3 - Jack

3

Jack

I steered my Jeep around the mountain pass, heading downhill toward the town of Montrose. The windows and Jeep top were down, and the crisp air blew through my hair in a way that always made me feel free. We had another two hours ahead of us before we reached Crested Butte, and the sun was falling heavily to the west.

I glanced over my shoulder. The girl—Melissa—was curled up in the back seat, wheezing softly. She’d fallen asleep the moment the car started moving.

“Don’t think she’s gotten much sleep,” I said. “She’s thru-hiking the Colorado Trail.”

Ash glanced at me. “Seriously?”

“Apparently so. She didn’t get very far.”

Ash looked back at Melissa, and then snorted a laugh.

We’d seen plenty of her kind before. People who dreamed of doing a big hike, like the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail, without having any experience in the woods or mountains. Most failed. We called them thru-quitters . They made it a few days, got sick of shitting in the woods, and then found a quiet mountain town where they could get drunk.

Because that was the thing about people who did these extended hikes: they usually had issues to work through. You didn’t quit your job and run into the mountain wilderness for two months unless you were having some sort of crisis in your life.

I glanced back at Melissa and wondered what her crisis was.

As someone who knew these mountains as well as I knew my own cock, my first instinct was to help anyone who was in trouble. A twisted ankle didn’t seem like a huge deal, but you could freeze in the mountains if you weren’t careful. People made stupid decisions when their brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen at altitude, and hypothermia was sneaky. Especially once the sun went down.

Now that Melissa was on her way to safety, I started to think of her as more than just someone in need of rescuing. She was a short little thing, but didn’t seem weak. She wasn’t ugly, either. That was an understatement: she was downright hot , even covered with seven days’ worth of grime and sweat. Curled up in the back seat, her shirt was sagging down and showing way more cleavage than she probably wanted.

I pulled my eyes back to the road. She was already obviously nervous about accepting a ride from two complete strangers. I didn’t need to make it worse by ogling her while she was asleep.

“She ask for help?” Ash asked.

“She required some convincing,” I replied. “That ankle is clearly fucked, but she was stubborn about it.”

“She sounds like you.”

I glared over at my friend. “I’m not like that.”

Ash stared right back at me.

“Okay, fine. I can be stubborn. But I know when to eventually ask for help.”

Ash rumbled a laugh. “Wonder when you’ll stop picking up strays.”

“I don’t…” I began, then trailed off. We’d had this argument before. Deep down, I knew Ash was right. Although I sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it.

“I help people who need it,” I said instead. “If I didn’t help her, who would have?”

“Not your problem.”

“That’s a shitty way of looking at the world,” I shot back. “Not everyone moved to the mountains to escape any semblance of humanity, you know.”

He shrugged, then turned to look out the window at the scenery. The motion brought one of his neck tattoos into view: a crescent moon, with boulders falling off the open part like a rockslide. He had so many tattoos that I often didn’t notice them individually.

“If you wanna make the same mistakes again,” Ash said, “go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”

“I’m taking her to Noah,” I reiterated. “That’s it.”

Another ambiguous grunt from Ash.

I stole one more glance at Melissa in the back seat, sleeping soundly. I rejected Ash’s philosophy. I wasn’t the kind of person who left people helpless. More importantly, I never wanted to become that kind of person, despite the mistakes I’d made in the past.

I was taking her to the doctor. Nothing else. This wasn’t going to be like the other times, with feelings and complications and all that messy bullshit.

At least, that’s what I hoped.