Page 10 of Lost in the Current of You

“There’s a lot of hiking trails around here with some pretty good views. It’s not meant to be too hot today, so it could be a good day to do that,” Sage suggested quietly at the end of the table, scrolling through his phone.

He was the more reserved of Reece’s friends, always observing quietly, making you curious about what was going on in his head. But on the field, when he played baseball, he was aggressive. He was the catcher and had 100-kilometer-an-hour balls thrown at him for fun. In the one game I seen him play, he made it seem easy to throw balls across the field to the far centre field. His hand-eye coordination amazed me, mostly because mine was terrible, and I could not aim at all, even if the target was right in front of my face.

I guess that's what made him and Reece good partners because he could read the field well to communicate with Reece for his next pitch.

We started looking up different hiking trails and chose the one with the most beautiful view from the lookout. We all agreed to meet back up after getting ready, with a reluctant Alex, who was not a fan of being eaten by insects on the walk but agreed nonetheless when we bribed him with food.

Back at our hotel room, we got ready, putting on our leggings and sports crops and Alex in his jogging pants and lightweight shirt.

“I like them,” Alex stated out of the blue as I filled up our water bottles.

“What?” I asked absentmindedly, not taking my eyes off the bottles.

“Reece and his friends. I get why you like him so much. His friends are nice as well.”

I frowned and shook my head, immediately on the defensive. I turned the tap off before turning to look at him. “I won’t go as far as to say ‘so much’. Why would you say that?”

He shrugged. “You just seem close, and I thought maybe something was between you two.”

I laughed at his comment. “No, we're just friends.”

Alex side-eyed me before nodding like he didn’t believe a word.

I’d never told him or Avery that I used to have a crush on Reece. I was still dating Liam and I wanted to bypass the lectures about it being ‘wrong’. The constant guilt reminded me of that fact. I didn’t want anyone to know that anytime he smiled at me it was like little butterflies in my stomach, something I’d never felt with Liam.

I saw how real love affected my dad and I didn’t want to feel like that. Ripped open and raw. Liam was comfortable and safe, I knew he’d never leave me like that. What I didn’t expect was for a four-letter word to scare me away from him the way that it did.

Reece, on the other hand, knew too much about me, and if I’d learned anything from our history, he was a risk that I didn’t want to take. Being friends was the safe zone.

If I told my friends any of that, they would try to pair us off and get us alone together. That wouldn’t work in my opinion.

But Alex dropped the conversation, and a few moments later, we met the others at the front of the restaurant and rode in the Uber to the destination.

On the short drive there, I could feel the heat start to set in. I wasn’t sure if it was the temperature or the radiating furnace that Reece was, but I could barely get any relief from the air conditioning in the confines of the SUV we squished into. Sweat had started to cling to me and we hadn’t even started hiking.

We were dropped off at the bottom of the mountain, but it wasn’t much of an incline from what I could see. I had it in my head that it would be pretty easy.

It was a bit over an hour hike up the winding trail, a steady gradient up the mountain with roots sticking up out of the mostly smooth dirt path. Trees mostly blocked out the sun, but with that, they also blocked most of the wind in the high temperature, unlike what Sage had declared earlier.

We took many breaks along the way, mainly for Alex and I’s sake. We were both out of breath as we got to even land, yet the others hadn’t broken a sweat. I found it was not as easy as I thought. But it was worth every heaving breath I puffed out as I looked out over the mountainside.

The view was serene. I had my camera, taking some pictures throughout the hike, but the lookout was the main attraction. I took so many there. Of the view. Of my friends, unknowingly and knowingly.

I flicked through the pictures before feeling a warm presence behind me. His shadow eclipsed me, covering me from the harsh sun. I turned my head to look at him, already knowing who it was.

Reece smiled at me over my shoulder. I don’t think there was a time I ever saw him without one. “Don’t mind me, I’m just curious.”

My attention drifted back to my camera. “Curious about what?”

“What the photos look like. What you see. Everything.”

A breath escaped from me in the form of a laugh. “It’s really nothing special. I’m just taking photos.”

“Yeah, but you’re the only one with a fancy camera, so I wanted to see how they turned out.” His mouth tilted into a little smirk as he tilted his head. “And maybe sneak a photo or two myself.”

Maybe it was the sight of the dimple in his cheek, his curious eyes, or the heat of the sun getting to me, but I handed my camera to him after making a mental note of what setting it was on so I could fix it later. “Here then.”

He seemed surprised by the gesture but took it anyway and started fiddling with it. I tried to keep my hands by my side to keep from snatching it back, my earlier bravado fading slightly. I swept my hand out towards the ocean. “I give you free rein. The landscape is yours.”

---