The Invitation by Adriana Locke

Ripley

This was a mistake.

I flip off the camera as a crack of thunder breaks through the air.

“Will you please hurry up? Just a little?” I ask, sitting on a large boulder.

“Hey! You can’t sit if I can’t sit.” Georgia stops in the middle of the trail with her hands on the curve of her hips. “If you’re sitting, I’m sitting.”

“If you sit, we’ll never get to the top of the hill.”

“Oh, like that would be a tragedy.”

I roll my eyes. “You picked this trail. I gave you three choices. This is the one you wanted.”

“It has an adorable name—Sugarplum Trail. That’s very misleading.”

“Except I told you it was harder than the others.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t warn me that this one was so …” She looks around at the dense brush, large trees, and rocks jutting out of the path. “Trail-y.”

I look at the sky and sigh. This woman.

“Can’t we just go back?” she asks, jutting her bottom lip out. “Please?”

“We currently have no usable footage. Do you want to quit now?”

“How is that possible? We’ve been doing this for an hour.”

I take my backpack off and set it on the ground beside me.

This trail should’ve taken us an hour at most. I thought we’d do a little hiking, get video at the top for Myla, and then take a picnic down by the stream near where we parked the car. Instead, we’re two-thirds up and I’m not sure we’re going to ever make it the rest of the way.

“Let’s see …” I pretend to think. “How is it possible we’ve not gotten any film? Well, you drank all of your water in the first twenty minutes and started complaining.”

“It’s hot out here.”

“Then you had to stop and pee—twice.”

“Because of the water.”

I sigh. “You’ve complained about the pollen count, the number of rocks on the pathway, and that you think you pulled a muscle in your leg.”

“And the heat, the bugs, and that I have to walk all the way back down. What’s your point?”

“Good news. I can fix one of those problems.”

“Which one?”

“I’ll throw you over the cliff if we ever get to the top.”

She gasps, then bends down, picks up a rock, and tosses it at me. Naturally, it doesn’t come anywhere close to hitting me.

“You missed,” I say grinning.

“I can’t believe this is how you date women.”

“This isn’t how I date women. This is how I date you.”

She growls, making me laugh louder. She then trudges toward me, kicking dust up as she moves.

Her antics today should’ve been expected. I’ve known Georgia for over ten years, and I’ve never seen her do many outdoor activities—or any, actually. But our date challenge was an adventure, and I thought a simple beginner-level hike would be something we could do together while capturing a bunch of great footage for the show. It would also give us time to talk—something I never thought I’d want to do with her willingly and on purpose but was looking forward to … in a way.

Instead, I got a solid ten minutes of decent banter and a great view of Georgia’s juicy ass as she stumbled up the mountain. The rest of it is us bickering back and forth.

We managed to capture the “hellos” in the parking lot before we headed off, and then did what Georgia called “pre-confessionals” at the trailhead for fun. She thought it made it feel more like a date for the viewer. I didn’t disagree.

But that’s it. That’s the extent of what this day has delivered, which sucks because Georgia seemed to be truly excited about this at the start of the day. Now she’s … not.

The truly unexpected part of the whole thing, however, is that I find her grumpiness hot as fuck. Her jabs don’t feel as sharp as normal. They come across as more self-protective than anything, and that’s something I understand. That’s forgivable. That puts it through a whole new lens. It makes her snark less bitchy and more … witty. Weird.

“If it rains, I’m really going to be pissed,” Georgia says, marching past me.

I lug my backpack on and follow her.

“The forecast said no rain,” I say. “You’ll have to survive without being mad about that. I’m sure you can find something else to pout about.”

“I’m not pouting, Ripley. I’m just expressing my displeasure.” She whines, slowing her already sluggish pace. “I think I’m getting a blister.”

“I have bandages in my pack. I’ll give you one if you make it to the top.”

She narrows her eyes. “Give me one now and I won’t complain until we get to the top.”

“You’re not supposed to negotiate with terrorists.”

Her eyes shine as she looks up at me. She has a streak of dirt across her cheek, and I want to laugh, but she’ll think I’m laughing at her. In reality, I just think she’s adorable.

And that’s my biggest new problem with Georgia. I find her grating one minute, sexy the next, and adorable after that. I can’t make sense of her.

Or, rather, I can’t make sense of what I think about her.

It was much easier before The Invitation. I hated her. She hated me. Life was grand. But now we’ve spent alone time together while on our very best behavior, and I don’t think I quite hate her anymore.

In fact, I wonder if I ever really hated her at all.

Maybe what I hated was that she hated me.

“Fine,” I say, absorbing the plea in her eyes. “Sit.”

“Yay!” She plops down on a fallen tree and slides off her shoe and sock. She wiggles her purple-painted toenails. “Oh, my gosh, this feels good.”

My cock twitches. No. Don’t even go there.

“What do you have in that bag?” she asks as I rummage through it. “You’re like a grown-up Dora the Explorer with your backpack.”

I glare at her. That doesn’t stop her from whispering “backpack, hooray!” under her breath.

We might not make it off this mountain.

