After Hours
ELLIOT
The trail was quiet at seven in the morning, just the way I liked it.
No hikers yet. No emergencies. Just me, ten miles of switchbacks, and the memory of Pat's voice saying don't get too good at flirting.
I'd been replaying that line for the last hour.
The way she'd said it, playful, confident, like she knew exactly what she was doing and didn't mind that I knew it too. The slight rasp underneath her words that made everything sound warmer than it probably was.
The trail leveled out near the overlook, and I stopped to check my pack. Water, first aid, radio, spare batteries. Everything in order, same as always.
Teaching phys ed for nine months a year meant I was good at routines. Good at showing up, doing the work, going home to an empty house that had stopped feeling like mine the day my ex-wife moved out.
Summers were different. Summers were Bitterroot Ridge, SAR work, and a cabin on the lake that still smelled like my uncle even though he'd been gone five years.
Summers were the only time I felt like myself.
And this summer, that self included calling dispatch every morning just to hear Pat laugh.
I pulled out my radio and did a position check, standard protocol, nothing urgent, and got a response from another team member within thirty seconds. Professional. Efficient. Exactly how it was supposed to work.
Not like the phone calls.
Those were just for us.
I kept moving, boots finding the rhythm of the trail, and tried not to think about the fact that I'd started packing my gear the night before just so I'd have an excuse to call her first thing in the morning.
She'd always been like this, warm, easy to talk to, the kind of woman who made everyone feel welcome. I'd noticed it the first summer I'd worked with SAR, back when I was still wearing my wedding ring and trying to convince myself that things at home weren't as bad as they felt.
She'd flirted then too. Light, harmless, the way some people just moved through the world.
I'd kept it professional. Friendly but distant. Safe.
Because I'd made promises, and even when they were falling apart, I'd meant to keep them.
But my marriage had ended in February, quiet, mutual, the kind of divorce that felt more like relief than failure, and when I'd driven back to Bitterroot in June, I'd left the ring at home.
And Pat had noticed.
Not that she'd said anything directly. But the tone of our calls had shifted. The pauses had gotten longer. The teasing had an edge to it now, something that felt less like banter and more like testing boundaries.
Liked the way she pushed back when I flirted. Liked how she never made it easy, but never shut me down either.
Liked that I'd started thinking about her voice at night when the lake was too loud to sleep through.
The trail curved down toward a creek crossing, and I paused to refill my water bottle. The runoff was still cold, snowmelt from higher elevations, and I drank half of it before capping it and moving on.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Text from Blaze, the SAR lead: Team social Saturday. North lake access. 1600. Be there.
I stopped walking.
A party. With the full team.
Which meant Pat would be there.
I'd spent three summers working SAR out of Bitterroot Ridge, and I'd never once seen Patricia Lyndon in person.
I knew her voice. Knew her laugh. Knew she drank her coffee black and hated paperwork and had a way of defusing tense situations with a single well-timed joke.
But I didn't know what she looked like.
Didn't know if her smile matched her voice, or if she was tall or short, or if the version of her I'd built in my head came anywhere close to reality.
And in four days, I'd find out.
I should've been nervous. Or at least uncertain.
Instead, I felt something closer to anticipation.
Because for three weeks now, I'd been flirting with a woman I'd never met, and she'd been flirting back, and the only thing keeping it hypothetical was distance.
Saturday, that distance disappeared.
I texted back: I'll be there.
Then I put my phone away and kept walking, even though my brain was already somewhere else entirely.
The cabin was dark when I got back that evening, the kind of quiet that used to feel peaceful and now just felt empty.
I dropped my pack by the door and went straight to the lake, stripping off my shirt as I walked down to the dock.
The water was cold enough to shock, but I dove in anyway, letting it wash off the trail dust, the heat, and the restless energy that had been building all day.
When I surfaced, the sun was starting to set, turning the sky orange and pink and throwing long shadows across the water.
I floated on my back and stared up at the clouds, trying not to think about Pat's voice.
Trying not to wonder what she'd sound like in person.
Trying not to hope that the reality lived up to the fantasy I'd been building every morning for the last three weeks.
But I was hoping anyway.
Because somewhere along the way, those phone calls had stopped being just a pleasant way to start the day.
And Saturday, I'd know if she felt the same way.
I stayed in the water until the sky went dark, then climbed out and sat on the dock, dripping, listening to the lake settle into its nighttime rhythm.
I could wait four more days.
But I wasn't sure I wanted to.