Page 42 of Aim for Love

“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 whattheythink…”

“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “We clearlydon’thave 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 youreallywant?” 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.

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