staying in the hallway?” Cameron asked.
I stepped in and looked at the bed. “Why is this bed so small?” I asked as I stared at it.
“Because it’s a queen-sized bed. It’s all they had.”
I placed the tips of my fingers on top of the quilt that was spread over the bed. I pushed down. The bed squeaked. I looked at Cameron and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Really? How are we supposed to have sex on a squeaky bed?”
“We’ll figure it out. Now get undressed and get that sweet ass of yours in here.” He smiled as he stripped out of his clothes and climbed under the covers.
I didn’t waste any time doing what he asked and we spent an hour making the bed squeak. The way I saw it, it was the owner’s fault for not replacing the bed. So, if people complained, then that was the story I was sticking to.
“Sierra, wake up.”
I felt his hot breath blow across my skin and his warm lips pressed against my shoulder.
“What time is it?” I asked as I tried to shoo him away.
“It’s six a.m. We need to get ready and hit the trails.”
“Are you crazy? This is supposed to be a vacation. Who gets up at six o’clock in the morning on their vacation? Go away. I’ll meet you on the trails. Just leave me the address.”
I heard him chuckle. “Stop being silly and get up,” he said as he started to tickle me.
I jumped. The one thing I hated most was being tickled. I lost control of my bladder every time.
“No.” I jumped up and scooted to the other side of the bed. “Listen, buddy,” I said with a sleepy voice. “No tickling, ever! Ugh. Damn you, Cole.”
He stood there with a smile on his face until I climbed out of bed. As I made my way to the tiny bathroom that barely fit one person, I turned and looked at him.
“You’re weird. I just want you to know that.”
He laughed and shook his head as he sat down on the bed and put on his shoes. “We’re eating breakfast first, so hurry it up. I’ll meet you downstairs in the dining room.”
“Okay,” I yelled from the bathroom. “I know it won’t be too hard to find you in this place.”
I looked at myself in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. The bags under my eyes told the whole story of last night. I threw my hair up in a ponytail, put on my khaki short shorts and a white tank top. As I dabbed some concealer under my eyes, I heard the faint sound of my phone ringing. I took two steps out of the bathroom and raced to the nightstand where my phone sat. It was Kirsty.
“Hello,” I said. Nothing. “HELLO.”
“Hey. Can you hear me?” Kirsty asked.
“The service is shit up here. How are you?”
All I could hear was the breaking sound of Kirsty’s voice as she kept saying my name.
“I’ll call you when I have better service,” I said and then the call was gone.
I stared at my phone, feeling isolated from the outside world. I put on my new hiking boots and packed a shitload of Band-Aids in case I needed them. As I walked down the stairs and into the dining room, I saw Cameron sitting at a square table with four chairs, taking a sip of coffee.
“Look at you.” He smiled as I sat down across from him.
“Yeah. Yeah,” I said as I grabbed his cup and took a sip of coffee from it.
“You can have your own,” he said.
“I know. But I need it now.”
An older woman walked over to our table and set a cup of coffee in front of me and then proceeded to take our order. I pulled out my phone and held it up in the air, trying to get some sort of fucking signal.
“What are you doing?” Cameron asked.
“Trying to get a signal in this damn place. Kirsty called me and we couldn’t talk because she kept breaking up and then the call dropped. I can’t get any of my emails and God knows how many text messages I have waiting for me floating out in text-land until they’re allowed to come through. It’s like they’re being held hostage and I don’t like it. My text messages are gold to me and they need to be treated with TLC, which they are not getting up in these damn mountains!”
He sat there with a perplexed look on his face. “You’re crazy. You are totally off your rocker.”
I flashed him my cute smile. “I know. You can blame Delia for my mental condition.”
“We’ll be back to civilization tomorrow and you can spend the entire plane ride home catching up on everything.”
I pouted as I took a bite of my toast. The waitress walked by and I held out my hand to grab her attention.
“Can I get a mimosa, please?” I asked with a pretty smile.
“Oh, I’m sorry, darling. We don’t have that here.”
“Of course you don’t,” I said as I looked away.
Cameron let out a soft laugh as he continued to eat his breakfast. “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”
“You’ll be fine, Sierra.” He smiled.
“I know I will be because we’re stopping at the liquor store and I’m buying those little travel bottles of tequila.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Yes, we are,” I said as I took a sip of coffee.
“The closest liquor store is ten miles away. We are hitting the trails that are right here. Hurry up and finish eating. We need to go or else we won’t make it back before nightfall.”
My mouth dropped when he said that. “Nightfall? We aren’t going to be gone that long, are we? Are you trying to kill me?”