I ignore her and find my bandages and petroleum jelly, then I pull out an antibacterial wipe and clean my hands. She watches me curiously.

“I think it’s going to rain,” she says as another clap of thunder breaks through the sky.

“Give me your foot,” I say, crouching down in front of her.

She stares at me. “My foot is sweaty.”

I hold out my hand, matching her stare. She doesn’t blink. I don’t budge.

“Seriously, look at the clouds,” she says, tilting her head toward the sky. “They look angry.”

“Not as angry as I am if you don’t give me your foot.”

“Fine.” She extends her foot to me and winces. “Do you have a plan if it rains?”

“It’s not going to rain, Georgia. I know you applied for a meteorology job, but that doesn’t make you an actual meteorologist.”

“Rude.”

I lift her foot and inspect her heel. It’s bright red and starting to blister. I carefully apply a coat of petroleum jelly and cover it with a bandage.

When I look up, she’s watching me with a softness in her eyes that makes my breath stall in my chest.

“There you go,” I say, my voice low. I clear my throat. “Put your sock and shoe back on and we’ll head down the hill.”

“What are we going to do about footage?”

The sky rumbles overhead. “We can get it another day, or you can swing by my house with me.”

She gets back to her feet. “To your house? Why?”

“Waffles is scared of storms.”

Her lips twist into a smile. “Your dog?”

“Yeah.”

She catches up and walks alongside me. The wind picks up, and the air cools. Treetops sway back and forth in a menacing movement. And I hate to admit it, but I can smell the dirt in the air.

There is a storm coming.

“Where did you get Waffles?” she asks.

“I was downtown one day for something, who knows what now, and there was a guy sitting on a bench with a cardboard box with three puppies.” I smile sadly. “Two of them were healthy-looking dogs. A couple had found them just a few minutes before me and were haggling with the man about taking them. He wanted something like fifty dollars each for them, and the couple wanted to give him fifty total.”

“What about the other puppy?”

“Well, the other puppy was about half the size of the others. Still, he was biting their tails and trying to dominate them, and he was so damn cute. I heard the guy say that the puppy was the smallest of the litter, and the mother didn’t really seem to care much for him. I picked him up and he bit the tip of my finger and growled at me.” I chuckle. “And I kind of fell in love with him right there.”

She smiles up at me. “So you took him home.”

“I did. He’s my buddy. And he hates storms—shit!”

Water pours from the sky in buckets. The wind rocks the trees, causing them to sway back and forth so hard they appear to bend. Lightning strikes across the sky, cracking in the distance, and Georgia shrieks and looks to me for instructions.

“Don’t run,” I shout over the commotion. “The ground will be slippery.”

She shrieks again. “What do we do?”

“There was a ranger cabin a few minutes back. Let’s go there.”

“Okay!”

We start down the trail that’s already slick from the rain. Georgia’s feet slide out from beneath her, and I catch her before she falls on her ass. Mud splashes up the backs of our legs and water soaks our clothes.

“I told you it was going to rain,” she yells. “Don’t you have an umbrella in that backpack of yours?”

“No.”

“Figures.”

We slide partially down a small hill, holding hands as we go. Droplets stream down my face, making it hard to see, so I run my hands over my head to push my soaked hair out of my face.

“Careful,” I warn. “Don’t grab those branches to keep you steady. They’ll snap off.”

“Ugh.” She looks at me with melted mascara around her eyes. “Will you carry me?”

I laugh. “No, I will not carry you. I’m barely not wiping out on my own.” I shake my head, blowing water off my lips. “Why are you like this?”

“Because I’m a Taurus!” she shouts. “I love creature comforts and solitude. This is neither of those.”

“Oh, sure. Blame it on astrology.”

She shoots me a dirty look, which is impressive considering the situation. “Take your Scorpio tendencies elsewhere. This is not the time.”

I’m a Scorpio? “There’s the cabin. To your left.”

“Thank God.”

We step across a washout on the trail and hop to the other side. An unkempt pathway leads to a porch that has seen better days, but we climb the rickety stairs, Georgia shivering at my side.

The sky lights up with flashes of lightning that seems to last forever.

“That rain is so freaking cold.” She trembles. “What if we can’t get in? We’re going to die out here in the wilderness, all alone, and hungry?”

I try my best not to laugh, but a small snort escapes before I can stop it. I get another dirty look in return.

“They usually leave these places unlocked in case of emergencies,” I say. “I promise you that you won’t die.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Did you or did you not just express a fear of dying in the wilderness?” I ask, teasing her.

“I mean, that might’ve been a tad dramatic.”

I look down at her and grin. “Do you want to try to make it back to the car?”

“No.”

“Then it’s an emergency.”

A tree snaps behind us as a flash of lightning brightens the sky. The sound of the wood hitting the ground roars through the forest.

I open the screen door, which creaks as it swings free, then I try the handle on the innermost entrance. Thankfully, it, too, opens with ease.

“After you,” I say, motioning for her to enter.

“If we get arrested for this, I’m blaming you.”

I smile. “I’d expect nothing less.”

She goes in first, and I follow.