Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
It was actually shocking how good everything was. Not just some things, everything.
He and Lila spent every night together, either at his house or out in the woods. She asked him questions no one else had. About his tattoo, about his life, about his goals. And he just…told her. Everything. Because the way she looked at him when
They did exactly what they had discussed while they were out camping, putting packages up online, and watching the reservations fill up.
That was high motivation to get the project finished, but their natural competitive spirit would have fueled them to do it anyway.
He liked spending the night with her in his bed, but there was something about being out in the wilderness with her. Something about claiming that time.
It was their space. Sacred. They had created that trail together, and they were making sure that they left memories for themselves all over it.
Sometimes, they didn’t even make it back to the tent.
They went skinny dipping in the swimming hole, and he took her right on the bank of the river.
And then there was the time he’d fully bent her over a log when they were in the middle of the workday, his jeans down to his knees as he thrust into her until they both cried out.
They were feral together.
Completely uncivilized, and he liked it.
She brought something out in him that he’d never experienced before. But that made sense.
Because she was so singularly her.
As fierce a creature as he had ever known, smart, agile, clever. Strong. The smallest, most determined sheep.
When they finished the trail she jumped on his back and he raced as fast as he could over the smooth, flat ground they’d created while she cheered. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had fun like this.
Maybe not since they were kids.
Or when they drank shots together. Kissed each other. Laughed with each other.
Fun was Lila.
Two days after the trail they had their first group signed up to take the trail. It was an experienced group who would be boarding their horses on the property and staying at the resort following the ride, which was fifty miles round trip and would take the whole day.
Lila and Nolan were going on the trip because they wanted to. Their blood, sweat and — well best not to list every bodily fluid they might have spent on the trail — was on that trail and it felt like theirs. It felt important they go on this first ride.
Lila, for her part, looked every inch the cowgirl, with her painted-on jeans, tight top and hat.
It was the kind of thing she wore all the time, but he was so much more turned on by it than he ever had been before.
Now he knew what she looked like naked, and he couldn’t stop staring at her body whether she was clothed or not.
The fact that they’d been so busy with all this for the last few weeks meant that they had managed to avoid family get-togethers.
That was actually a good thing, he felt. He felt like the way his feelings had changed were obvious. Cody and Walker were his best friends and one of them was bound to notice something.
They weren’t avoiding the barbecue tonight, though. Cody had said he wanted to hear all about the first trail ride, and there’d been no reason not to agree.
He could lock it down, he knew that. Hell, he’d spent years locking down his attraction for Lila, so deep he’d convinced himself it wasn’t there. But things were different between them now, and having to pretend they weren’t was going to feel like bad acting.
Cody might not notice. He wasn’t always the most observant when it came to human interaction.
Walker, though…he wouldn’t be shocked if Walker noticed.
There was no way to ensure he didn’t. Because half the time Nolan didn’t realize he was staring at Lila like he’d been hit over the head with a frying pan until he’d been doing it for a good long time.
Like now.
He and Lila were currently waiting outside their boarding barn while their fourteen trail guests tacked up their horses. It was a short ride from there to the trailhead, but he was antsy.
Not so much about the prospect of an eight-to-ten-hour ride, but the fact that he was going to have to put on a performance for his best friends.
The ride at least was an interesting distraction.
Some people in the group knew each other, but many were strangers, and they all came to endurance riding for different reasons.
One woman was a writer for her day job and when she left her home office she liked to totally unplug.
There was a lawyer in the group who said the same thing.
There was an ex-dressage champion, a schoolteacher, a woman in her sixties who liked staying fit and meeting new people.
She was the only person who signed up without knowing anyone there.
It was a beautiful September day, cool and sunny with big fluffy clouds in the sky that turned the sunlight gold and cast shadows around them.
He and Lila headed up the back of the group, thoroughly enjoying their good work, as the riders in the group alternated between chatting and silence.
“I can’t believe we did this,” Lila said. “I mean, I’m also so sick to death of this scenery. I might actually vomit.”
He chuckled. “Me too. Though, I’ll always have a soft spot for our campsite.”
