I felt like I was losing her, somehow. I felt her pulling away. “Izzy—”
She held up a hand. “Please, just…”
I sighed. “Okay, okay. Message received.”
She looked at me, then. “Ram, I’m not trying to be bitchy, I just—”
I interrupted her. “It’s fine, for real. A lot has happened on this little trip.” A sliver of truth escaped me, then. “I guess I’m just hoping this isn’t leading to another year of us avoiding each other.”
She thunked her head against the headrest. “Gahhh—Ram. Seriously. I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. Got it.” I rolled down my window and turned up the radio.
“Ram—”
I eyed her sideways. “You don’t wanna talk about it, you don’t wanna talk about it. No problem. Got it.”
She rubbed her face, and then stared at me for a long time before turning back to the window.
The rest of the way back to Ketchikan was silent, except for the music and the rush of the wind through my open window. I dropped Izzy off at her apartment, and got out to carry her bag up for her; but, after I’d unstrapped it she took it from me.
“Got it,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Okay.” I hesitated. “So…I’ll see you later?”
She looked up at me, eyes flickering over my features, her expression carefully neutral. “Yeah. See you.” She turned away and headed up to the door of the apartment building.
“Izz?”
She stopped, hand on the knob, turning to look at me over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“That was the best hike I’ve had in years…if not ever.”
She grinned. “That’s just ’cuz you got the best pussy you’ve had in years, if not ever.”
I laughed. “Absolutely true. Best pussy I’ve ever had, hands down.” I winked at her. “But that’s only part of why it was the best hike.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll bite—what’s the rest of the reason?”
I smiled, letting some of the feelings percolating deep down show on my face. “You.”
Her face crumpled as if I’d said something painfully insulting or hurtful. “Goddammit, Ram.” She shook her head once, sharply, and turned away, but not before I saw the glint of a tear on her cheek.
I didn’t have a chance to even start to ask what I’d said before she slipped inside and vanished behind the closing door.
Which left me nothing to do but head home, wondering.
And missing.
And wanting.
And feeling strangely empty.
Fuck.
12
Izzy
I barely made it up the stairs and into the apartment before I burst into tears. Funnily enough, Kitty and Juneau were in the same spot they’d been in when I left three days earlier, albeit wearing different clothes.
The second I entered, I closed the door behind me, dropped my pack to the ground with a loud thunk, and slumped heavily against it, finally letting out the tears I’d been fighting since yesterday morning.
Kitty clicked a button on the remote, pausing their show, and lurched off the couch to crouch in front of me.
“Izzy? What the hell?” She wrapped her arms around me. “Honey, what’s going on? Talk to me!”
Juneau was right there too, then, her arms around me as well, and I couldn’t breathe for their suffocating love, but it was exactly what I needed right then. I just let myself cry, and I didn’t even try to hide it.
I just cried.
I hadn’t bawled like this in years, and all this time I’d been pushing my feelings away, suppressing them, or repressing them, or whatever, and now it was all coming home to roost. I cried tears over issues major and minor—over my mom and dad, over being let go by the family I’d nannied for, over being poor and broke and desperate, over being homeless, over being an orphan, over being so fucking lonely sometimes it hurt…
I’d been strong and tough through all of it. But I’d been that for so long I’d forgotten how to be anything else. I’d survived on my own for so long.
Even after I’d found Kitty and Juneau, I’d been alone. Deep down, I knew I’d never open up to them, never let them in. They didn’t know much about my past. All they knew was that I had a stepmother named Tracey who had shown up a couple years after I’d moved up here.
After sobbing for god knows how long, complete with snot and shudders and everything, I pushed to my feet and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind me, ignoring Kitty and Juneau’s confused, and somewhat hurt, queries.
I blew my nose, washed my face, and spent a moment calming myself.
And then I exited the bathroom and plopped down on the couch between Kitty and June. I sighed, taking each of their hands in mine, and squeezing.
