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fifteen

HUNTER

This is what I agreed to, after all. A vacation fling with someone I don’t know that well and never will.

By the time I meet Mollie for another axe-throwing lesson, I’ve convinced myself nothing’s changed. We were never meant to last longer than a week, and anything more was all in my head.

So I try not to be weird with her. And it mostly works—coaching her through bad habits she’s somehow already formed is distracting—except she keeps asking me if I’m OK.

“Nora said you and Scott aren’t talking.”

“We’re not not talking.” When we tried to talk about it, Scott said something like “I shouldn’t have encouraged her into a situation she wasn’t comfortable with” and I felt the situation never should have been an option in the first place. So now I’m not sure I can trust him on outings, and that means I’m doing extra work to make up for his poor judgment. Tom doesn't seem to notice, and if I said something, I’m not sure which way it would go—Scott fired or me dressed down? Neither result is something I’m comfortable with. So not talking is the best choice right now.

“It’s not his fault,” Mollie offers.

“It’s pretty much completely his fault,” I counter.

“Well, Nora did ask him to take us on the craziest hike he’s ever done near town.”

Of course she did. I scowl and shake my head. “He’s the professional. He should have known better.”

“He was off duty.”

I’m not sure why we’re arguing about this. It’s making the back of my neck hot. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I say, and we fall into a silence that’s similar to the one between me and Scott.

Mollie’s not getting any better at axe-throwing. I keep correcting her form and explaining follow-through and timing on her throws and most of the time, she can hit the target. She’s not accurate . In the tournament we have scheduled tomorrow to celebrate the end of the week’s tour, she’ll get knocked out right away despite all the practice.

And my frustration makes me a terrible coach. She’s not getting it—just like she doesn’t get that what I really want is a quiet moment where I can tuck her safely under my arm and feel safe. She can’t land the axe and she can’t make me feel like everything’s OK because we’re not.

Inviting her back to my place is out, because Tom’s likely there. The last thing I need is to exacerbate the tension between us. I haven’t been into his office since our last conversation.

And yet I need to touch Mollie like I need water. And our time is so short now. At the end of the lesson, I explain that the house is busy tonight and add, “I still owe you that massage.”

“Do you want to go back to my hotel room? Nora and Sophie are out with the other guys.” Mollie smiles back at me tentatively, graciously accepting my attempt to backtrack to where we’d been a day ago. “Maybe you can give me some tips and I can return the favor.”

We walk back to her hotel, me carrying the bag of custom axes I brought with me to throw. They didn’t help Mollie’s aim much. Maybe she needs a different weight on hers. We could look into an axe customized to her. Well, if we had more time and she wasn’t leaving soon. I keep thinking of things we could do in the future and reminding myself we don’t have that.

“Scott told Nora and Sophie you’re intense and now they think you’re wrong for me.” Mollie says it in a rush, like she’s been thinking about it all night. We’re almost back to the hotel when it comes out.

“Intense,” I repeat, for now ignoring the fact I’ve lost her friends’ favor. It’s kind of a relief, actually. Maybe they won’t be constantly talking about me behind my back. “Actually,” I say as I’m realizing it. “Wait, are your friends badmouthing me now? They thanked me for saving you on that pipe!”

“No, no,” Mollie says quickly. “I mean, they just think you’re…you know…boyfriend material.”

Stopping still on the sidewalk, I stare at Mollie. Boyfriend material. And that’s a bad thing? “That’s the first time anyone’s called me boyfriend material. Most people would say I have no future, no prospects, and no benefits. I thought that’s what your friends liked about me, actually. I’m… easy .”

Mollie winces. “You’re not easy. Not like that.”

“Well, I’m not Scott,” I say bitterly. “Pretty sure he never even thinks about the future.”

“That’s the problem,” she says. “Now that they know you think about the future, they’re worried that…” She cuts herself off.

“I might think about a future with you,” I finish, my voice soaked in the knowledge that I do exactly that. “And they don’t want that for you.”

“Well that’s what they think…”

“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “We clearly don’t have a future. They don’t have anything to worry about.”

“But.” She clearly struggles to come up with what comes after a “but” here, and I let her. “Why?” she finally asks.

I’m not sure why she’s dragging this out. It’s painful. You wouldn’t keep hiking through a blister, Hunter— that’s what Tom would say, and ask why I kept going in this conversation. Still, I can’t walk away from Mollie, even though it hurts to stay. She doesn’t deserve that. “You don’t even live here,” I finally offer in response.

“But if I did…”

“Even if you did, we’re not exactly compatible. I mean, I live outdoors and you work in an office. This stuff is my life and for you it’s a vacation.”

“And I’m bad at it.” Her shoulders slump in a way I hate.

“I didn’t say that.”

She shrugs. “It’s OK. It’s true.” She bites her lip. “So even if some things changed, this still wouldn’t be…it’s not something you want for the future?”

I know a test question when I hear one. And we promised each other this wasn’t more. I know Mollie now. I know she pushes through what she doesn’t want in order to live up to other people’s expectations. I don’t want to be just another person whose expectations she’s trying to live up to. Without hesitating, I firmly shake my head. “No.”

Her smile up at me is a little watery. “Then I guess we better enjoy what we have while we can. You know, one week only.”

“Is that what you really want?” I study her closely. I’m a guide. Not only do I need to be aware of my own pain points, I need to know the people I’m leading aren’t hiding things from me that could become big problems farther down the trail.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Mollie does want me. But I have to hear her say it. I’m not going to push her into an adventure she doesn’t want to have.

