Page 69 of Head Over Heels

Apparently she boarded the same thought train I did. I am such a fan of Liv’s dirty mind, I can’t even. I shake my head.

“Really?” She is obviously delighted. “I’m yourfirst!I’m not your firstanything!”

You’re the first woman since Thea who—

—I care about,is how I finish the thought. I’m not sure why it feels so much like if I use the wordlove,there’s no going back. No way to keep from being hurt if she can’t love what I love.

If she can’t love who I am.

If she tells me we’re too different.

If she tells me she’ll always need me to change.

If she won’t stay.

“Woods blow job?” she asks, eyebrows high.

“Nope.”

“Hand job?”

“If we go back to high school and college, yeah. Also, a lotta cars parked at the edge of the woods, but that’s different.”

“Yeah, no, that doesn’t count. Oooh. This is going to be fun.”

I don’t say,I told you so,but I’m thinking it.

Another couple of miles in—when we realized we wouldn’t have Katie, I planned a longer hike—she stops and I nearly crash into her.

“I need the…um, facilities.”

I dig out the ziplock bag with the TP and trowel and hand them to her.

“Leave no trace,” I say.

She scowls. “I hate you.”

“So you’ve said.”

She disappears, returning a few minutes later with a dark expression on her face.

“For my going-away present, you’re taking me to the fanciest restaurant in Seattle.”

I groan, loudly.

And am grateful she’s walking ahead of me and can’t see me grinning.

Chapter 36

Liv

“I’m dead,” I wail. A few minutes ago we left the main trail, and now we are delving deep down a narrow side trail that seems to be getting more and more overgrown. Every part of my entire body hurts. I think I’d probably be crying, except there is no water left in my body. All of it has been excreted as sweat that has pooled between my backpack and my back.

“We have less than a mile to go.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. I guarantee it.”

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