“I take it camping with Ramsey didn’t go well,” Kitty said, eying me warily.
I shook my head, having to stifle another burst of tears just at the mention of his name. “No, that’s not…that’s not quite true.”
Juneau’s eyes narrowed. “So, it did go well?”
“It went complicated, is how it went.”
“You slept together?” Kitty asked.
I hesitated. “We…” I sighed. “Yes. We did.”
They both stared at me expectantly, and when no further information was forthcoming, Juneau grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Talk, woman! What happened? I’ve never seen you cry like this before, ever. Was the sex that bad?”
I sniffled, and made a sound somewhat like a laugh, but not quite a sob. “No. The sex was…earth-shaking, soul-shattering incredible.”
“Earth-shaking and soul-shattering?” Juneau asked.
Kitty stared blankly at me. “So, then…what?”
I rubbed my face with both hands again. “I don’t even know.”
“You are being so vague and inarticulate right now, Izzy,” Juneau said. “I don’t even know what to ask you.”
“I do,” Kitty said. “What the fuck happened out there, honey?”
“I loved hiking,” I said. “I thought I would hate it. I went into it expecting to hate it, and when we left the trail and got into his truck this afternoon, I just…I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to come back here. I wanted to keep hiking. I wanted to keep sleeping in a tent with Ram, and sitting around a fire with him, eating the fish we’d caught literally a few minutes before.”
Kitty and Juneau exchanged shocked expressions.
“Um, you’re serious right now?” Juneau asked.
“Absolutely.”
Kitty frowned. “So…you and Ram…?”
“He literally faced down an eight-foot-tall, thousand-pound male grizzly bear.” I hiccuped again, an aftereffect from crying so hard. “He surprised me so much on that hike that…I was beginning to doubt my memory of him, you know?”
Kitty tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean, doubt your memory of him?”
“Look, I know you guys have always wondered what happened between me and Ramsey when we were all at the hospital about a year ago visiting their dad, and I met Ram and Rem for the first time.”
Juneau’s eyes widened. “Are you actually going to tell us what happened?”
I nodded, dropping my eyes to my lap. “I guess I haven’t always been very…forthcoming…with personal details about myself, huh?”
Kitty’s bark of laughter was outright derisive. “Yeah…no, not exactly.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just…trust is hard for me, I guess.”
“We can discuss that later,” Juneau said.
“Just tell us what happened, and how it relates to your hiking trip,” Juneau said.
I laughed. “Okay, okay.” I reached down and unlaced my hiking boots, kicked them off, and stripped my socks off, wiggling my toes in relief. “I was going to just go the cafeteria and get some food and then leave. But Ram followed me out, and we started chatting as we walked, and chatting tur
ned to flirting, and I was like, this dude is hot as fuck, right? And honestly, I was thinking you and Rome weren’t going to last much longer, Kit, no offense. I just didn’t see you guys lasting, much less Rem and Juneau becoming a thing. I figured in a couple weeks, a month, whatever, things would blow over and life would go back to normal and I’d never see Rem, Rome, or Ram again. So I figured, what the hell. I acted on total impulse. I didn’t have a plan, I just wanted to have a little fun with a super hot dude, and that was it. Something quick, something easy, something hot but probably totally forgettable, right?”
Kitty huffed a laugh. “Not quite what happened, huh?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly, no.”
“Don’t leave us in suspense, here,” Juneau said. “What’d you do?”
I laughed. “What the hell do you think I did? I shoved him into the nearest chair, took his dick out, and sucked him off so good he couldn’t stand up when I was done.”
Juneau snickered. “Oh. Right. Obviously.”
I slid my arms inside my T-shirt, unhooked my bra and shrugged out of it, whipped it off, and tossed it across the room, then spent a blissful moment massaging my newly freed breasts, and then continued my story. “The dude was hung like…like no one I’d ever seen. Fucking enormous, not just long and thick both, but also just…beautiful. Like, the man’s penis was a work of art..”
