Page 7 of Crushing on the Mountain Men

He nodded, slowly. “But it usually takes you a long while to warm up to people.”

“You make me sound like some sort of grizzly monster.”

“Your beard needs a trim.”

I rolled my eyes and went to my room. I hadn’t looked at my phone since we’d started our rescue that night. I had a text from Ellen, Tim’s younger sister. She was still struggling a lot with his death.

“Went to a grief group. Not terrible. Maybe you two could come with me.”

I was happy she was going. Two years later and we still didn’t know for sure if his death was an accident. We knew he’d been on drugs, something none of us had realized was happening.

He’d told us once that he’d been in rehab, and work had gotten really stressful and crazy. We didn’t know that he’d lapsed to deal with the stress.

I didn’t want to think about that tonight. “Glad you went. We’ll see.” I always answered Ellen when she reached out. Davin and I saw her as a younger sister. But now I wanted to think about Kailee.

***

As I drifted off to sleep later that night, I replayed the feel of her as I lifted her out of the truck. I wondered how she’d feel in my arms as I carried her to bed before Davin and I wrung several orgasms out of her.

***

“We seriously don’t need to be this early, dude.”

“Dude,” I said, letting the sarcasm come through my voice. “It’s noon. You’re acting like it’s 5 am.”

Davin was never a morning person, but he’d really been slow that morning.

“You still want this, right?” I asked him as we pulled up to the diner.

“Of course. I couldn’t sleep thinking about it, honestly. We can rearrange your room like we’d talked about.”

“Hey guys,” Pam and Bascomb were walking into the diner as well. “Want to join us?”

“No.” I said without thinking.

“Sorry, we have a date,” Davin said.

“Hi guys,” Kailee was behind us. Maybe I should have waited to see if she wanted to join the others. I wasn’t good at this part of dating.

She gave Pam a quick hug. “Good to see you again.”

“You’re on a date with these two?” Pam laughed, as Bascomb raised his eyebrows at me. “Girl. You impress me more all the time.”

“Hey!” Bascomb protested.

“Come on, handsome,” she said to her fiancé. “If she can’t have you, these two are a pretty good second choice.”

I’d envied their relationship when I saw them together.

“It would take two of them to make up for what I can bring.”

“Okay, hotshot,” Pam laughed, pulling him down for a kiss. Her ring glinted in the light of the busy restaurant.

Yes, I did envy them. I’d never been able to do easy banter. I’d had some relationships, but I found it hard to talk about myself.

“They’re cute,” Kailee said.

I sighed quietly. Would I really be able to pull off flirty, fun on a date?

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