Epilogue #2
Ezra
Skylar hopped out of my truck, looking cute as hell in one of my old baseball hats as he slung his tiny hiking backpack on and fussed with the straps. I shrugged on my bigger pack, with the necessities like a first aid kit, water, and the lunch I’d packed, and sprayed on sunscreen. Skylar delicately dabbed on his luxury sunscreen, whatever that meant, and I stroked over a smear on his cheekbone with my thumb before I slid his sunglasses on him.
“Ready?” I asked.
Taking my hand, he said, “Yep. Tell me why we drove past two signs for hot springs, turned down Raccoon Canyon Road, and are about to hike a trail named Bear’s Breeches?”
I bit back a smile and explained, “I’m taking you to my favorite place in all of Wildflower, those hot springs are crowded as hell this time of year, and Bear’s Breeches are a type of flower. They’re not wildflowers or native to Colorado, but this land is private property, so the owners can landscape how they want and name the trail what they want.”
“Are we trespassing?” he asked, sounding thrilled at the idea as he swung his head all over the place as if he were trying to find security guards to evade. “Do you trespass?”
“I have blanket permission to be on the property,” I said. He pouted and I laughed warmly, then promised him, “I’ll find someplace where we can trespass another day.”
That brought his infectious smile back immediately.
While we walked through the overgrown gardens bordered by aspens, he peppered me with questions about the property, the family, gardening, and how we could still be in the valley if we were also in the mountains. I answered, still amazed at how comfortable I was talking to him, when conversation had never come easily to me. Like always, he listened to my answers and then immediately had more questions, as the landscape gave way to wild grass and views of the endless mountains beyond it.
The first couple hours passed by in a sweet, lazy breeze.
We stopped for lunch at the big boulder that looked like a leaping salmon, because it was easy to climb and the top was more or less flat. We ate turkey, cheese, and mango chutney sandwiches on thick country white bread, my mom’s recipe that Skylar devoured in tiny, eager bites, and fresh local cherries. When he kissed me, it was sticky and sweet, so perfect that I indulged him when he asked to take a bunch of pictures of us.
Once he was done, we kept hiking, the incline steeper than it had been before. Skylar walked and biked almost everywhere and we had been doing beginner hikes most weekends, and he was used to it by now. But that didn’t mean he was an expert hiker yet, so his cheeks were flushing and he was huffing and puffing a little bit, drinking water more often.
It was only another half-mile to my spot, and I was oddly nervous to see if he’d love it.
The view opened up when we rounded another switchback, showing how far above the valley we were, and he gasped in sheer excitement, skidding to a stop.
“Holy shit, I just climbed a mountain with you!”
I bit back a smile. “We’re climbing on a mountain, baby, but we didn’t summit it.”
Putting his hands on his hips, he shot me an adorable look of exasperation and started hiking again like he was making a statement, while he bickered with all his sass, “Oh, now you’re going to be nitpicky about semantics? But when I pointed out very politely, one time , that the correct term is versatile, not various, I had to make my own cup of coffee?”
Now I let my smile free, shaking my head as I sassed him back, “You made your own coffee because you couldn’t stop giggling while you corrected me so ‘politely.’”
“It was so cute!” he protested, skidding a little as he sidestepped suddenly to avoid a tree root protruding up from the hard-packed dirt trail. “And excuse you, what do you mean we didn’t just climb a mountain? Is there some rule that you can only say you climbed a mountain if you make it all the way to the tippy-top of it? Who decides where that is?”
I chuckled and said as seriously as I could, “The director of the National Park Service.”
He pulled his squirt bottle with the motorized fan attached to it out of the side pocket of his pack like it was a weapon and squirted me in the face with warm mist. “I’m onto you now, Ezra. Trying to distract me? That must mean we’re almost there and you’re nervous.”
Butterflies tickled my stomach from how well he knew me and still loved me, and I took hold of his hand again even though hiking while holding hands was awkward.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said stoically. “I love a good lively debate.”
“No you don’t!” he exclaimed, then burst into loud, happy laughter.
Snatching the squirt bottle, I turned it on him and misted his face and neck. “Yes I do,” I insisted, loving this silly back-and- forth. “Did I, or did I not, engage in a lively debate on whether or not Auden is sleeping with his older brother’s best friend for like an hour?”
