Page 7 of Beck & Coll

I watched as she celebrated with a hand clap with each item as I removed it from the bag.

“You really like wraps, huh?” I teased with a grin.

She returned the expression. “I do.”

“Good, because wraps are really good for helping the body replenish when you come off a hike. We didn’t hike too long today, but as the length of our hikes intensify you’ll need to know the best ways to recover.”

She nodded while taking in the plantain chips, nuts, and yogurt.

I handed her a travel cup with the resort’s logo on it along with a disposable straw. “This is a strawberry banana smoothie made with low-fat milk.”

She took in the abundance of food spread out on the small dining table. “Wow. I feel like you’re feeding me good.”

“Recovery is key. I don’t want you feeling like you were run over by an eighteen-wheeler later on tonight or tomorrow morning.

When people have bad experiences with outdoor activities, they tend to never try them again.

They write them off as something that they didn’t enjoy.

Part of my job is to make the outdoors enjoyable.

I have to teach you the proper way to begin and end a hike.

Hopefully, when you get back home, you’ll want to hike some more. ”

She took a sip of the smoothie. “Um, this is banana-heavy… not really my thing.” She took another sip. “Now, back to you and your ex.”

“It was bad,” I admitted as I swallowed a bite of chicken wrap. “She felt very betrayed by the fact that I wanted to leave D.C., and she let me know it. She implied that I strung her along… all of that.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I don’t. It wasn’t like I maliciously engaged her. I loved her. I had mad love for her. We were just different, and life is… you only get one shot at life. If you waste your shot living to make somebody else happy while making yourself miserable, you have to live with that choice.”

“Were you miserable in D.C.?”

“I was miserable not being able to be outdoors. I was miserable getting dressed in the morning and spending the entire day in an office building. I was miserable being surrounded by masses of people everywhere I went… everywhere I looked. We lived in a condo—a building with units filled with people, stacked one on top of the other for twenty stories. I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. ”

We ate in silence for a little bit.

“When I told her that I felt like I was suffocating, she was surprised. The city gave her oxygen, so she couldn’t relate to the idea that it was stealing mine. She contemplated moving here. She knew she would be miserable, but she said that she saw me as her chance for the American dream.”

Collins nodded her head. “Well, I can’t say that I don’t see her point. I mean, you’re straight, and you seem to actually like and care about women. You’re probably stable. You’re hardworking. You’re knowledgeable about stuff.”

She gave me the “up-down,” which actually caused me to laugh aloud.

She giggled, too. “You’re handsome. She probably saw herself marrying you and having a couple of children. You messed up her fantasy with your selfish need to move back home.”

“Yeah,” I admitted with a shrug of my shoulders. “That’s exactly how she saw it. In her eyes, I was sabotaging everything.”

“How long has it been since you left D.C.?”

“Five years.”

“Have you spoken to her since? Is she doing okay?”

“She requested my friendship on Facebook about two years ago. I don’t get on Facebook often, so there’s no telling how long the request sat there. Finally, she reached out. I’ve had the same phone number since basic training. One day, she dialed it.”

“Was she calling to invite you to her wedding?”

I snickered. “Nah. I missed that. She was calling to apologize. I think. That’s what she did when she got me on the phone. She apologized for the way she acted with me.”

Collins cut in. “Was it a dramatic breakup?”

I shook my head at the memory. “It was. Every single day after I told her that I couldn’t stay in D.C.

, there was a meltdown. There was name-calling.

There were accusations. At one point, she put her hands on me.

She called the police and filed a report against me .

She was… enraged that I was screwing up some secret plan she had to get off the dating track and land a husband.

We hadn’t even really talked about marriage, except to agree that we both believed in it.

“I didn’t meet her when I was fresh out of the service.

Let me keep it a buck… When I was in my twenties, I belonged to the streets.

I was a wild boy, doing wild boy shit. There was a lot of sex, drinking, and partying.

By the time I landed in D.C., I had matured.

I was past the stage of collecting women like objects and tossing them back once I was done with them.

My ex met me when I was ripe for the picking.

She was pretty, smart, driven, and decisive.

