6. Garrett
6
Garrett
A fter a short walk to a swimming hole, our guide sets up for lunch while the group goes for a swim. Emma nervously captures her bottom lip between her teeth as she looks out at the water longingly.
That’s my cue to take a hike…literally.
If there’s even a remote possibility that she’s about to put on a bikini and frolic around in the water, I need to remove myself from the situation.
The canyon stretches out in front of me. The crystal blue water carves an endless path between the steep canyon walls. I follow a short trail downstream and take a seat on a boulder, letting the fresh air fill my lungs and the sunlight warm my skin. It’s silent except for the rush of the rapids.
I can’t remember the last time I took a day off. This may technically be a work trip, but I intend to enjoy every minute of it. Hopefully, Emma finds some way to do the same. It’ll be a long three weeks if she intends to sulk the entire time.
Eventually, I make my way back to the swimming hole. Emma is the first person I see. She’s standing on a short cliff, dressed in a yellow polka-dot swimsuit. She glances nervously over the edge then yells something to someone below.
Then she jumps.
Or falls…it’s hard to tell.
Her legs kick in different directions as they lose their purchase on the rocky cliff and her arms flail out to the sides. Her scream is cut short as her body collides with the water and she disappears underneath.
Something that feels a hell of a lot like panic pinches tight in my chest. That’s normal…probably. She’s my employee, so if something happens to her on this trip, the company I’ve worked so hard to build is liable for the damages.
My pace quickens to a jog as I make my way down to the riverbank. By the time I arrive, Emma is wading out of a shallow spot near the shore.
I couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.
Her swimsuit clings to her curves as water sluices down all of her exposed skin. Her brown hair is splayed out around her shoulders in wet ropes, framing the peaks of her nipples, which are clearly visible through the slippery fabric.
Emma doesn’t notice me standing there right away. She hollers something over at Doris, who gives her two thumbs up from the opposite side of the cliff. Emma smiles widely and turns her head, locking eyes with me. She stops dead in her tracks, her smile rapidly fading. Either the sun has already taken a toll on her pale skin, or she’s blushing.
I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. I keep my eyes on hers and nowhere else.
“Was that a jump or a fall?” I ask after a moment, trying to distract myself from the way she looks in that swimsuit.
Emma’s eyes narrow and her lips purse, giving me her patented tired of your shit look. “A jump…but if you have to ask, I’m guessing it wasn’t the swan dive I pictured in my head.”
“More like a chicken getting thrown into a bathtub.” I mean this as a joke, but it doesn’t land quite right.
A smile creeps over her lips, but not the friendly kind. “It was my first time cliff jumping.”
“Clearly.”
“That’s one more cliff than you’ve jumped off today,” she counters with one eyebrow lifted. She motions to the cliff behind her. “If you can do better, be my guest.”
Tempting, but no. The only thing worse than watching Emma frolic around in the water wearing that swimsuit would be getting in the water with her. My plan is to give her lots of space on this trip. The point isn’t to work out our differences or impress her with my cliff jumping skills, it’s to get her honest feedback on these tours. Nothing could taint that faster than having me glued to her side.
“Guess I’m not the only chicken,” she says, misinterpreting my silence.
The tour guide hollers for us all to reconvene for lunch. Emma gives me one last annoyed glare then turns on her heel to make her way back to the group. Following behind Emma in a swimsuit would be the death of me, so I jog a few steps ahead to catch up to her.
“What’s with all the name calling today?” I ask her.
Emma’s shrugs but she doesn’t stop walking. “I don’t know what you mean. What else have I called you today?”
“I believe the term was ‘lump of grump’?”
Her shoulders heave with quiet laughter, and she turns her head to give me a the briefest of glances. “That one sort of slipped out, but I stand by it.”
“Why don’t you stick to introducing me as your boss in the future? Unless you want me to start rethinking that arrangement.”
I know this comes out harsh, but strict professionalism is the only thing that’s gotten Emma and I through the last year of working together. If we let that slip, I’m afraid of where it might lead. My bet is on either the HR office or an early grave that Emma merrily dug for me herself.
“Sorry,” Emma grits out without turning to look at me.
Something’s changed recently. A few weeks ago, Emma would never have dared to call me anything but her boss. At least not to my face. Low-key, seething hatred has always been more her style. I don’t know if Emma is getting more comfortable with me, or more tired of me. I also don’t know which one is worse.
Emma keeps me on my toes. Having her around is like having a human bullshit barometer at my side. She can’t seem to hide even the smallest twinge of emotion that passes over her face. It should annoy the hell out of me. Actually, it does annoy the hell out of me most of the time, but I also appreciate the fact that she doesn’t pretend to like everything I do or say. That sort of person gets harder and harder to find when you’re wealthy. Once my net worth became a Googleable fact, people started agreeing with everything I said before the words were even out of my mouth.
