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“I’ll take a nap when we reach those benches at the top. Otherwise, you might have to carry me back down.” I pushed off, heading laboriously up the path. “And I don’t think that’s a picture you or the Dragon Lady want on the gossip pages tomorrow.”
The sound of Rome’s laughter behind me made me smile despite my angst. Before I could blink, he was at my side, snatching my water out of my hand and shoving it back into his pack. “Don’t want you drinking too much too fast and getting sick. And I think the picture you described sounds kinda romantic. Might be just the thing to get attention.”
“Didn’t you already work out today?” I huffed. “And you calledmethe masochist last night.”
“This isn’t exactly a workout for me. Errr, wait. That came out wrong.”
I laughed. Or cried. They might’ve sounded similar at the moment. “No, no. Don’t worry about how I took that. I know I’m not in hiking shape. Maybe next time we take the beginner’s path? I’m used to standing on my feet all day, but this is something else.”
“This is a beginner’s path,” Rome muttered under his breath.
But I still heard him. Ugh. Never again. Why couldn’t have we done the Starbucks trip today instead? I loved coffee shops, they loved me, and bonus, no exercise. Win, win.
“How about we take this time to get to know each other a little better?” Rome asked before he whistled at Pongo who had ventured a little far from us.
“I thought we did that last night?” Did he really expect me to talk and walk? There was only so much you could ask of a girl. Seriously.
“Right. After that five-minute conversation, I know everything about you. Come on. Tell me something fun.”
“You first.” I panted. I had to concentrate on breathing. No way I could hold up my end of a conversation at the moment.
“Fine. How about embarrassing moments?”
I barked out a laugh. “No. No way in hell am I ever telling you my most embarrassing moment.”
“Ooh, sounds like a juicy one.”
I just mutely shook my head. No way was I going there. I had so many to choose from. The time in grade school when I peed my pants at the dentist after they gave me nitrous for a cavity. The time I told a boy in high school that I liked him, only for him to turn around and ask out my best friend. I could keep going. None of them were memories I wanted to relive in front of the perfect Roman Grier.
No, thank you.
“Wait, I’m supposed to believe whatever you share is true? Not some made up story you’ve told during a talk show stint? I dunno.”
Rome sighed. “I promise it’s true. No one would make something like this up.”
I gave him some serious side-eye as I took one grueling step after another. “I don’t know…”
“How about I go first?” Rome asked.
“Still not going to tell you mine.”
“Fine. In middle school, I wasn’t the stud you see before you today. I was a skinny, scrawny beanpole of a kid who wished he had acne instead of the baby face I’d been cursed with. At least that way I would’ve looked older. Anyway, I had a huge crush on Hadley James. She was the most perfect popular girl with blonde hair and just the whole package.”
“Which means boobs, of course,” I panted, still charmed despite my pain of hiking alongside him.
“Of course.” He paused and looked along the trail, but we had this section to ourselves. Most people were back at the parking lot or way ahead of us. But he still lowered his voice when he continued. “I don’t know how much you know about young male anatomy, but it pretty much only takes a stray thought, or sometimes not even that, to get it up. Especially in middle school. I swear that thing had a mind of its own.”
“Oh my gosh. I think I see where this is going. Do you really want to tell me this?”
“Eh, it was embarrassing then. I can laugh about it now. So anyway, I was in seventh grade and crushing hard on Hadley James. We had third period together and sat right next to each other. And the anticipation during second period was more than I could take, and before I knew it—boing.” He rolled his eyes. “It was obvious and so freaking embarrassing, so after second period I ran to the bathroom and adjusted things. I didn’t want Hadley James to see me with this huge, obvious erection. So I tucked it.”
He paused and waved a hand upright, indicating the direction of his penis—vertical and pointing upward.
“Wait. Really?Thatwas more comfortable?”
He shrugged. “I thought it would be less obvious when I was sitting next to Hadley, ya know?”
I nodded along.
