Trail Closed · Part 2: Sunrise

Previously: you ducked the tape on a closed trail and its crew lead, Emma, marched you off until a storm trapped you both in her shelter. When base radioed, she said there were no hikers on her section and switched it off.

The radio sits face-down on the bunk. You're still not breathing right. Emma holds your eyes for a long moment, then stands, drags both sleeping bags off the bunks, and lays them out side by side in front of the stove.

She zips them together into one wide bag.

"For warmth," she says. "Obviously."

She looks at you. "That was a lie."

You cross the floor and she meets you halfway, and the first kiss is slow, careful, tasting of woodsmoke and rain. Her hands come up to your jaw, rough palms, dirt still in the creases, and she makes a small sound into your mouth like something being set down after carrying it a long way.

"Okay," she says against your lips. "Okay, that's — yeah."

She pulls back enough to work your wet shirt up over your head, one garment, and her palms flatten on your chest — the office-soft chest, the kitchen body — and she doesn't laugh at it, she just maps it. You reach for the hem of her flannel and she raises her arms; the shirt goes over her head and her hair sticks up wild where it caught.

Sports bra, work pants, wool socks. She unhooks the bra herself and drops it on the flannel, small breasts, tan lines from a tank top, and she stands there in the stove light letting you look, chin up.

"Say something," she says.

"You're beautiful."

"I know. Pants next."

You strip the rest and get into the zipped bag together, and it's close, all elbows at first, her laughing quietly into your neck, your hand on her waist, then lower, sliding over the curve of her hip and around. She's warm from the stove and warmer underneath, and when your fingers find her pussy she's already wet, and she exhales hard against your ear.

"Yeah. There. Don't be delicate about it, I'm not made of trail mix."

You press two fingers into her and her hips roll to meet them, and she fucks herself on your hand in slow pushes, breath ragged, the rain loud on the roof.

She reaches down and takes your cock in her fist, strokes once, twice, and swears under her breath, pleased. She shifts her weight, climbs over you, knees either side of your hips, and holds you at her entrance while she looks down at your face.

"Say you want this," she says. "I'm not guessing at a man twice my age."

"I want you, Emma. Have since you dropped off that bank with the axe."

She sinks down onto you, slow, all the way, and her eyes close and her mouth opens and she says, "Oh, fuck, that's — okay. Okay." She holds still a second, full of you, stove heat on her back, rain hammering the roof, and then she starts to move.

It's quiet the way she is quiet — bitten-off words instead of sentences, her instructions half-whispered. "There. Stay. Just — like that, don't change it." Her hands flat on your chest, her head down, watching where you're joined. The bag is too hot and neither of you cares.

"Harder," she says. "Up — meet me." You drive up into her and she groans, low, trying to keep it in. The rhythm goes ragged, her breath hitching.

"I'm close — keep going — don't you dare stop —" and then she comes around you with a strangled sound, forehead dropping to yours, and you follow her over a few strokes later, hands gripping her hips, groaning into the heat of her neck.

She stays on top of you, shaking a little, laughing once, breathless. "Well. Fuck the forecast."

Later, tangled in the bag, she traces the burn scar on your forearm from the line cook years and doesn't ask, which you like. You feed the stove. She tells you about the ridge, the two seconds of white and the crawl to the trees, and you count thunder together out of habit until she realizes she's doing it and stops.

"You stayed calm," she says. "Nobody stays calm."

"You had my shirt. I was invested."

The storm blows out before dawn. The sky goes from black to bruise to clean cold blue, and she's already dressed, standing at the door with her boots on.

"If I'm losing my job over you," she says, "I'm getting a sunrise for it. Come on. And if you slow me down, I'm leaving you on the switchbacks."

She tests you the whole climb — pace, footing, whether you say anything when it hurts. You don't. You just keep your feet under you and your breath steady, and somewhere above the treeline she stops waiting for you to quit and starts walking beside you instead.

The summit at sunrise. The whole state turns gold and pink below you, ridgelines stacked to the horizon, your breath hanging in the cold. You just stand there. You made it.

She takes your picture with her phone, you squinting, bald spot catching the light, grinning like an idiot. Then she lowers the phone and keeps looking at you — not at the view, at you.

"What?" you say.

"Nothing," she says, and doesn't stop looking.

The trailhead, mid-morning. Your car is where you left it. Leaning against the truck beside it is a man in a forest-service ball cap, arms crossed, coffee in hand.

"Emma," he says. "Who's this?"

Emma's boots stop in the gravel. You can feel her decide between three different lies in about a second and a half, and you can see the exact moment she throws all of them away.