That’s why I hired my brother as my second-in-command. Ethan practically lives to contradict me. Emma lives to knock me down a notch or two. That makes them my two most valuable employees.
Lunch is an assembly line of sandwiches, chips, and soft drinks. Emma disappears momentarily then returns wearing a pair of nylon running shorts over her swimsuit and a towel draped over her shoulders.
Everyone smiles and chats as they grab their food and take a seat in the blue foldable camping chairs that are arranged in a large circle. I plan on sticking close to the guide to ask a few questions about the way they structure their tours, but a guy with a triangle of sunscreen on his nose and a floppy hat has other plans.
“Benny! Come on over,” he hollers in my direction. “Saved you a seat.”
I glance behind me, expecting someone named Benny to be standing there, but I’m alone at the sandwich table.
Then, to my absolute horror, I realize that this man has shortened the already ridiculous pseudonym Emma gave me from Benedict Kumquat to simply ‘Benny.’
Yeah, that’s not going to work.
When my eyes flick over to Emma, she’s laughing silently around a bite of her sandwich.
“I thought your name was Garrett,” Doris interjects.
“It is,” I say, taking a few steps closer to the group. “I go by Garrett. It’s my middle name.”
Most people nod in acknowledgment, but Floppy Hat isn’t having it. “Think I like Benny better!” he laughs.
“I don’t,” I state plainly.
“Come on over and have a seat,” the man says, gesturing to the chair beside him.
The woman next him rolls her eyes, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’m sure Garrett would like to sit next to his wife, Carl.”
The group’s gaze collectively shifts from me to Emma, who looks horrified. Welcome to the club. How many times are we going to have to explain to people on this trip that we aren’t romantically involved? That’s twice already, and the trip is barely underway.
“We aren’t married,” Emma blurts out quickly.
“They work together,” Doris chimes in. “She’s his assistant.”
The truth has never sounded so strange, and Doris’s accusatory tone doesn’t help. Judging by the weird looks everyone is giving the two of us, they agree. A few of the women are looking at Emma like she should blink twice if she needs help. Everyone else just looks confused.
“And you two are vacationing together?” a wide-eyed woman asks.
Before either of us can muster up a reply, Floppy Hat Carl lets out a hearty laugh. “Never got to bring my secretary along on vacation.”
No one laughs, least of all his wife.
“You teach ninth grade math, Carl,” she snaps. “You don’t have a secretary. And the correct term is ‘assistant’.”
That gets a few uneasy laughs, but not enough to distract everyone from the real question at hand. There are still ten sets of eyes on me, waiting to hear how a boss and his assistant ended up rafting through the Grand Canyon together.
“It’s a team-building trip,” I tell them.
There are a few nods, but most of the group doesn’t seem to buy it.
“What kind of work do you guys do?” another woman asks.
We should have thought this through better. Emma and I are both pretty smart. How did we both overlook the need for a backstory? I guess I got so caught up in making sure that no one realized that we are scouting partnerships for True North that I didn’t think much about the finer details.
Emma and I lock eyes across the crowd with panic written all over our faces. There are a million jobs on this planet, but I can’t seem to think of a single one right now. It has to be something that we both know enough about to make it believable. Something that sells this whole weird situation somehow. Something that…
“Garrett’s a dog trainer,” Emma blurts out.
Something that’s not that.
I glare at her, but she just gives me a wide-eyed, covert shrug and takes another bite of her sandwich.
“And you’re his assistant?” Carl’s wife asks.
“Mmhmm,” Emma nods and hums with her mouth full.
And that’s how I became Benedict G. Kumquat, Professional Dog Trainer.
“Alright, time to load up and hit the water,” the guide announces after lunch.
Everyone starts milling about, tossing the remnants of their lunch into the nearby trashcan and gathering their bags. It rubs me the wrong way to see paper plates and soda cans overflowing in the bin. When a breeze blows a couple wadded up napkins onto the ground, I chase them down and put them back in the trashcan. I’m tying off the trash bag when our guide hollers over to me.
“Don’t worry about packing up the trash or the food. We’ve got a crew that comes through and cleans the site after we leave,” he tells me.
I tie off the trash anyway and walk over to him.
“Wouldn’t it be better to have reusable plastic plates and cutlery if there’s a cleaning crew that comes through? They could pack it up, wash it, and bring it back for the next group. They have to restock the site anyway, right?” I ask.
The guide shrugs halfheartedly. “Probably just as bad for the environment to use all that water washing them over and over again. It’s easier to just stick to the disposable stuff.”