Kitty and Juneau exchanged looks.
“What?” I asked, laughing. “What are those looks about?”
Kitty snorted, snickered. “Honey, Ram is a triplet. Obviously there might be some minute differences, but for all intents and purposes, the three of them are pretty much identical. Which means Ram’s penis is an exact duplicate of both Rome’s and Rem’s. So…yeah. Their cocks are perfect. We get it.”
I bit my lip and stifled a squeal. “Right? Fucking perfect.”
“Then what happened?” Juneau asked.
“When he could finally stand up, he tossed me down into the chair, shoved my skirt up around my hips like he owned me and my skirt and my pussy, and proceeded to give me the actual best cunnilingus of my entire fucking life. I came so hard I saw stars. I screamed so loud someone called security because they thought someone was in distress. But no, it was just Ram giving me a world-class orgasm I’ve literally been unable to stop thinking about ever since. Then we went our separate ways after that and pretended nothing had happened.”
“Except I’m stupid in love with Rome, and I happen to know for a fact that he’s getting ready to propose to me,” Kitty said.
“How do you know that for a fact?” Juneau asked.
“Because he took me ring shopping last week,” she said. “And I picked out a ring I absolutely loved, and the store sample was my size exactly, and when I went back to try it on again, the clerk said he’d come in and bought it the very next day. And he’s been acting weird lately, which means he’s planning something.” She waved her hands as if to dismiss this bit of information. “But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about Izzy and Ram.”
“The reason this story is relevant is because in the intervening year, I thought about that day nonstop.” I shrugged and shook my head again. “I was doubting whether it had been real, you know? Like, had I made it up? Had I dreamed it? There was no way his cock could have been really that perfect, right? And there was no way his cunnilingus game was that good, right? A year or so later, it just didn’t seem possible that it was as amazing as I remembered it.”
“Understandable,” Kitty said. “You said you did end up sleeping with him, though, so…was he as amazing as you remembered?”
I nodded, biting my lip. “Yeah. And then some.” I sighed as I replayed in my mind the moment on the trail, and the morning in the tent.
“Wow,” Kitty said, eyes wide. “You slept with him right there in the woods, on the trail?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “No. He ate me out, and then we kept hiking. He didn’t even let me return the favor.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t insist,” Juneau said, “knowing how you feel about BJs.”
“Honestly, I was so shell-shocked by the intensity of the orgasm he’d just given me, I wasn’t thinking clearly.” I rolled a shoulder. “Plus, I was dealing with being surprised by the fact that I was enjoying hiking with him, and enjoying his company. I mean, he’s annoying and arrogant and all that, but he can be sweet and funny, and even the arrogance is kinda hot, when it’s not utterly infuriating.”
“Trust me, I know,” Kitty and Juneau said in unison, and then glanced at each other, cackling.
“So then when did you sleep with him?” Juneau asked.
I laughed. “You’re really antsy for the details, ain'tcha, June-bug?”
She shrugged with a cutesy, demure grin. “Yeah, I kinda am. So what?”
“So nothing. Just loving how much Remington has opened you up to the wonders of sluttery.”
Juneau rolled her eyes. “It’s not sluttery if it’s with the one man you’re in love with, ding-dong.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good point.”
She waved a hand. “Enough chitchat. On with the lurid details.”
“I was honestly still intending to not actually sleep with him, as in no actual sex. I thought maybe I’d blow him, and we’d trade innocent sexy times that didn’t involve any actual intimacy.”
Kitty scoffed. “Because that is totally going to work.”
Juneau eyed me, frowning thoughtfully. “But…why not?”
Kitty elbowed her. “Because she likes him. Duh. And she doesn’t want to like him, and she knows having actual sex with him will lead to liking him even more, if not just flat out falling in love with him and, for whatever reason, she just can’t handle that particular possibility.”