“This week has been sort of life-changing,” Mollie says. “I mean, I had a life-or-death experience and I’ve tried things I never thought I would try. And being with you the other night was so different from what I expected. All of it has made me, I don’t know, more alive. I haven’t felt like that in a long time. So if you don’t mind, yeah, I still want to be with you. While I can.”

While I can . That was the last thing I wanted to hear. And yet for the same reasons Mollie articulated—she makes me feel more than I have in a long time—I can’t say no. “OK. Maybe we’ll make an axe-throwing professional out of you yet, then.”

She smiles. “Let’s start with that massage.”

So we do. Naked massage, because why wouldn’t we? Back in Mollie’s hotel room, I run my fingers up and down her bare back, stunned by the softness of her skin against my calluses.

She shivers beneath me, and I apologize for the roughness of my hands.

“I like it,” she says, the kind of thing I bet Scott hears every night. Not me. To me, these words are precious acceptance. Mollie knows what I am and what I do—and why all of that means we can’t be together—and chooses to be with me like this anyway. Of course it’s temporary, but temporary is extraordinary.

And Mollie is extraordinary, her body shaping itself to my hands. The curves around her hips and butt are the perfect diameter, my fingers making dents in her flesh as though marking they were there. My dick hardens against her back, ready to find its way inside her again. Not yet, though. First, I sweep my hands over her back, under her breasts, and back up her neck through her hair. I’m not really massaging, I’m feeling my way. Remembering my map.

She turns over and stretches out beneath me, and I fit between her thighs perfectly. My hair cascades around us, curtaining my face and hers like we’re in our own private world. I meet her eyes and wonder if, in an alternate reality or parallel universe, we could be together. Perhaps a world where I’m less judgy and she’s less afraid of what people think. Or a world where none of that matters because we live in the same town.

I enter her, meeting no resistance. It could be the first time, or the thousandth, and I will always be able to find my way back here. Someday, years from now, I will wake up remembering the way I slid into her channel, my hands wrapped around her hips, my tongue tickling her nipple, and felt like I’d found the best trail in the world. The kind of hike men like me dream about—the secret ones, that lead to something extraordinary, something no one can simply tell you about, something you have to experience for yourself and guard closely like a secret only to be shared with the most extraordinary people you know. The people you want to hold as closely as you do your secret trails.

“To be clear, this isn’t how I would massage most people,” I tell her.

She laughs. “I bet you tell that to all the girls.”

She’s joking, we both are, but my objection clogs my throat for a moment. There are no other girls.

Surely there will be in the future, though. Some perfect woman who wants to live where I live and do what I do and tries really hard at everything she does and has short hair and laughs when I touch her with my callused hands?

Opening my mouth, I’m not sure what to say but I know I need to say something. Deny that I don’t want this. Admit that she’s the only woman who’s ever made me want to break the rules. Tell her she’s the secret trail I’ve searched for my whole life.

Then we hear the sound of the hotel door’s key lock. I roll off, landing on the floor, and Mollie and I both grab at bedding to cover our nakedness.

“Oh my god!” Sophie shouts. “What are you doing on my bed?”

Nora follows her in and surveys us coolly, me barely covering my balls with an edge of the duvet. “Those comforters never get washed, you know.”

“And now we see what people do with them!” Sophie adds. “Oh my god, it smells like sex in here. Open a window or something!”

“Um, could you turn around or something while I grab my pants?” I’m trying to be reasonable, but this is embarrassing. Heat climbs the back of my neck. Mollie, clutching a pillow to her chest, looks back at me with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she mouths, then glowers at her friends. “You guys weren’t supposed to be back yet.”

“Well, somebody got so drunk they weren’t going to be much use to me,” Nora says. She glares at Hunter. “I think you’re making him depressed.”

“Scott?” I blink back at her, momentarily forgetting the chill around my dick. Only momentarily. “Wait. Can we have this conversation when I’m fully clothed please?”

Nora and Sophie both roll their eyes and make a show out of turning their backs. I grab my clothes and put them on as fast as I do when I’m camping in freezing weather and just crawled out of my sleeping bag. My dick has shriveled from its previous enthusiastic state. When I look over, Mollie only has her bra and a pair of shorts on.

“We’re decent,” she says, and pulls a t-shirt over her head. Her friends turn around, arms folded over both chests.

“Hunter, you can leave,” Nora says. “Maybe go check on Scott.”

“Yeah, we made sure he got home OK but he was a mess,” Sophie adds.

Mollie nods at me. Reluctant to abandon her when her friends look so serious, I stubbornly kiss her on the cheek beneath their judgy gazes before I go. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. “Text me if…” I trail off, because I’m not sure how to finish that. Mollie doesn’t need me. We made sure of that with our deal.

“Last day to become an expert outdoorswoman!”

From her eyes, I can tell that she’s pretending to be cheerful, and I pause before I grab my jacket and shoes off the floor. She smiles and Nora clears her throat, so I guess this isn’t the moment to follow up.

As the hotel door closes behind me, I hear Nora saying to Mollie, “Is this an addiction? Do you need an intervention?”

I walk away—practice for the real thing—and like I will be later this week, I’m sure I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m not going to check on Scott; I’m going to hold tightly to the comforting fact that he and Mollie proved we’re all wrong together. I’m going to hold tightly to the very real fact that this week will end, she will go home, and I will never forget the moment I almost asked her not to go. And didn’t.