24. Natalie
Natalie
The next few days roll by like typical summer days do. The humidity makes my hair limp and damp, and it sticks to my neck, making me itch. But the scents of trees and flowers fill my senses as my pink sneakers crunch along the dirt path.
I swipe my fingers across my neck for the fifteenth time, wiping away a drop of sweat before it can trickle down between my boobs.
Is there anything less attractive than boob sweat?
I think not. Luke runs on ahead of me, seemingly unfazed by the heat of the day or the roots climbing across the trail.
The sneaky little things keep tripping me.
I’m not sure how I haven’t hit the ground yet.
Luke notices my rapidly waning pace and slows to a jog, allowing me to catch up. I use a sudden jolt of energy to jog up beside him. He’s smiling, sweat-slicked hair and all.
“You doin’ okay?” he asks, his voice so steady you’d think he wasn’t even moving. His smile annoys me this morning.
“I’m fine,” I wheeze. “I’m just not a runner. You know that.”
“Let’s stop for a minute.”
I shake my head, still trying to jog next to him. “No. I can make it. We’re almost there.”
“No, we’re not.”
My head whips around. “We’re not?”
His laugh would usually stir up little butterflies in my tummy. But not this time.
“What do you mean we’re not almost there?” I stop jogging, folding over at the waist with my hands on my knees. I pant like a dog. Why did I agree to run with him today?
Luke stops two steps ahead of me. “Sorry, I got distracted looking at the scenery and missed the turn back there.”
I stare at him with big bugged-out eyes. He has the decency to look slightly ashamed.
“So we’re, like, lost?” I growl.
He shrugs, and I watch as a bead of sweat rolls over his toned shoulder and down his tan arm.
Even all sweaty, Luke looks good in a tank top and basketball shorts.
He’s the kind of guy who looks attractive no matter what he’s doing.
He could be in a bunny suit sitting on a tractor, and I’d still drool.
I hate him for it right now, almost as much as I hate myself for caving and deciding to run with him today.
“I wouldn’t say we’re lost. I’ve been following these blue markings on the trees. It has to lead somewhere, right?” His smiling eyes meet mine, and I’m so done with this run that I’m debating drop-kicking him right here for getting us lost.
That is, if I knew how to drop-kick someone. As I’ve already proven with this run, I’m not athletically inclined.
I shake out my legs, hoping it will help with the pain in my ankles. “But we don’t know how long this blue trail is. It could be another five miles. Or more!”
“Do you want to turn around?” he asks. “We can go back the way we came and try to find the path we were supposed to take to finish the loop.”
We drove to the Kittappy River beach parking lot and left the car there to find some running trails that twist through the woods. I think we started out on the white trail, which was supposed to be a two-mile loop, but there’s no telling how far we’ve run past the turnoff.
“Can we just sit here until someone comes along who can tell us how far we are past the white trail?” I groan and lean against a tree, hoping there are no spiders crawling into my hair from the branches.
Luke steps closer to me, hands splayed wide on his hips. “We haven’t seen that many people. It could be a while before someone else takes this exact trail. Maple Lake has hundreds of hiking paths.”
I sigh and wave my hand. “You’re right. But can we stop for a minute?”
He nods, rubbing his jaw and watching me. “I’m glad you’re running with me today. I think it will help with your anxiety.”
I bend to retie my shoelace. “I know. You’ve said that before.”
“And yet you’ve still never tried it until now.”
I shrug, standing. “Because I hate it.”
His lips press together. “You know I just want to help you.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “I haven’t been feeling that anxious lately. And the nightmares haven’t been bothering me.” I smile reassuringly at him.
In actuality, the dreams have changed. They’re still present, but different somehow.
Luke looks up to the sky, breathing away what he wants to say next.
I let him take my hand, and he guides me back to the middle of the trail.
Our hands are hot and clammy as they press together, but I don’t mind now.
His touch instantly grounds me, bringing me back to a place where everything is okay.
“You ready?” he asks.
No.
I nod. “Yes. Let’s keep going. I just want to get this over with. Maybe there’s an ice cream shop on the other side of the woods or something.”
Luke laughs from his chest, and his eyes sparkle when he leans down and kisses me on my salty mouth. His face drips with perspiration, and I’m sure mine looks even worse. His lips are soft, but the kiss is firm. And before I can lean into it, he’s already pulling away.
He starts jogging again, his fist in the air. “Onward! For ice cream!”
I follow, hating the jog, hating that I’m lost in the woods, and desperately hoping there really is ice cream at the end of this.
As we emerge from the trees, our feet meet a gravel parking lot, but it’s not the one we came from where our car currently waits for us.
This lot is smaller, with railroad ties lining the perimeter.
There are three cars sitting in the sun, and across the two-lane street is a bait shop.