I glared at Kitty. “I am not in love with Ramsey Badd.”
“Anyway, I fell asleep in the tent, and when I woke up the next morning, he was gone. So I went looking for him. I found him down at the river. And he was…god, he was naked. Beautifully, gloriously naked. The man’s body is just…just…pure art. He was hip-deep in the water, and his cock wasn’t quite covered, and he convinced me to get in the river with him, and—”
“Wait,” Juneau interrupted. “The river? You went skinny-dipping in the river? Wasn’t it cold?”
I laughed. “Fuck yes it was! Breathtakingly cold. But he was in the water, so I got in. And we…we horsed around. Just played in the water together, and scrubbed each other with a bar of soap …it was like a sex scene from a historical romance novel. This big, rough, long-haired, bearded, ripped sex-god of a man, naked in a river? It was absolutely fucking primal. He was primal, and you know I don’t use fancy words like that lightly. We washed each other, and then I ended up getting my first full, erm…hands-on, shall we say, look at his cock since that day at the hospital. And it was every bit as perfectly, gloriously mouthwatering as I remembered.”
“So then you fucked in the river?” Juneau asked.
I laughed. “Nope, wrong again. We didn’t fuck in the river. Or on the bank.” I couldn’t help another dreamy grin and sigh. “We raced naked back to the tent, and we fucked in the tent.”
“And?” Kitty demanded.
“And what?”
Kitty glared at me. “And what was it like? We are your best friends, and we demand all the dirty, filthy, salacious details.”
I hesitated a very, very long time. “I…it was…” I sighed. “I don’t know how to describe it.”
Juneau snorted. “Yes, you do.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “You just want to keep the details to yourself.”
I considered this. “I guess maybe you’re right.” I groaned, putting my face in my hands. “Which is weird. I’ve never felt any hesitation about sharing details before. I don’t understand it.”
Kitty wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Izzy, babe. Sweetheart. My dear, sweet, clueless friend—”
I stood up and paced away, shouting. “I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH RAMS
EY, GODDAMMIT.”
“Why don’t you want to be?” Juneau asked. “Once you get over the initial scariness of it, being in love is amazing. Having someone in your life every single day, all day, all night, all the time, who loves you, accepts you, as you are, who is committed to you, who wants you even when you feel ugly and stupid and crazy and hormonal? It’s absolutely the best thing ever.”
“Our lives don’t match up!” I cried. “He’s going to join the park rangers and live in the fucking woods, and I—I…” I was about to sob again, and took a moment to gather myself before starting over. “I want to go back to school.”
My friends exchanged yet another shocked stare. “You…what?” Kitty asked.
“It’s something Ram and I talked about during the hike. I’ve always wanted…” I swallowed hard. “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.”
Juneau shot to her feet, laughing abruptly. “Really?”
“Why the hell is this the first we’ve ever heard of this?” Kitty asked.
I groaned again. “Because it’s stupid. I’m thirty. I barely graduated high school. I have zero work experience outside Angelique’s shop.”
“You want to be a doctor?” Juneau said, as if trying to figure out what the words meant. “Why?”
“My dad was a doctor.”
“Why do I feel like you went on that hike with Ram and the Izzy we’ve known for years came back as someone else entirely?” Kitty asked.
“I—” I shrugged. “He has this way of…of…of getting me to talk about myself in a way no one else ever has. He made me think about myself, my past, and the things I’ve been trying to escape for twelve, fifteen years, things I’ve been trying to hide from, and to forget about.”
Juneau sat back down beside me. “You’re going to have to elaborate, Izz.”
So, I told them the story I’d told Ram over the course of two days. I opened up to Juneau and Kitty in a single long, unbroken tale. Growing up in an idyllic home with a mom and a dad who loved each other deeply, and me especially, being a spoiled rotten only child, weekends with Daddy, dance class and shopping after school with Mom…and then Mom dying in that accident, and that endless afternoon waiting for my mother to show up…