“So, you’ve never actually tried our socks?”
“Nope.
“That is going to change! I’m going to have a truckload delivered right to your house. Maybe we can even feature you in our next ad campaign. How we turned a sock hater into a sock lover.”
“Oh, so you’re going to tell the whole world how you turned me into a believer?” Steph laughs one of those real, head thrown back, shoulders shaking, nostrils flaring, lips puckering kind of laughs that would make anyone else look pretty strange.
But not her. No, not her. I’m starting to doubt she could ever be anything less than beautiful. I’ve noticed how confident she always is in her own skin. Never underestimate how sexy confidence can be. I’m starting to open my eyes and really see her.
“Okay. Let’s get the show on the road then. If we have to.”
I quickly lace up my boots as I say, “We have to.” I even lead the way.
It’s not hard to find the trail system that runs through the campground. Apparently, there are over eighty miles of trails. I pick one trailhead that the sign declares as easy to moderate in difficulty and is only a three miles round trip. We can handle three miles, can’t we?
Turns out, three miles is a really long way.
The trail has nice views, I’ll give it that, but it’s pretty steep, and if this is moderate, I wonder what they class as difficult? Scaling a waterfall against the water current? Climbing towering trees and scaling across on ropes with your bare hands?
It’s not that I’m not in shape. Because I am. The trail doesn’t physically exhaust me. It’s the shoes. My boots are new, and they’re pinching my toes and rubbing on the backs of my feet. I try to distract myself with the fact that we’re quite elevated, the trail actually overlooks the lake shining not so far in the distance, and even further away, there’s a picturesque landscape of hills and the silhouette of mountains.
I’m pretty sure we’re not even halfway through when Steph starts limping. At first, she tries to hide it, but pretty soon, it’s so obvious that even she has to stop. She doesn’t say anything. She just stops walking and stands there, breathing heavily and biting down on her bottom lip so hard that it turns bright red.
I pull up and study her. “I told you that you should have worn socks,” I say when she stays stubbornly silent. “Let me see. How bad is it?”
“I’m scared to look,” she whimpers. “My feet feel wet. I think they’re sweating, and that’s what made the boots rub against my feet.”
“Sit down. I’ll help you get them off.”
“No! I’m scared to look. And if I take them off, I know I won’t put them back on. Let’s just turn around. We can look when we get back.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I can literally see Steph deciding that she’s not going to listen to me. I walk over and bend down, kneeling at her feet. “Come on. Sit down. I’ll carry you back if I have to, but I’m not going to let you go on like that. I bet your feet are destroyed.”
“Thanks.”
“Socks would help.”
“Can you shut it about socks?”
I glance up, but I can see just the slightest tilt to Steph’s lips. She obviously doesn’t hate me as much as she’s pretending to right now.
“Alright. But if I shut it about socks, as you so delicately put it, you’re going to sit down and let me get those boots off.”
She still hesitates, and it looks like she’s weighing her options. What those are, I can’t imagine, because carrying on like that shouldn’t be one of them. “Fine,” she huffs. She parks herself right in the middle of the trail. It doesn’t seem to have rained in a while, and it’s so dusty that a puff of dirt flies up when she sits down. She looks away from me and crosses her arms.
The tough act doesn’t fool me because I can see how much pain she’s in. Her face is tight with it, and she’s practically chewing off her bottom lip with her top teeth. Watching her do that makes something in my gut clench. My groin area feels hot and shivery at the same time, and it’s like my dick was just dipped in freezing lava. Can lava even be freezing? No, but frozen lava actually turns into some sort of rock. And that’s how rock hard it feels down there.
I slowly work the laces off and even more slowly and gently ease the boot from Steph’s foot. I notice how small her feet are. Probably just a size six or seven. I also notice, when the boot comes off, that everything was feeling wet in there because her feet are a bloody mess.
Literally.
There’s blood. Everywhere.
She still hasn’t looked, and I’m pretty sure the blood is just from a few blisters on her toes, heels, the top of her foot, and the sides. Well, okay, pretty much everywhere as well. The wounds are superficial, but it has to hurt. I’m worried she’ll turn, see her foot, and pass out.
Thankfully, I brought a water bottle with me. It’s strapped to this ridiculous belt that Steph bought. I pull it off, rip the stopper open, and pour some water over her foot.
“Jesus cheesus,” she curses at me. Her head whips around, and of course, her breath catches. I wait for the freakout, the meltdown, the fainting. But it never comes.