“I had no idea you had such stubborn opinions on pining ,” Skylar told me.
Tucking the squirt bottle back in its pocket, I replied as we started up the final quarter-mile before we got to the spot, “I have stubborn opinions on everything, I just always kept them to myself until I met you and you wanted to know everything about me.”
“Because you’re incredible,” he said, dancing in front of me to smack a kiss on my lips.
“I’m glad you think so,” I said tartly, still horrible at taking compliments.
He snorted, but then he saw why I’d brought him here, running onto the grass toward the cascades flowing over smooth rocks, with a hot spring on the other side enclosed by flat boulders that the property owners had used to protect the spring and create seating in it.
Without any hesitation, he chucked off his hiking boots and thick socks. I did the same, then followed right behind him when he walked into the stream up to his calves.
“You may not have climbed all the way up a mountain yet, baby, but you will if you want to,” I told him quietly as we both watched the cascades and the mountains and sky beyond it. “I hope you’ll want to at least climb this far again, because this is my favorite spot in Wildflower, and I want to share it with you too. And… and for me, seeing you in the hot spring the first time we went camping, that changed my life, Skylar. You changed my life.”
“I know I have, I taught you how to monologue,” he teased me, beaming over at me, but then his expression softened and he tugged his sunglasses down so I could see his eyes. “I know I have, Ezra,” he said again, but this time he was low and serious. “You have no idea how honored and delighted I am that you let me, too. I’m so in love with you and I’m so happy with you, here in this beautiful small mountain town with magical hot springs.”
I kissed him hard and then led him across the stream and to the magical hot springs. Impatiently I tugged off our packs, then went to work on our hiking boots, hats, sunglasses, and clothes, while Skylar giggled and stole as many kisses as he could, not helping at all. When we were naked, we got into the hot springs and groaned from the soothing heat.
Skylar climbed into my lap, twining his legs around my waist so he wouldn’t scrape his knees on the stone seat, and kissed me until we were gasping and grinding against each other. I was stroking my hands all over his soft stomach and cradling his balls, while his hands dove into my hair, and the noises we made seemed like they could carry for miles. Luckily there was no one around for miles but animals who’d ignore our lovemaking.
“Up,” he moaned eventually, wiggling off my lap and standing up in the deeper center of the spring, pushing at my hips until I scooted up to the stone rim, up out of the water. I tried to pull him in for more kisses, but he winked and then sank his mouth down my cock, making me shout out. His mouth bobbed at a lazy pace while he stared up at me and his shoulder and arm flexed as he jerked himself off under the water. Unbelievably, I’d never made love outside before—which Skylar knew, because he really had learned everything about me—but now that I was, I knew this wasn’t going to be the only time we did this.
“Going to come,” I moaned, a heartbeat before I flooded his mouth.
After he’d swallowed and licked my cock a final few times, he gently urged me onto my back, half on the stone rim and half on the muddy grass, and stood up on the seat between my knees. He looked gorgeous, dappled with glittering water and jerking off over me.
“Can you come all over my sexy abs for me?” I asked him.
His rhythm stuttered for a second. “That’s almost what I asked you the first time we got off together, over the phone,” he said breathlessly, “I begged you to come on your abs.”
Rubbing my hands over them, I hummed, “Mm, and I did, baby. Now it’s your turn.”
“Oh my god, I love you so much,” he babbled, his hand flying, “I love you, love you—” I nodded and touched my nipples, and he froze while his come splattered all over my abs, hip, and the back of my hand. His legs trembled as he breathed raggedly and nearly fell to the ground next to me on his back too. “You know,” he sighed in deep satisfaction, snuggling close, our feet in the hot springs, our butts on the stone rim, and our shoulders and heads on the grass. “This hiking thing isn’t so bad, if you ignore the sweating, burning lungs, and ten times you almost twist your ankles, and focus on the reward for reaching the peak.”
I smiled at him as I had to point out, “Still didn’t reach the peak.”
“We reached the peak of love ,” he proclaimed.
I groaned and said, “I love you, but that’s such a bad line, baby.”
Skylar giggled and beamed at me, and I knew I’d happily hear it every time we did.