He’s wrong. It’s not just the space the paper plates and plastic cutlery take up in a landfill, it’s the energy spent on manufacturing it that also makes it worse for the environment. Not to mention the litter it causes in places like this. As much as I’d love to argue this point with him, the obnoxiously large motor on the back of the raft he’s boarding catches my attention.
“This is our raft?” I ask, planting my hands on my hips and glaring at the motorized monstrosity.
“Yep, that’s her.”
“We’re not paddling?”
“Not on this tour,” he says. “We wouldn’t make it far in three days that way.”
The temptation to argue wells up inside me again. Then I glance over at the group of eleven other people. There’s Math Teacher Carl and his wife, who has the bone density of a newborn cricket. Then there’s Doris, who must be somewhere between seventy-five and one million years old. It’s amazing she’s still standing under the weight of her vest of wonders. And, of course, there’s Emma. She’s watching me carefully, clearly trying to figure out what I’m saying to the guide. The second our eyes meet, she turns her attention back to her bag, fidgeting with the small zipper pocket in the front.
Honestly, I should have known we weren’t going to be paddling down the river the minute I saw this group.
“Everything okay?” Emma asks, trotting up to me a moment later.
“Yeah, I just didn’t realize that this was a motorized rafting trip.”
Her face hardens into a defiant glare. “You told me to book either the three-day or five-day tour. All the three-day trips were on motorized rafts. I assumed you knew that.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
And truthfully, it is. I wanted to make sure that these tours were accessible and enjoyable for all ages and skill levels. This tour passes that test. Still, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
“Are you sure?” Emma asks as her eyes flick over my face, searching for any hint that I might keep arguing with her.
“Yeah, it’s my fault for not reading the itinerary thoroughly.”
Emma’s eyes widen and her lips part. “Is the heat getting to you or something?” she asks.
“No, why?”
“I’ve never heard you admit fault for anything before. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
I shake my head disapprovingly at her. “Will you please just get on the raft?”
Emma rolls her eyes and takes a few hesitant steps toward the giant raft. When she plants her left foot on the edge of it, the raft wobbles and shifts away from her.
“Hand me your bag,” the guide instructs her as he reaches forward.
Peeling off her backpack, she passes it to the guide before shifting her weight forward onto the raft. Just as she’s about to step onto it, the guide’s movements cause the raft to shift again. Emma stumbles. Her arms flail out to the sides for balance while her hands search for something, anything to grab hold of. Unfortunately, the only thing within arm’s reach is me. Her back collides with my chest. Instinctively, my arms fly out to catch her. I intend to grab her sides to steady her, but my hand slips on the wet fabric of her swimsuit. Suddenly, my left hand is on her stomach and my right hand is firmly cupping her breast.
My first instinct is to let go.
Okay, that’s a lie. As a guy, letting go is never my first instinct when there’s a perfectly nice breast in my hand. And even though I try my best to ignore them, Emma’s breasts are more than perfectly nice. They’re spectacular. But this cannot be happening. Unintentional as it clearly is, this whole situation is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Unfortunately, letting go means letting her fall. That’s probably another potential lawsuit. Knowing Emma, she’d tell everyone I pushed her straight into the dirt. So, I work as quickly as possible to set her upright and remove my hands from her body.
We both leap away from each other. I shove my hands in my pockets as if hiding them will somehow erase what just happened. Emma stands remarkably still and looks anywhere but at me. Her face is beet red, and this time I know it’s not just from the sun.
“Whoa, careful there,” the guide says, turning around just in time to catch the tail end of her fall. “Let me help you up.”
Emma sighs and steps back over to the raft, letting the guide grab her hand and help her onboard. The last thing I want to do is be alone on the raft with her after what just happened, so I hang back on the shore and help everyone else board first. Hopefully, boarding last will leave me with the furthest possible seat from Emma to give us both some space.
Theoretically, this plan works. Everyone else files onto the raft, and no one tries to save me a seat beside Emma. Unfortunately, it’s a u-shaped seating configuration, which means that Emma and I are now sitting directly across from each other. Our eyes snag on each other for a second as I take a seat, and the pink on Emma’s cheeks deepens another shade. The guide makes his way around to each of us, passing out life vests and giving us instructions on how to secure them properly. Everyone fumbles around for a few minutes until the guide is satisfied and makes his way toward the back of the raft. The motor roars to life while Emma and I both adjust in our seats, doing whatever we can to avoid the other’s gaze.
Suddenly, a noisy boat ride sounds great. The less talking the better.
The raft drifts away from the shore, rocking across the choppy water. Across from me, Emma’s cleavage bounces along with it under the life vest. The familiar weight of it sends a phantom ripple through my palm.
She’s wrong about one thing: I’m perfectly capable of admitting when I’m wrong about something, and I was dead wrong about bringing her along on this trip.