I don’t remember that time exactly, but only because we made out in there alot.I was twenty-three before the smell of used sporting equipment stopped giving me a hard-on.
“I didn’t know she didthat,” I say.“That’s...”
I trail off, not sure I have the right word for it, exactly.
“Fucked up?Not very Christian?Yeah,” Clementine says.“And now her husband knocked up a stripper.”
She takes a deep breath.
“Sorry,” she says.“That wasn’t very nice of me.But she was just theworst.”
“My lips are sealed,” I say.
Clementine looks over at me, and finally, there’s a smile on her face.
“Thanks,” she says.“I’m sure she could still fuck up my reputation if she wanted.”
I grin back.This feels good, talking like old friends while we hike.
“Maybe she’ll spread rumors that you tried pot once while you were in college,” I tease.
“Once?”Clementine says.
It’s not perfect.It’s not what I wanted.What Iwanted— hell, what I still want — is Clementine’s nails raking down my back while she moans my name.Right now, even though she’s wearing ugly hiking pants, a shapeless shirt, and an enormous hat, just the way shelooksat me makes me think about what she looks like naked.
She looksgoodnaked, by the way.
“Careful who you tell that to,” I say.“Next thing you know, you’ll be fresh out of rehab, according to Charity.”
“If I hear that rumor, I’ll know it was you,” she says.“And you’re not gonna turn me in to the moral police, right?”
“Not when I was your downfall in the first place,” I say, grinning at her.
Clementine makes a noise, somewhere between a snort and a laugh and a guffaw.
“Youweremydownfall?”she says, laughing.“I’m pretty sure I rememberdraggingyou down into my parents’ basement and pretty much throwing myself on you.”
I’m pretty sure I remember that too, and so does my dick, half-rising to the occasion.
“That was the first time I met your parents,” I say.“I was raised to be a nice country boy, you know, not fool around with someone’s daughter on a couch in the basement.”
“I’m pretty sure I also talked you into sneaking behind the barn in your truck that first time,” Clementine says.
She’s talking about the first time we ever had sex.For just a moment, the memory takes my breath away, because even though it was a little awkward and in the back of a pickup truck, I’m never going to forget the way the stars reflected off the rear window or the way she bit her lip the first time I entered her.
“Just because you suggested it first doesn’t mean you talked me into it,” I say.“I was pretty goddamn willing.”
Clementine looks over at me, her eyes laughing.It’s hard to tell under the shadow of her hat, but Ithinkshe might be blushing.
“I’m just saying, you don’t get to take credit for my current fallen state,” she says.“I was averyactive participant.”
We come around a bend, and in front of us, there’s a creek going across the trail, rocks poking out of it at intervals.At the edge of the water we both stop and look at it for a moment, planning a way across.I go first, treading from rock to rock.It’s trickier with my heavy pack on, and at the end I have to make a big jump, but I get across fine.
I turn and watch Clementine.She takes a different route across the rocks, longer but without that jump at the end.
She’s nearly across when she puts her weight on a rock and it wobbles.She gasps, throwing her arms out.
Without thinking I step into the creek and hold my hand out toward her, and she grabs it.
