Looking down at their sweaty faces, I felt a pang of regret. I slid my backpack off my shoulder, then handed them each a bottle of water and a sandwich. “Here, revive yourselves. It won’t help anything if I exhaust you both.”
Ezra shrugged, taking the water. “I kind of figured you were going to abandon us up here, maybe slip off to another motel.”
I chuckled. “Then why were you still following me?”
Irving took a gulp from his water, then leaned on Ezra’s arm. “What else are we supposed to do?”
I glanced back and forth between them, the breeze drifting down the mountain and cooling us. I could hear the highway down below, but the cars were distant, almost like the mountains offered us another world.
For just a moment, I let myself imagine a different kind of fantasy. I thought about the house I had always dreamed of buying and the big old pit bull I would let run through the large, fenced-in yard. Instead of putting it outside of Philly, as I’d always imagined, I revised the landscape. I put some tall pine trees along the fence and a cliff rising up in the distance. I imagined the scent of mountain breeze coming through the windows and, probably most ridiculously, I pictured Ezra and Irving, chilling in the backyard with me.
The mountains back here were so secluded, it was almost possible to believe I could hide out long term. Sure, those goons had tracked me to a motel, but a remote cabin would be a hell of a lot more secure.
I shook my head, chasing the fantasy away. Even if I could hide out, there was no way I could ask a couple of guys like Ezra and Irving to hide with me. They had a happy life together, and I was sure their futures were bright. Even if they wanted to join me in my ridiculous mountain fantasy, there was no way I would do that to them. We were of different worlds, and it should stay that way.
I took a gulp of my own water, then shot them a steely glance, allowing myself a little pleasure at the way they startled. There was just something so sexy about wrapping them around my finger, especially now that I knew how much heat they could handle together.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked. “There’s a lot more trail ahead of us.”
IRVING
By the time we returned from the hike, I thought my legs were on fire. I hadn’t been lying when I said I spent most of my Montana time hiding in my room with my computer. Sure, I got dragged out to the woods sometimes, but if I had my way, I’d be sitting on a park bench with a book instead of dragging my nerdy butt up and down the hills.
Still, the burn felt good in a lot of ways. My head cleared, and there was something deeply satisfying and sexy about rushing to keep up with Brick and training my eyes on his tight jeans the whole way.
He hadn’t given us much to work with over the hike, although I hadn’t really expected him to. In fact, it was kind of a miracle that he opened the window in the first place. Brick had always acted like we were just a quick, easy sexual release for him, and I could understand how that would be appealing during a stressful period in his life. Hell, the sex was blowing my mind, too, and I knew Ezra felt the same way.
But once we returned to the motel, I was aware that something was different this time. For starters, we hadn’t hooked up. Sure, Ezra and Brick had flirted back and forth plenty, and I had even got in a few flirtatious lines of my own when I had the chance, but we all resisted the temptation to shed our clothes and go wild right there on the trail.
More than that, though, Brick had opened up a little bit to us. He didn’t tell us any of the big stories of his life or fill us in on the details of his fighting history. That was all under lock and key. But he had let a few other little facts slip, like his passion for alien invasion movies and the importance of his friendship with Lilith. He had even acknowledged a broken relationship with his birth family, something I understood all too well.
Brick jerked his thumb toward his window, still half ajar. “I’m going there, and you’re taking off home, got it?”
I opened my mouth to object, but Ezra grabbed my hand first, squeezing quickly to stop me. “You going to make us go through another long, involved goodbye?” he teased.
Brick shot us a cocky grin. “You keep sassing me, I’ll bend you over and give you a good spanking.”
“Please do,” Ezra purred.
“I think what Ezra means to ask,” I interjected, “is whether we’ll see you again.”
Brick sighed, rubbing his hand across his chin. In the sunlight, I noticed the tattoos on his knuckles again. They were so faded, it was almost like they came from a different lifetime. “How’s this for a deal,” he finally said. “You agree to stay away until after my fight, I’ll agree to see you once more on the other side.”
“Perfect!” Ezra said, nearly jumping in place. “You still have my phone number from when I texted you a few weeks ago?”
Brick nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure I still got it. And you promise me you’re going to stay away?”
“It’s a deal,” I said, relieved to not have to face the idea of losing him again. “And Brick? Thanks for the hike. It was nice.”
He kicked at the dirt with his boot, grumbling something under his breath that I couldn’t make out. “Stay safe,” he finally managed, then sauntered back over to his window.
Ezra spun on his heel, taking my hand as he led us back around the motel and toward the side street where I had parked my car. “Well that went terribly well, don’t you think?” he asked.
“Kind of,” I answered. “I’ll be glad to see him again, but we didn’t really get any information that will help with the fight. We’re basically in the same place we were before we got here.”
Ezra yanked his phone out of his pocket, humming to himself. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Check this out!”
He handed it to me, and I startled to see a snapshot of a business card with an address and phone number scrawled onto the back of it. In the background, the dirt and grass of the trail was blurry, but it looked like Brick’s boot was passing just off-screen.
“When did you even take this?”
Ezra grinned, plucking his phone back from my hand. “Are you kidding me? With how much Brick was staring at your ass, I probably could have stolen his boots off of his feet and he wouldn’t have even noticed.”
I blushed, self-consciously placing my hand on my backside. I was starting to gain a little more confidence in my body, but it still got me flustered to hear those kinds of compliments. “Nice work,” I said, sincerely impressed. “But what now?”
“Now,” said Ezra, “we light a candle and pray that we’re not about to get ourselves killed.”
