Phil, walking behind me with infuriating ease, chuckles.
“It’s not much further,” he says.
I stop and turn slowly, fixing him with the most threatening look I can manage while sweating through every layer of clothing I wear.
“You said that thirty minutes ago.”
He raises his hands in surrender.
“I meant it this time.”
I narrow my eyes at him, then turn back toward the incline and continue climbing. My legs protest immediately. My lungs follow shortly after.
I don’t know why I let him talk me into this again.
Actually, that’s not true.
I know exactly why.
Because he had looked at me that morning with his puppy eyes, standing in our kitchen with his hairstill damp from the shower, and said, “I want to show you something.”
And it’s impossible to refuse him when he looks at me like that.
We keep walking. Well. He walks. I survive.
He looks entirely unaffected, like he could continue indefinitely without so much as adjusting his breathing. Meanwhile, I am considering writing my will.
It isn’t fair.
It’s also deeply unfair how attractive he is in motion. There’s something about the quiet confidence in the way he moves, the strength he carries without needing to display it. Even now, ten months later, he still has the ability to undo me completely without trying.
This morning, he’d stood in the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his hips, shaving with careful concentration. I had leaned against the doorframe longer than necessary, watching him, knowing exactly how that moment would end. Ten months in and I still can’t resist him when he wearing nothing but a towel. Of course we ended up shagging in the bathroom… and the bedroom.
He catches me staring now and smiles slightly, like he knows exactly where my mind has wandered.
“See,” he says, nodding ahead. “We’re here.”
The trees open suddenly, revealing a small rocky outcrop overlooking the valley below. I reach it on sheer stubbornness alone and collapse onto the nearest flat stone.
Phil sits beside me, shrugging off his backpack.
“Worth it?” he asks.
I lean my head against his shoulder, letting my breathing settle as the view unfolds before us. Fellside stretchesbelow, quiet and familiar, the fells rolling endlessly into the distance.
“It is,” I admit. “But I maintain that cable cars are an underappreciated invention.”
He laughs softly and starts unpacking lunch.
“We don’t need cable cars in the Lake District,” he says stubbornly.
“Well,” I say, watching him carefully, “then this is going to be the last hike in a while for us.”
He pauses.
“Why?”
I swallow, suddenly aware of my heartbeat.