a princess, and I’m going on the trip.”
Jesus. This woman is a pain in the goddamn ass.
“Why?” I ask and run a hand through my hair.
“Why, what?”
“Why do you want to go on this trip I didn’t fucking invite you to go on?”
“God, you’re a stickler for invitations, aren’t you? It’s like a crazy fixation with you. Someone needs to tell your future wife about this, or else she’s going to have a hell of a time with you when she’s trying to plan your wedding.”
“Wedding? Future wife?” I question in confusion. “What in the fuck are you talking about right now?”
She brushes me off with a shrug and makes a poor showing of tying her sleeping bag to the bottom of her hiking backpack. Which, mind you, still has the fucking tags on it.
“Why did you even have all of this shit in the first place?”
“I already told you,” she says and rolls her pretty green eyes toward the sky. “Earl suggested I might need it. And look at that, he was right!”
Of fucking course.
I watch her struggle with the straps for a full minute as she tries to sling the thing over her shoulder before I can’t stop myself from asking, “Have you ever in your life gone hiking before?”
“Yes!” she asserts strongly. “I hiked up to see the Hollywood sign. Twice. Personally, once was enough, but Birdie wouldn’t stop yapping about doing it when she came to visit, and apparently, it makes you a bad sister when you suggest she do it by herself.”
I clench my jaw and rub my temple to combat the flurry of useless information she’s spewing. “What about camping?”
“What kind of camping?”
“What do you mean, what kind of camping?” I retort. “Camping is camping.”
“No,” she responds with a hand to her hip. “There’s tent camping, RV camping, glamping…”
“Glamping? What the fuck is glamping?”
“It’s like fancy camping, I guess.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
“I assume we’re not going glamping, right?”
“Fuck no. We’re not goddamn glamping.”
She grins, and it’s only then I realize she’s somehow managed to get me to say the word we’re. As in me and her. Us. Together.
Shit.
“So, where we headed to?” she asks, and a cavernous sigh escapes my lungs.
God, she’s stubborn. And really fucking annoying.
But you know what? Screw it. I was being nice by offering to let her stay here. She wants to hike thirty-six miles with no fucking training? She can have at it.
“You really want to do this?” I ask, and she nods. “I don’t want to hear a goddamn word about that movie.”
She smiles and crosses a hand over her heart with a prissy little wink.
“Fine,” I growl. “You want to come along? Then come the fuck along, but mark my words, you will regret it.”
Billie flashes me a victorious smile. “Where do we start our adventure?”
Our adventure. God help me.
Billie
In LA, the only thing that should drip-dry is a paintbrush. Out here, though, the meaning is a whole lot more interesting.
Which, since Luca is proving to be quite the boring travel partner, at least has a small silver lining. Regardless, I’ve been doing my best to liven him up.
It’s not going well.
A few minutes into our boat ride upstream, I asked him if I could steer. He said no.
When I noticed the small radio close to the steering wheel, I asked if we could listen to some music. Again, he said no.
And when I asked him to tell me where exactly our hiking and camping adventure would take us, he didn’t answer at all. Instead, he sighed, stared out ahead at the water, and mumbled something I couldn’t discern.
Sheesh. Tough crowd.
Thankfully, Luca’s dog, Bailey, has become the companion I didn’t even know I needed.
He sits close to my side, his head resting on my thigh, and the only time he gets up is when he spots some fish popping out from the water. He barks at them like a maniac as we move past, and then he resumes his trusty spot beside me.
I scratch between his ears, and I swear to God, the silver lab smiles up at me.
“I think you’re my only friend on this trip,” I whisper down at him, and he smacks his lips in a sign of contentment.
“What was that?” Luca questions over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” I mutter.
I’ve learned pretty quickly that Luca Weaver is a man of few words.
Unfortunately, it’s taken me a little longer to realize that I can’t bombard him with questions and info about the movie. I have to pick