“Would you rather stop along the way and set up camp?” he asked.
“Set up camp? As in a-tent-on-the-dirty-ground camp?”
He chuckled. “Yes, that kind of camp.”
I lifted my hand and signaled for the waitress. “Can we have our bill please? We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
“That’s what I thought.” Cameron smiled.
****
Cameron
We started our hike. I was going to go easy on Sierra because she’d never been hiking before. I grew up hiking. My brothers and I went on five-day hikes and explored what nature had to offer. It was beautiful and there was nothing more refreshing and renewing of the soul than hiking. I planned on taking her on a twelve-mile hike. For Sierra, that might have been rough, so I did have an alternate plan. I wanted her at least to get up one mountain so she could view the world from the top. A small mountain, so don’t worry.
We were two miles into our hike and she was already huffing and puffing. She followed behind me and all I kept hearing her say was “I hate you.” I couldn’t help but laugh because I knew once we reached my planned destination, she was going to love it. I looked behind at her and she kept holding her cell phone up in the air, mumbling expletives. This girl was under my skin, but in a good way. I was falling for her more and more every single day and I knew I was headed for trouble once we went back to L.A. and she was back in her world.
“My feet hurt and my legs feel like they’re going to collapse right out from under me. I need to stop for a minute,” she whined.
I turned around. She was sitting down on a large rock. I took a bottle of water from my back pack and handed it to her.
“You’re doing great, Sierra. You made it a whole two miles already.”
She brought the bottle up to her lips. She drank from it and flipped me off at the same time. Suddenly, she jumped when she heard her phone beep.
“OH MY GOD! Yes!” she exclaimed as she looked at her phone. Her smile instantly turned into a frown.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Doesn’t it figure that the only text message that comes through when there is zero service is one from Delia?”
“What did she say?” I laughed.
“She wants to take me to dinner tomorrow night when we get home for my birthday. I’m not even going to try and respond. I’ll just tell her that I never got her message.”
“Have you hydrated? Can we get a move on now?”
“Yep. Let’s continue this wonderful journey,” she said as she rolled her eyes.
“Trust me. You’re going to love it once we get there.”
She walked next to me for the next ten miles. Okay, we had to stop every mile and she wasn’t quiet about it, but she was there and I was happy. Once we reached the spot I wanted to show her, I walked ahead and held out my hand.
“What?” she asked.
“We’re going up there.” I pointed to the top of the moderate mountain.
“The hell I am. I’m not climbing that thing. Are you crazy?”
“If I didn’t think you could do it, I wouldn’t have brought you here. Now give me your hand so I can help you get started. This is nothing, Sierra. Little kids can climb this.”
“Have I told you today how much I hate you?” she said as she put her hand in mine.
“Yes. About a thousand times.”
I held her hand as long as I could until I had to let go and she had to finish on her own.
“Just be careful, Sierra. One step at a time.”
“Easy for you to say,” she growled.
I made my way to the top with ease and Sierra followed behind. I held out my hand and helped her up.
“Oh wow,” she said as she stood there and looked at the view.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“This is what you wanted to show me?”
“Yes. Do you like it? Wait. Don’t answer that. Just stand here for a few minutes and take in all the beauty.”
She looped her arm around mine. The breeze was a little cool, but it felt good as we both stared out into the distance. The glorious view of the mountains was like none other.
“The sky looks so blue up here. I feel like I can almost reach it.” Sierra smiled.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“What? Already? We just got up here. What the hell’s the matter with you?” she asked as she smacked my arm. “I didn’t hike all those hours and miles and climb up this thing to get a second’s look and then have you tear me away from it.”
“Did you just hear yourself? Miles and hours. We can’t hike back in the dark. Unless you’d rather stay up here all night and we can take turns sleeping because one of us will have to be on watch to make sure some stranger doesn’t kill us or rob us.”
The look of horror on her face was priceless. She walked a little closer to the edge, put her hands on her hips, and looked around. She took out her phone and took a picture.
“Come here,” she said. “We’re going to take a selfie.”
I walked over to her and put my arm around her as she held her phone up in front of us and we both smiled.
“Okay. That was nice, but it’s time to go,” she said.
I laughed as I climbed down first and then helped her down. We weren’t too far into our hike back when Sierra stopped behind me.
“Give me your back pack,” she said.
“Why?”
“You’ll see. Just hand it over.”
I removed the back pack and gave it to her. She put it on her back and then jumped on mine and wrapped her legs tightly around my waist.
“My feet and legs hurt. You need to carry me.”
I sighed but I didn’t mind. I loved having her on me. Whether it be on top, bottom, or on my back.