Page 20 of Elijah's Hope
“If you keep stopping in your tracks, we’re going to be hiking this trail for the next four years.”
She beamed at me, her long, honey blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, her new coat snuggled around her. It was chilly, but nothing I would consider cold. Especially not walking like we were. Still, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered a little. I wasn’t sure if that was the temperature or her excitement.
Shelby shivers when she’s excited.
It wasn’t the first sexual thought I had about her. It probably wasn’t going to be the last, either. Still, I pushed it to the back of my mind. After another fun night at Bud’s with her, I had again left her with a simple kiss on the cheek.
I had thought about what she’d said yesterday. About feelings not being harmless. I’d had this idea of bringing a woman up here, having a few dates, seducing her, getting laid. Simple.
But I could tell instantly Shelby wasn’t the type who took fucking lightly. Maybe the smart play was to take sex off the table completely. Keep her placed soundly and firmly in the friend zone.
She started to run to catch up to where I was and when she reached out to grab my arm, I could feel it ripple throughout my body. That zing of awareness.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry I’m lollygagging, but you have to know I’ve just never seen anything like this in Shreveport. It’s amazing!”
“I thought you were from Baton Rouge.”
“Oh I am. I meant to say anywhere in Louisiana. Shreveport, Baton Rouge, New Orleans.”
“You ever been to Mardi Gras?”
And yes, my mind went right there. With her shirtless and only wearing a few strands of beads around her neck that draped over her tits. Some damn friend zone.
“Of course I have and yes, before you ask I have the beads to show for it. However, I have never given anyone the full Monty. You would be surprised what a simple black bra can get you though.”
I laughed and reached for her hand. “Come on, we’ve got to keep going. We’ve got a ways before the trail circles into town. How are you boots holding up? Any blisters?”
I had picked them up in town this morning. She’d said she’d brought sneakers, but sneakers wouldn’t hold up against some of the rough we were going to have to trudge through.
“They’re fine,” she said quietly, looking away from me. “You know you didn’t have to. I would have been fine wearing sneakers.”
“Shelby, you’re the only woman I know who doesn’t like getting a gift.”
“I told you. I don’t like to be beholden to people. Can you understand that?”
I nodded. “Growing up with a single mom, we didn’t have much money. Some of the other kids I used to hang out with in school would try to buy me shit. A soda. A candy bar. They were trying to do something nice, but I hated the reminder I didn’t have what they did. I hated they knew I was poor.”
She squeezed my hand and I shook off the memory. Although I realized it was probably around that time, when I was ten or eleven, that I spent less time hanging out with kids from my school.
“Anyway, you’re not poor,” I said. “Plus, now that you’ve got your degree, you can get any job you want. Didn’t you say you were thinking about grad school?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So no worries over some clothes and a pair of boots. It’s all just part of the contest prize. That and my company.”
She smiled again and when she did, I had this urge to kiss her. Yeah, that whole friend-zone idea probably wasn’t going to work. I would have to find another way to make sure we kept things cool.
We continued hiking, and Shelby continued to be awed by everything she saw. She chatted away like a magpie and it was crazy how I loved listening to her. Like she was singing instead of talking me.
“When do you think you’ll decide?” I asked her. “About grad school?”
“Oh, I don’t know. No rush, I suspect. It will always be out there for me. What about you? How long are you going to stay here? I mean, it’s beautiful, but with so few people living here…how would you ever find a wife?”
A wife. I shook my head. “Never really figured I was the marrying kind.”
“But you’re so amazing,” she said as if it was fact. Like the sun was hot and the sky was blue. That’s how she certain she sounded.
