“Can we get back to discussing this all-expenses-paid trip you’re apparently taking us all on?” Oliver asked.
Great.Just what I needed.
THREE
Lila
“How many fourteeners have you summited?”Dave, a clean-cut guy who liked to talk about himself a little too much, looked at me expectantly from across the white-clothed table. The restaurant was entirely too fancy for a first date, but Dave had turned down all of my other suggestions. The scents of roses and linen wafted through the air instead of sizzling meats or pastas, and the whole sensation was making me a bit dizzy.
“None yet.” I forced a smile. “I find it a little hard to breathe when the elevation is that high. I do like to hike, though,” I added quickly.
Conversation wasn’t exactly flowing, but I had to admit that he was even better looking than his profile picture promised he’d be. While I didn’t want to be shallow, I also didn’t want to write him off before our waiter even had a chance to deliver our menus to the table.
Dave pursed his lips in disappointment. “Man, there’s nothing like a fourteener. The challenge. The climb. It’s breathtaking up there.” He said it like somehow every fourteen-thousand-foot-high mountain offered the same experience, instead of being completely separate and distinct places. “It’slike seeing a whole different side of the world. You really haven’t experienced hiking until you’ve done a fourteener.”
The grin stayed frozen across my face as he continued listing each fourteener he had summited since he’d moved to Denver two years ago. When the yawn came bubbling to the surface, I did my best to cover my mouth to hide it.
“I’ll have to take you on one someday.”
“Oh, that’s alright.” My voice fell flat as I tried to discreetly check the time on my grandmother’s vintage watch, the one I always wore for luck. In hindsight, given how dreadfully these dates typically went, maybe it was cursed. I made a mental note to experiment with leaving it behind next time.
Dave seemed a little put off at my response. He took a large sip of the beer in front of him as he searched for another topic of conversation.
Dating was hard, but dating in Denver when you were eager to settle down and move into something serious? Impossible. Every man I met had just moved here to find themselves and live out whatever outdoorsy fantasy they had curated. Usually, a girlfriend was the last thing on their minds, and despite my profile explicitly stating, “Looking for something serious,” that somehow didn’t deter every self-proclaimed smooth talker with extensive commitment issues from asking me out.
You’d think I’d be better at weeding them out by now. But nope. Here I was, still stuck going out with the same cliché, over and over again.
“So,” Dave continued, tapping his fingers against his glass before his eyes lit up at whatever just crossed his mind. “I’m thinking about buying an old van and fixing it up. You know, people live in them nowadays.”
Voices driftedout of my bungalow as soon as I wedged open the door with my hip. The scents of lavender candles and buttery popcorn were the first things to hit me.
“Um, help, intruders!” I pretended to lean outside and yell as Charlie and Oliver sat on my tiny plush-pink loveseat, deep in conversation, tossing popcorn into their mouths. “That key was for emergencies,” I scolded half-heartedly, reaching down to slip off my black heels. I padded barefoot across the wood floor before they finally looked up.
“Itwasan emergency,” Charlie said.
Oliver flashed me a smile and waved. “Yeah, we were bored.”
I had rented this place for a couple of years before my landlord—a sweet, elderly woman who, despite referring to me as her surrogate granddaughter, never could remember my name—offered to sell it to me. It only had two bedrooms and one bathroom. Two people could barely squeeze into the tight kitchen, and the front door opened straight into the small living room that couldn’t even fit a three-seater couch. But I loved this place more than anything. It was home.
I ruffled Oliver’s hair on my way past them to the end of the room that led to a small hallway. The door to my bedroom was already open, so I slipped in. The pair of sweatpants I had been wearing earlier lay on my bed where I’d tossed them, along with a few T-shirts I had just washed but not yet folded or put away. I unzipped the dress and let it fall to the floor before tossing on the comfortable clothes. The cotton grazing my skin made me shiver with contentment.
“What are you two really doing here?” I asked when I came back into the room and dramatically flung myself over my vintage floral-print armchair.
“Oliver came over looking for Nathan,” Charlie explained.
“But only Charlie was there,” Oliver said.
“Nathan’s off with Ben. Ben’s trying to talk him into a new business venture or something.”
Damn, couldn’t those two just relax? I guess I was one to talk, considering I had mountains of work to do on several projects myself.
“Then I suggested we pop over to your house and see what you were up to,” Charlie finished.
“And when you saw that I wasn’t here you just thought you’d make yourself comfortable?”
“We knew you’d appreciate seeing our faces the moment you walked through the door.” Oliver blinked a few times while smiling at me in an attempt to look adorable.
“Where were you, anyway?” Charlie asked. “I figured you were out grabbing groceries, not out and about in your little black dress.”
