Page 32 of A Quick Stop in Paradise

I blurted it out before I could catch myself. “I think I also want to find something casual. With a woman.”

She stared at me for a second before she broke out into a grin. “Sure.”

“Sure?” I scowled. My heart was still going a mile a minute. “That’s it? Like it’s that easy?”

She laughed. “Ryan, it literally is. I don’t think you realize how attractive you are. This is peak season. There’s alotof queer people here. We could make sure you end up in a girl’s bed tonight, if you want.”

“Tonight—” I pursed my lips, blushing hard. “Don’t we have a gym visit to attend to?”

“Nightlife goes pretty late here. Just don’t pull anything at the gym. Unless you’d rather do the hooking up another day.”

Oh, god. Was this real? I didn’t think I wasthatattractive—Brooklyn probably just had a skewed idea of how easy it was to hook up with a girl because of the way she looked—but she was the expert. And I kind of… wanted it to be true. To get a lead on this before I backed out.

Jesus, I didn’t even recognize myself. I kind of like this, though.

“I’ll take it easy, then,” I said. “At the gym.”

She grinned. Oh, god. I was actually doing this.

Chapter 10

Brooklyn

The reason we showed up a little early to the gym was because I was worried about traffic, and had absolutely nothing to do with wanting a moment of just me and Ryan for when I changed into my workout clothes and saw her eyes drag down to my waist. That was completely unrelated and completely unplanned.

I hadn’t been expecting her to get me back quite so easily once she came out of the changing room herself, though, because seeing her in a loose white tank I could see her sports bra through and small shorts, well—she wasn’t bad to look at, herself.

And she read me for filth, because she smiled, leaning against the wall with her bag slung over her shoulder, and she said, “Don’t worry, you have permission to look, too.”

A better woman would have been embarrassed or apologized. I grinned, deliberately not taking my eyes off her. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s very kind of you. I’d be foolish not to take advantage.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes with a playful smile. “Should we go ahead and try climbing while we’re waiting for Allison to drag herself here? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to check me out from the other angle, too.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, picking my gym bag up off the floor. “Not without asking permission first. So, permission granted?”

She laughed, ducking her head trying to hide a blush. I couldn’t lie, it was hot how much she was into this. I wasn’t sure if she was intomeor if she was just into the idea of flirting with a girl and I happened to be a girl who was easy to get, but either way, I was enjoying the hell out of it. “I mean, after you let me off the hook for brazenly staring half of dinner, it’d hardly be fair to say no.”

“Oh, we’re just about being fair, then,” I said, taking off across the gym with her, the sounds of climbers around the room squeaking and echoing off the tall, smooth walls and ceiling. “And not at all that you like having queer girls looking at you.”

“I’ll leave that to you to guess the answer. Either way, look all you like. I don’t mind.”

I think I knew the answer. And I was happy to take her up on it.

I showed her to the easier walls, clearly marked routes with plenty of big jug holds, solid footholds and a bit of inward slope to take the edge off the climb. Luckily, nobody here right now—a bunch of tryhards in the gym today pumping out on the higher grades, and the way the higher walls blocked this portion of the room, it was a nice bit of privacy for her to mess up in as well. We did some basic warmup stretches, just a little bit knowing that we were taking it easy today, and I was happy to see some confidence and focus coming into her eyes as she got into her warmup and, I could tell, the worries of the day left her behind.

“Won’t start you out with baby’s-first-boulder type climbs,” I said, showing her the wall once the warmup was done, “because you’ve watched some videos, you’re clearly in some pretty okay shape even if you haven’t climbed before, and because I promised I wouldn’t go easy on you. Give it a go yourself once and let me see what you’ve picked up from YouTube Academy. Try to skip the white holds if you can, our route setters put those in as backups in case you just can’t do a certain part of a climb or if you want to practice a higher part of a route. Skip the blue ones if you want to push yourself.”

She dusted her hands with the chalk, sizing up the wall, and she spoke absently as she scanned the routes. Seemed to know what to look for, too. “Well, I’ve heard girls love a girl who does rock climbing, so, gotta get to it,” she said, and she jumped up to grab one of the green holds a bit up from the ground, planting her feet on a couple of solid holds and steadying herself there, pulling her body close to the wall.

“Okay, now you’re just showing off,” I laughed, leaning against the base of the wall, looking up at her. At the way her muscles flexed in her legs as she positioned them, and, well—at her ass. Hey, she’d told me I could look. Wasn’t a climber, but she definitely did some lower-body routines.

“Sure am,” she said idly, her gaze solidly fixed on what she’d pegged as her next move, skipping not only the easier blue hold but also the smaller green hold closer by. “Trying to get you to compliment me.”

“Your look of intense concentration is cute.”

“I meant compliment myabilities,but I’m not going to pretend I’m not happy about that one too,” she laughed, before she tensed up the muscles in her legs, and she moved—a quick dyno, jumping to the next hold, securing herself on a nice chunky foothold below and stabilizing her posture, pressing herself back up against the wall.

“Dyno girl,” I said, the impressed tone in my voice saying all the compliments for me. “You typically do cardio, huh?”

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