Chapter Five
Aaron
The unsaid end of that sentence haunted me as we climbed. She was trying to say she didn’t see me in a brotherly way. That she wanted to do non-sibling things with me.
I’d definitely had some not-brotherly thoughts about her too. If the feelings were mutual, that was temptation with a capital T.
Having her hike in front of me, her ass flexing in her little hiking shorts, was not helping the situation either.
The situation being my chubbed up cock.
The woman drove me nuts. Unfortunately, opposites apparently attracted hard.
Coming on this hike was starting to feel like a mistake.
The celebrity adventure cat proved to be a good distraction. He didn’t pull ahead like a dog on a lead. He did whatever he wanted.
Kyle’s internal monologue probably sounded something like:
Flower over here? Let’s look.
Bug to the left? Don’t mind if I do.
Stop suddenly so everyone trips on me? Obviously.
Eventually, the media darling tired and Skye put him into a little sling across her chest that was probably meant for a baby. Kyle’s eyes drifted shut and he slept peacefully as we continued our ascent.
As much as I gave Skye shit and questioned whether she had what it took to do things safely, she was in damn good shape. We climbed steadily for an hour before stepping off the trail into a clearing.
“Break time,” she said, plunking down on a rock and pulling a water bottle from her pack. The bottle was an obnoxious shade of bright pink, but hey, at least she brought water.
And the right amount by the look of it.
For her and Kyle too. She pulled a small bowl from her pack and filled it with water before setting it on the ground.
Kyle, clearly familiar with this routine, jumped out of his baby sling and lapped it up.
“So, this is your job?” I asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
Skye grinned at me. “Wishing you’d picked this over search and rescue?”
I snorted. It did look more relaxing than running towards emergencies. Then again, my need for structure would never allow for this kind of lifestyle. “Not a chance. I need to know where my next paycheck comes from.”
“Which is why we’re here! This article is going to be a big payday. I get money from sponsors for Kyle. I have sponsored posts on my own socials, and I sell my photography and writing. But this one will be a bunch of money all at once.”
I nodded, reluctantly happy to help her.
Rustling sounded to my left and I glanced in that direction. “Well, if Kyle is part of your financial strategy, you might want to grab him.” I pointed to where the tuxedo-wearing cat was chasing a grasshopper into the underbrush.
“Damn it, Kyle.” She stood, and Kyle glanced over his shoulder, but her presence didn’t stop him from moving forward. The brush on either side of the trail was thick. It was the kind of place where hikers could get lost just stepping off to take a piss.
Once Kyle’s tail disappeared through the wall of leaves he was just gone.
I’d never used my search and rescue training on a cat before. Then again, I’d never met a famous cat either, especially not one whose owner had me transfixed with her freckles and chaos.
I stood. “I guess we’d better go get him.”
She reached out and put her hand on my chest to stop me from walking.
My heart gave a stupid little kick at the feel of her touch.
“If we chase him, it becomes a game and he’ll run.
The further away he is, the harder it’s going to be to get him back.
Look how thick that underbrush is.” She shook her head.
“The last thing I want is Kyle to get lost. But looking for a cat is not the same as looking for a person.”
She sat back on the rock, opened her pack, and pulled out a cat toy and a little plastic container. She shook the cat toy, which, as it turns out, had a little bell on it.
The tiny jingle sounded absurdly small against the vast stretch of trees pressing in around us.
“And now we wait.”
I looked at her skeptically. “You’re really just going to sit here and not go after him?”
She turned to glare at me. “Look, the idea of losing him is terrifying. I travel all over the place. I hardly see my family. I don’t have any super-close friends. I have him. Watching him walk away and not knowing where he’s going is a scary thing.”
I felt like a dick for even questioning her. “You seem sure this will work.”
She took a deep breath. “If I sit here, he’ll hear my voice, he’ll hear his toys and his treats, and hopefully he’ll smell us and he’ll come back.”
I didn’t know shit about cats, so had no idea if this was a smart strategy or not. What I did know was keeping her cool under pressure was something to admire. It was something needed for my own job.
She shook the little treat container and the toy and called his name every so often. Otherwise we waited.
“So you just drive around in your van taking pictures and doing what you want, and yet when a situation arises, you’re cool as a cucumber? How is that possible?”
She laughed. “You assume I don’t have a plan. You assume the pictures are random, but you don’t know.”
She was right. I was guessing what her job was like not knowing. People assumed search and rescue was finding someone with a twisted ankle and bringing them home. They didn’t know the times when we found nothing. Or worse, found the person too late to save them.
They didn’t know the toll it could take.
It was why I needed this vacation and why I needed things done my way.
“I guess I don’t know everything about what you do,” I admitted.
She flashed me a small smile at my admission but the stress over Kyle still showed in her eyes.