“I’ll always have a soft spot for how well you fucked me at it.”
He chuckled, but looked around to see if anyone had heard that. It was so quintessentially Lila to just say the thing.
“Well, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t have to be a fond memory. Though, I think you should let me sleep over at your place tonight.”
“My bed is smaller than yours,” she said.
“Give me a challenge,” Nolan said. “I might enjoy having to figure out how to do acrobatics on a smaller surface.”
“After the ride today, I don’t think you or I are going to be engaging in acrobatics.”
“I think you’ll be saddle sore, but not so much that you won’t want to ride me.”
“I might bite you,” Lila said.
“You know, I actually miss you biting me. You’ve been a little bit too nice to me lately.”
“We can fix that.”
She grinned, and it was like something heavy inside him got just a little bit lighter.
Their banter decreased as the day wore on. It was a punishing ride.
He didn’t ride as much as he used to, and he really hadn’t in the last couple of months because they had been so busy working on the trail.
He knew that his thighs were going to be screaming at him by the time all was said and done. And he really hated to admit that Lila was probably right. The most acrobatic thing he was going to be getting up to later might be an ice bath.
But it didn’t mean that he couldn’t sleep over at her place.
He pondered that for a moment. He had never been one for spending the night with women.
But leaving Lila after sex always seemed like the wrong thing to do. Something he didn’t want.
He wanted to stay with her. Leaving her right after sex felt like leaving before the end of a movie, and he couldn’t really explain that one. But it was true.
When they reached the end of the trail and they turned around, the sense of pride that he felt was shocking.
“What do you think?” Lila asked. “Do you think you’re ready to contact your family?”
He looked at all the riders up ahead of them. The riders that were here because of them, because they had decided that this would be an attraction.
“Yeah. I think I am.”
He turned that over for the rest of the ride. Did this mean that he was done? That he was good enough? That everything was sorted out inside of him? Probably that was a little bit ambitious. But well, he just felt good. Better than he had in a long time.
He was grateful when they finished up the ride, and there were ranch hands ready to take care of their horses for them.
A little bit of white glove service so that right when you were finished, you could just go have dinner.
But he and Lila were benefitting from that too, even though they weren’t guests.
He and Lila said goodbye to the riders as they loaded up into the van that would be whisking them back to the resort for a nice dinner out on the lawn.
He and Lila got in his truck, bound for the barbecue he’d been half-dreading the whole day.
She leaned back against the seat. “I think I’m dead.”
“Well, that’s inconvenient for me,” he said.
“Sorry to inconvenience you with my untimely demise.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your sensitivity.”
She wrinkled her nose. And he stared at her for a little too long, when he knew he should be looking at the road, but... She was just that captivating. And he needed to get it together before they got to the barbecue.
When they pulled up to Cody’s house, Lila wilted. “I need to be carried inside,” she said, looking at him pitifully.
He ached to have her in his arms. There was nothing he’d rather do than hold her. He just wanted to take her home, he didn’t want to do this at all, but they were out of excuses, and he couldn’t avoid Cody and Walker forever.
Hell, he didn’t want to.
They were family.
“I think we might make a little bit too much conversation if we come in with me carrying you.”
“I guess. I’ll tell you what. You sit down, and I’ll bring you dinner.” He reached across the space and pushed her hair out of her face. It was the last time he was going to touch her like that for a couple of hours. “You can just relax.”
“All right,” she said.
They both unbuckled, and peeled themselves out of the truck and walked around the side of Cody’s house to get to the backyard.
“Hey,” Cody said. “How was the ride?”
“Lila is dead,” Nolan said.
“Yes, and I’m a zombie. So somebody better feed me a hamburger before I go rogue and start eating brains.” She went and sat down in the chair that she often occupied while she waited for food. Right there underneath a tree so that she could be in the shade.
Even as it was creeping through September, it was still pretty warm.
“Have you gotten a look at the bookings?” Nolan asked.
“I have,” Cody said.
