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"So is this what you do? Save ladies from the jaws of nature?"
"Clever." He said, his smile a beam of sunshine through dark clouds, "But no, currently I am managing the building of a new fire lookout tower." He pointed into the distance at the summit of the mountain. "Can you see it? It's pretty much done."
He leaned so close to me, pointing out to where I could see a visible shape in the midday distance just above the trees. I tried to look down his arm and focus, but smelled like fresh pine needles and morning dew.
"Have you ever seen inside a fire lookout tower?"
"No, never."
"Well, then I will have to show you sometime, Just Lana." He winked and grinned.
Oh, oh fuck yes please. I thought and wondered how big the bed was up in that little hut on the mountain summit. Was it big enough for two? Or would we have to do it on the floor.
My thoughts went there. Unprompted and unprovoked, they went right into a clogged drainage gutter.
"What about you?"
"Hmm?" I said, my mouth full of chocolate, mind wandering to exciting and nasty places.
"What do you do, Just Lana?"
That's right, my job. "I's a luxury real estate agent in LA."
Hayden hummed with eyebrows raised. He seemed impressed and it sent shivers over my skin. "I get to see multi-million dollar houses, and work to sell them to the extremely rich."
"Have you found your billionaire yet, then?"
"Eww, no." I scrunched my face, thinking of some of my clients. They were nice enough, but no, no thank you. "I sell houses and dreams, lifestyles and desires."
"Sounds like a nice job." The tone in his changed almost as if he was disappointed. I looked up to his strong face and sharp jawline smooth from a fresh morning shave. Was he... sad?
"Chocolate?" I offered. Hayden looked my way and smiled. Taking a piece of the sugary goodness and slipping it into his mouth, just at the tip of his tongue. "To be honest," I continued, "I started to get tired of the city. There is beauty, I'm sure - but recently all I see is concrete and pavement."
“Out here," He said after a moment's pause, probably taking in the sights more than my words, "All there is, is you and mother nature. The perfect mistress."
“Your girlfriend must miss you.” I winced at my own words, cringe-worthy directness. Well done me.
Hayden gave a brief chuckle, not turning around. “No girlfriend.”
“… Boyfriend?”
“No boyfriend. I love women too much.” He turned and gave me a wink that set a shock to my clit. “Just a boring single guy.”
“Oh.”
“How about you? What brought you out to the grandness of Yosemite?” He said, switching up the conversation before I could ask anything else. “Interested in becoming mountain lion food?”
“Ha! In your dreams. Out here to get an ex out of my head.”
Hayden slowed his pace, coming closer to walking close beside me. “Why ex?”
I shared with him my story. My ex-boyfriend Marsh and I survived the first half of the COVID pandemic together, hunkering down in my place for almost a year and a half. It seemed like it was enough and he was average at everything. So I settled on believing that he was enough for me, that mediocre life was enough for me.
As soon as they lifted restrictions in California, I caught him in bed with the young flirt who worked at the local blues dive where she served watered down drinks and limp, tepid french fries. I had come home early from work with a bag of local tacos and cheap Californian wine to surprise him. There they were, tangled around each other with all the sloppy, weak grunts they could manage.
So, I kicked them both out on the spot.
That night, I turned off my phone, ate the entire bag of tacos, drank half the bottle of wine, and passed out in a drunken stupor until 3 in the afternoon the next day. When I finally checked my phone, it was to forty-six texts and sixty-three phone calls from Marsh, Marsh’s mother, Marsh’s friend Jeffrey, our “mutual” friend Abby, and Cathleen, his sister. It was a cascading waterfall of how I should take him back, forgive him, the whole hot mess. A lot if blaming me and how I was just not supportive enough of Marsh.