We went on one date, and the next thing I knew, we were a couple.

Everything was everything. We agreed to be exclusive.

Eventually, we moved in together, and life kept moving forward.

“I never meant to pull the rug out from under her. I was cool in D.C. My mom’s family’s from there.

I have cousins, aunts, uncles, and even a set of grandparents there.

I never had negative feelings about the place while I was there.

I liked my job. I liked my girl. I liked our place.

I never expected a three-day visit back to Oregon to turn my world upside down.

” I finished the last of the food in my disposable container, brushed my hands together, and stood.

“My bad.” I bent my head with my apology.

“I’ve been unloading on you the entire time. ”

“You’re fine.” She threw a hand up dismissively. “This story is good. Continue.”

I started to collect my trash. “I’m gonna go ahead and get out of your way.”

“You’re not in my way, Beckham. You’re keeping me company. I like talking to you.”

“Clearly, I like talking to you, too. Got me over here running off at the mouth.”

She started to gather her trash as well.

“Sir, I’m a hair stylist. It’s literally like being an unlicensed therapist. People naturally tend to open up to me.

Don’t be self-conscious about it. Just finish the story.

Besides, aren’t you supposed to stick around and watch me to make sure I don’t have a concussion or that I don’t fall asleep or something? ”

The bark of laughter that came from me made her smile. “Look at you, having no shame at all about being all up in my business.”

“I’m invested in the story. You don’t tell somebody that your ex girl put her hands on you and then called the cops on you without finishing the story.

Did you have your cousins and them handle her?

She knows better than that. I don’t care how pissed you are.

You don’t involve the police. That’s how innocent Black men get killed. ”

What I wanted to say was, “Yeah, that was some bullshit.” But I wanted to keep it as professional as I could. Plus, I had already told her way more of my business than I had told anybody, except my brothers.

Instead, I said, “Nah. That wasn’t cool. Suffice it to say that I moved out of our shared apartment that night and into a hotel.”

“I don’t blame you.”

She moved to the kitchen to toss out her trash. I followed her into the kitchen and tossed my trash as well.She tried to move past me, but our bodies touched.

“Uh, sorry.”

Heat emanated throughout my body at the contact, even though it only lasted a second or so.

“Sorry,” she repeated.

I placed a hand on each of her forearms in an effort to steady her, though she didn’t need to be steadied. My mind just instructed my body to touch her, and that was the only feasible way for me to make that command happen.

“You okay?” I didn’t step back right away, keeping her sandwiched between my body and the trash can. Then with the realization that I could scare her, I took four steps backward, giving her plenty of room to move away.

“I’m okay. I didn’t realize you were right behind me, and this kitchenette is so little.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t built for my big ass.”

“You are pretty big. How tall are you?”

“Six feet five inches.”

She looked me up and down but didn’t speak for a moment.

“Beckham,” she said finally, “you really don’t have to hang around here babysitting me.

You took me on a gorgeous hike, fed me delicious food…

You’re off duty, sir. I’m sure you have a hundred and one other things you need to be doing.

I feel fine. I’m almost positive that I don’t have a concussion. ”

There were definitely other things that I could be doing, but I didn’t want to do any of those things as much as I wanted to be in her presence. But for the sake of not looking thirsty or coming off like a creep, I nodded my agreement.

“Cool.”

Before I even turned away from her, the sky brightened with a streak of lightning that was quickly followed by a clap of thunder so loud that the windows of the cottage rattled. Next thing I knew, the sound of raindrops furiously pounding the roof echoed through the space.

“I’ve been getting alerts on my phone about this storm. It seems like it’s gonna be bad. They’re saying that there might be some flooding,” she told me.

“Yeah.” I gave a nod of my head, as I checked the most updated forecast on my own phone. “I’m not too crazy about what I’m seeing. If this storm does what they’re predicting it to do… I’m a little worried about Papa River out there.”

“Why?”

“He has a tendency to overrun his banks.”

“I’m definitely in for the night. Sounds like an order food in, snuggle up with blankets, and prepare to binge-watch some Netflix kinda night to me. If the river over runs its bank, will this cottage be affected?”