“It’s fantastic,” Walker said, inserting himself into the conversation. He could see Marlowe keenly paying attention too, and Cara, Zane, and Addison were also gently eavesdropping.
“We have so many reservations for this, and a lot of people asking about the cabins, the hotel, the boarding. This was just a great idea. Maybe in the next couple of years, we could even get another trail...”
He felt something die inside of him. “Yeah, we’re going to need a crew for that other trail.”
“A big one,” Lila shouted from underneath the tree. “Though, this ride might have been harder than blazing the actual trail. I think people who like to do this for fun have a screw loose. And I love horses, I really do, but I think I’m going to pass away.”
“I thought you were already dead,” Cody pointed out.
“I am,” Lila said. “But I’ll die again.”
“You always have been dramatic,” Cody said back.
She stuck her tongue out, but lay there underneath the tree.
Then Nolan built her a burger, and brought it to her where she sat. “Thank you,” she said.
He smiled at her, his back facing everybody else. Only she could see the expression that he was reserving just for her.
“Man,” Cody said. “She’s being civilized. Nice, even.”
“What?”
For some reason Cody’s tone really irked Nolan.
“I just mean, normally she’s totally feral, and she’s actually being nice to you. Not acting like so much of a spoiled brat.”
“Well, she’s not a spoiled brat,” Nolan said.
“She’s actually a damn fine worker, and a smart career woman, which you’ve now had proven to you.
You wouldn’t even invest in this, because you don’t understand how smart she is.
But I do. Because I did this project with her.
And I got to see the success of it today. So just... She’s not a kid, Cody.”
Cody took a step back. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just messing around. Lila doesn’t care.”
Cody shouted across the space. “Lila, do you care if I call you feral?”
In response, Lila lifted the burger up to her mouth with one hand, and flipped Cody the bird with the other.
“See, she doesn’t care.”
“Well, I do,” Nolan said. “I actually care quite a bit. Because I realize how much everybody still treats her like she’s a little kid, and, I’ve also realized...
How much extra work she put in when she was a kid to keep up with all of us.
She’s always been doing twice the amount of work.
You know...there’s that saying, about how Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did backward.
Sometimes I think that’s her, and she’s never had enough credit for it. ”
“Okay,” Cody said. “You sure you don’t have heat stroke or some shit?”
“No. I absolutely don’t.”
He realized then that he had said way too much, that all this looked about as obvious as it possibly could. But... Damn, she deserved some real credit. She really did. A whole hell of a lot more than Cody was willing to give her.
“Listen,” Walker said. “If Nolan says that about her, then you know it’s true. Maybe we have underestimated her a little bit.”
“I’m going to invest in the rest of this,” Cody said. He turned toward Lila. “I am going to invest in more of this. That means that you and Nolan won’t have to do quite so much of the physical labor on your own.”
“Good,” Lila shouted back, having not heard most of the previous conversation. “Because I am not doing any work for a good long while. My legs are spaghetti noodles.”
“So you two ended up getting along during all this?”
“Yeah,” Nolan said. “We’ve been getting along.”
His gut felt like something was tearing it up inside.
He should be honest with Cody, but at the same time, he came back to what he and Lila had been talking about a while ago.
This was her sex life and that wasn’t really anybody else’s business.
It wasn’t like he gave anybody a whole lot of details about his sex life and that made it seem like something that ought to be kept between the two of them.
The rest of the evening went smoother, all the conversation passing easily, but he and Lila were ready to head out around when Zane and Cara were, because they were just so beat.
As they said their goodbyes and walked away from the group, Zane looked at Nolan. He didn’t speak. He just looked at him. And there was some kind of knowing in his expression. Along with a small smile.
One that seemed to say: Good for you, and don’t mess it up.
But, Nolan thought that might be verging on unhinged, because there was no way to read that many words into an expression, particularly when the guy didn’t say that many words when he actually spoke.
And when he and Lila got back to her house, they basically fell into bed, fully clothed, passionate about sleep more so than they were about each other’s bodies.
“Tomorrow, you should email your sisters,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’ll do that.”
And they both fell asleep on top of the covers, holding hands, their feet touching.