Yeah, try stopping my grin now. Fucking hell, that ego boost felt wonderful.
When she was about halfway up, I followed and ascended the slanted cliffside. The things I wanted to say about her ass… My God. It didn’t exactly help that she was hiking in cargo shorts that seemed to be three sizes too small. I mean, they fit like a glove, but I thought cargo-wear was meant to have more room. My cargo shorts were longer and sat looser on my legs.
Was it just my imagination, or had she filled out a bit over this past year? In all the right places too. Her toned legs and bitable thighs continued to draw my stare.
Once Elise had made it to the top, I made two quick leaps from one crevice to another and pushed myself up with a grunt.
She was getting sweaty too, and it was sexy as hell.
“Okay, I’m ready to throw myself into the lake,” she said, out of breath. “I don’t care how cold it is.”
Oh, it was definitely going to be cold. That water came straight from the mountain.
We still had another hour or so before we were there, though.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” Elise said. “It’s very personal, so feel free to ignore me.”
Damn. Was it about my past, then? Shortly after she’d left for school last summer, I’d opened up to her during our phone calls. She’d already known the gist of it, but I’d told her more about what my brother and I had gone through, and later what’d happened between Angie and me—and how it’d shaped me as a person. In short, it’d been my explanation for why I’d become an asshole to women.
I kept my expression composed. “Shoot.”
Right after I shared something personal with Pipsqueak, she wasn’t the type to hurl out compiled lists of questions. She expressed sympathy and tried to understand; finding logic was always her priority. The questions came afterward, when she’d processed, and she’d caught me off guard a few times since then.
“Have you thought about contacting your brother again?” she asked.
I let out a breath, having expected something worse. After all, I’d admitted to her that I’d treated women like garbage because I hadn’t trusted them. No explicit details or anything, just… I’d glossed over my ridiculous rules on shying away from intimacy. I still cringed at the memory of being so open with Elise, because I didn’t want her to lose interest or view me as the dick I’d been.
The time I confessed my marriage had ended with my getting arrested, I’d been so certain Elise would avoid me going forward. She’d proven me wrong.
“I think about it sometimes, but he made it pretty clear that he’s not interested,” I answered.
“Just because he didn’t respond to you? What if he didn’t get the letter?”
“Or the email,” I reminded. “I sent both, and he didn’t answer. That’s answer enough.”
I’d kept them brief, just letting him know I was thinking about him and that he could reach out if he wanted to talk and stay in touch. I’d explained at the bottom that I was sending the message both to his listed address and his email in case one went missing. It was a work email I’d seen on the website for the radio station he’d worked at in Seattle.
“But it’s been years,” Elise said, confused. “Maybe he misses you? Maybe he’s too nervous to contact you.”
I frowned and stepped over a branch.
I did think about Finn a lot. I missed him terribly, but after everything we’d been through together, I couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep his distance, because there was a part of me that wanted the same. Facing him would mean I’d have to face my past too, and I was sick of doing that. There wasn’t anything else to do. I’d processed what I could. I’d moved on too.
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed my hand quickly. “I didn’t mean to ruin your mood.”
“You didn’t.” Not giving a fuck about who could see us, I brought her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “My turn to ask you something.”
“Shoot,” she mimicked with a smile.
“No one’s ever really free of judgment,” I said. “But everything I’ve told you about how I used to be…”
“You mean with women?”
I nodded.
She shrugged and unstrapped her water bottle from the side of her backpack. “Why would I judge you for that? Yeah, you were a raging dick, and you did some bad things, but it’s not like you did it out of the blue because you felt like being mean. The two women you were supposed to be able to trust and count on betrayed you in the worst ways imaginable.”
I didn’t deserve her faith in me, but I took it. I fucking rolled around in it.
Pipsqueak guzzled some water before continuing. “There are so many factors too. It’s interesting, really. No one raised you properly—for years, you acted on instinct and let nature guide you. You protected your brother. You recognized he was weaker than you in an awful situation, so all your attention shifted to him.” She was turning me into a science project. I’d be more uncomfortable with the fact if I didn’t know she was genuine and just sharing her way of understanding me. This was what she did. She spoke openly and objectively, and everything was wrapped up in her favorite thing in the world—logic. “School was your only constant when growing up,” she went on. “It didn’t change. It became reliable. I bet that helped you stay on track. I mean, you could’ve turned to drugs and crime… It’s possible I’ve read some statistics of children who end up in the system.”