The bait shop. The one where Luke and I first met nine years ago.
My breath catches, and I take it all in.
I had no idea we were heading in this direction, and I never knew there was a hiking trail leading out from this parking lot.
We slow to a walk, but before we cross the road, I stop.
I stare up at the building, the wooden siding painted a dark green.
A big chipped sign hanging over the entrance reads Rick’s Live Bait and Tackle Shop.
The familiar neon ice cream cone sign blinks in the window.
My heart flutters, and my eyes light up like the sign in the window.
“What was that we said about ice cream on the other side of the woods?” I ask, turning to Luke.
His smile is almost as big as mine. He runs a hand through his hair, but it falls back over his brow anyway.
“Fate is a funny thing,” he says, more to himself than to me.
I watch him, wondering what he’s thinking right now.
We’re in the same place where we met, and yet we’re not the people we were then.
We’re not teenagers, and we’re not even sure what our marriage is, what the future holds for us.
Obstacles stand between us, and it almost hurts to think of it all right now.
“Come here. I want to do something, ” Luke says, tugging on my arm. He walks across the road, leading me beside him.
“What?” I ask, chuckling. His smile morphs into pure excitement. “What are we doing? Why do you have that face?”
On the other side of the road, he turns me around so I’m facing the street we just crossed. He runs back the way we came, leaving me behind. There aren’t any cars on this backwoods road, just as empty as it always seemed to be before.
“What are you doing?” I shout across the road to him.
“We’re reenacting our first meeting, what does it look like?” He takes a few steps back, holding his hands up and framing me and the bait shop between his fingers. It looks like he’s taking a photo—it’s adorable. His little grin tugs at my heart, and the butterflies inside of me come to life.
“How’s it looking from over there? I looked a lot better as a skinny teenager, huh?”
He shakes his head, adjusting his finger frame. “Not even close. You are all woman now. I’d take this version of you any day, anywhere.”
My cheeks blush. “Shh. Luke, you can’t talk like that! What if someone hears you?” I look around, embarrassed, but I can’t help chuckling under my breath.
He opens his arms wide. “Then let them hear me.” His voice gets louder. “I want everyone to know that I think my wife is the hottest woman on Earth.”
I swoon. I continue dripping sweat from my hairline, I’m tired and sore, but I don’t really notice any of that right now. Luke knows how to make me feel special.
He flips his hair like he did when I first laid eyes on him, then saunters across the empty street.
There’s a pothole in the road that wasn’t there before, which he gingerly steps around.
Even with sweat marks under his arms and bright red cheeks, Luke is attractive.
I wish I had my camera with me so I could capture this.
When he stands in front of me, I lose my breath. He looks down into my eyes, his big hands sliding around my waist.
I shake my head, grinning up at him. “I don’t think this is how it happened the last time. I don’t remember you touching me so soon.”
“No, it’s not.” He shrugs. “But this is what I thought of doing as soon as I saw you.”
Before I say anything, he captures my mouth with his, tasting the words right off my lips.
He pulls me closer until our hips touch, and I sink my weight into him.
He tastes like salt and smells like the outdoors, but I don’t care.
Underneath it all is the lingering scent of his body wash from last night and the coffee he had from Le Fou this morning.
I run my hands up his neck and over the droplets of moisture in his hair. His hand slides up my wet back, pulling me closer.
Seconds or minutes pass, but I don’t even notice. We’re all alone on the side of the street surrounded by a forest and a run-down bait shop. An ice freezer whirs behind me, and I faintly come back to reality as a car drives past us.
When we separate, I’m breathless and Luke is smiling. I squint up at him, the blinding sun framing his head like he’s an angel that’s come to save me from the darkness. His hair fans around his head like a sweaty golden halo.
“That’s how you wanted it to happen the day we met?” I ask, breathless.
He tips his head to the side. “Something like that. It’s all I could think about when I saw you that first time across the street.”
“Aaand”—I put my hands on his chest—“you think I would have gone for that?”
He shrugs. “Maybe. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you would be trouble.”
I lift an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know, I kind of like that you just bought my ice cream that first time.
I mean, the kissing this round wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong.
I quite enjoyed it actually.” I pat his chest, teasing him with my smile.
“But maybe we could do the ice cream thing again?” I run my finger along the neck of his light-blue-turned-navy tank.
His face stills. “I would never deny my wife her ice cream. If I did, I’d expect to be taken straight to jail.”
“No collecting two hundred dollars?”
“Nope. Straight to jail.”
I shove away from him playfully. “Stop.”
He grips my hand, pulling me back to him. “I’ll never stop,” he says.
He gives me another quick kiss on the lips, then he slaps my butt and skips past me up the steps to the bait shop.