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nine

HUNTER

Once the sun goes down, the guys who rent rooms in Tom’s house tend to gather in the living room. Scott is playing Madden with Tyler, who doesn’t live here but works for Tom part-time and is the acknowledged expert at Madden—given he used to play professional football. Tom is doing a crossword puzzle in the local newspaper. I’m reading my book, the latest from Ta-Nehisi Coates.

“Did you hear Hunter has a girlfriend?” Scott nudges Tyler, as they sit side-by-side with their controllers.

Tom looks up.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I protest. I get stuck after that, because I don’t know what Mollie is and insisting it’s “just a summer fling” would be disingenuous. Plus, no one would believe me. “You’re one to talk!” I fire back instead.

Tyler smirks and nudges Scott back. “He’s got you there. Who’s your flavor of the season?”

“Hey, I’ve never been caught making out in the middle of the lake.”

“‘Never been caught’ are the operative words there,” Tom grumbles. As a boss and landlord, Tom is pretty compartmentalized. He watches closely on matters of safety and lets us live our lives otherwise—which clearly includes Scott’s frequent dips into the pool of paying customers.

Tyler snorts. “What, on one of those tiny boards?” A huge man, most of our “gizmos” are toys to Tyler. He helps out sometimes when we get a large axe-throwing party and can handle a whitewater raft better than anyone, but he refuses to get on a horse, a paddleboard, or a bicycle for fear he’d “snap it like a twig.”

“He fell in,” Scott teases.

“That was your fault!” I protest. “And she fell in, too.”

“Hey, don’t go making out on a paddleboard if you can't handle getting wet.” He twists his lips a little over the words “getting wet,” and Tyler and Tom both smirk.

I kick Scott in the back—only a tap, yet enough to let him know I don’t like this. He shouldn’t talk about Mollie that way.

Scott drops his controller and turns around. “You’re the one getting in too deep, man.”

“I’m fine,” I say, putting a bookmark in my book and getting ready to stand.

“Nah, you’re too serious for this,” Scott insists. He looks to Tyler and Tom for support. “Make sure you have the conversation.”

“What conversation?” I shouldn’t ask. But I do.

Scott groans, rolling his entire head back. “‘What conversation’, he says. Poor sweet summer child. The conversation about what this is and when it ends!”

“I don’t know,” Tyler says, as he crushes Scott on Madden while his back is turned. “Sometimes you don’t know what it is and you get to explore it together.” Tyler’s been in an on-and-off-again relationship with the same woman for as long as we’ve known him. That’s different. She’s a local. They’re also great together and everyone knows it, so we’re all waiting for them to catch up.

“That’s different,” Scott says. “Mollie’s not a local. She’s going to leave at the end of the week. Then what, they’re going to explore long-distance?”

Everyone in the room makes a face as we all recognize a potential sore spot. Tom was “seeing” someone long-distance when I first moved in. He never talks about her anymore and she never visited, so I assume that went in opposite directions the way very separate lives tend to do.

“It’s temporary,” I say. “I know that.” Even I hear the way my voice sounds uncertain. Tom’s gaze on me is steady. Concerned. Shit .

“Hey!” Scott turns back around and grabs his controller and I use the distraction to get up and leave the living room with my book.

Tom follows me into the kitchen.

“Scott’s rough around the edges, but he means well.”

“I know,” I reply. I’m surprised Tom is bothering to follow up on this conversation. Much like Scott, Tom tends to be rough around the edges. He cares about us, I’m sure, and he’d rather stay out of our lives. I’ve heard him say “live and let live” more than once in my time staying and working here—once referring to Scott’s heat-addled decision to sleep naked on the back porch. “You don’t need to worry. I’m only giving her some private lessons. And having a little fun.” I add the last part out of a personal obligation to be honest. It’s the most true I can be without melting into a puddle of uncertainty. Hanging out with Mollie, if nothing else, is fun.

It’s also more than that.

He nods. He gets a beer out of the fridge and, thankfully, turns to leave. Then he pauses at the doorway. “Make sure you stop when it stops being fun, Hunter. Emotional pain is a warning just like your body hurting.” He coughs, like he’s embarrassed he said something so profound. “Wish I’d learned that at your age, that’s all.”

Then he leaves me alone to contemplate what I’ve gotten myself into.

I catch Mollie, Sophie, and Nora leaving Dorothy’s coffee shop the next morning when I go to grab the usual coffee box we offer the tour guests. They all have cups in their hands that I bet are something more fancy than drip.

They don’t see me coming because they’ve turned the other way down the street. The morning air has a nip to it and they’re all wearing jackets. Mollie is even wearing a cute cap, her short hair poking out from beneath it in tufts.

Pausing at the coffee shop door as a few other people are coming out, I’m about to call out a greeting when Nora’s words float back to me—making me an unwilling eavesdropper, yet again.

“You have to sleep with him,” she’s saying. “If you want a happy hour story that will last you a few years, at least.”

“One you can go back to when you’re old and gray,” Sophie laughs. “The adventure guide who taught you memorable lessons that one hot summer.”

“Or cold summer,” Nora adds, and they keep walking so I can’t hear anything else. I’m standing frozen on the sidewalk, and out of the corner of my eye I catch a movement that turns out to be Dorothy waving at me to come into her shop.

Pain. Is this the warning sign Tom told me to watch for? My reaction to Mollie’s friends is mild— of course they’re going to joke about us; didn’t my own friends? —but it’s uncomfortable. I’m not sure how many warnings I get before it’s too late, yet I’m not nearly ready to back away. Watching Mollie walk down the street away from me, I want to give her my scarf and tuck her close to keep her warm.

It’s fine. We’re having a little fun. So long as I keep it at the kissing level, it isn’t going to hurt too much when she leaves.

I walk into the coffee shop and wave at Tyler, having breakfast with his girl Zoe. Dorothy is in a tizzy over gossip that Mark Wadson, the newspaper’s editor, plans to retire. “Hasn’t he said that every year for the last…” I try to remember. “Forever?”

“Rumor has it,” she says in an undertone the entire coffee shop can hear, “he might be doing it for a woman.” She raises her eyebrows at me, then pauses, like I might be able to identify the woman in question. I have no idea. I mostly stay out of town gossip, and try not to be a source or a subject.

“Unless she frequents the bookstore, I have no idea, Dorothy.” I smile though, and then ask if my order is ready.

Carrying the coffee back to the adventure center, I get morose. Am I just going to keep reading about life for the rest of mine? That’s what Scott and Tom expect. But I want to live, too. So what if that comes with a little pain? So do most of my hobbies. Right now, I have a jagged wound down one knee from mountain biking.

Because the truth is, I don’t want to stay at the kissing level with Mollie. Maybe I need to do a little research about ethical flings. How to Win Sex and Influence Strangers ? No, that’s Scott’s bible. I need something more like The Subtle Art of Not Giving Your Heart.

Hell, I’ve always wanted to write a book. Maybe this is my chance.

On our hike that day, I give Mollie and her friends a wide berth. It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with Mollie, it’s that her friends are a lot. Scott doesn’t mind; he picks up the slack and flirts with Nora all morning.

I can’t help watching as Mollie listens closely—and follows—the lesson on staying on the trail. And then the basic lesson on orienteering. It’s her turn to try to read the map after we break for lunch, and I watch her study the contour lines. She gets their meaning completely wrong, underestimating the elevation gain we’re about to walk up—which gets some grumbles from the rest of the group—then she tries again and I see the moment the lesson clicks for her. That’s my favorite moment in any class, and Mollie makes it even more special. I want to reward her for trying so badly my mouth purses, but I don’t want to provide more fodder for her friends to joke about.

“This backpack is killing my neck,” Nora tells Scott. I’m about to check whether it’s properly fitted; Scott is quicker on the uptake.

“I’ll give you a shoulder massage when we get back.”

“Oh yeah? You good at that?”

“I don’t have these strong hands for nothing.” Scott flexes said hands as they walk, and I roll my eyes. He catches it out of the corner of his eye.

“Of course, I don’t have a license, like Hunter, here.”

Glaring at Scott, I see Nora nudge Mollie.

“You have a massage license?” Mollie asks.

Keeping my eyes on the rest of the group hiking in front of us, I shrug. Still the same number we left with and everyone is staying on the trail. “It’s something I picked up. It comes in handy in my line of work sometimes.”

“Now I’m picturing you and the guys back at the adventure center giving each other massages at the end of a long day,” Nora says. “It’s not a bad picture.”

“Shirtless, obviously,” Sophie adds.

“Obviously,” Nora agrees.

“We unfortunately can’t provide that service to everyone in the group,” I say stiffly, wishing I’d avoided this conversation.

“And we don’t expect it from you,” Mollie says hastily, clearly trying to save me.

“ We don’t expect special treatment,” Nora says, and she and Scott share a grin. “Although maybe Mollie can expect some… special treatment from you, Hunter.”

Mollie is bright red. She’s still walking, but her hands look frozen in place at her sides. Her body language screams that she doesn’t know what to do.

“I don’t know that Mollie wants special treatment,” I say slowly.

Nora opens her mouth, and Sophie smacks her arm. Scott is watching this exchange like he wishes he had popcorn.

And then I decide to speak up. Because, if there was a manual for this situation, it would remind me that time is short and I only have a few days with this woman. I might as well enjoy them. “If she does, I’d be happy to provide a massage back at the lodge, though. Or my place.” I tack on the last bit because if I’m going to be bold, I might as well go all the way. I’ve blamed Tom for not wanting to step out farther onto this limb, yet Tom won’t care, not really. He might hold me to a higher standard than he does Scott, but he won’t hold it against me if I have a little fun. Right?

Mollie’s startled eyes meet mine. It’s possible I’ve taken this too far, and still, despite all our friends watching and drawing their own conclusions, I don’t care. I want Mollie to know I’m here for her .

Then she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re alone in this forest together. “I’d like that,” she says. “It’s a date.”

Then it’s settled. Because I know one date won’t be enough for me with this woman, and more than that can only mean one thing. We’re having a summer fling.