We head up the trail, and I stay a bit behind her because it’s the proper thing to do … and the view is killer. It isn’t until we’re a good mile and a half into our hike when Maritza stumbles over a boulder sticking out of the ground and goes flying.
I try not to laugh despite the fact that it was fucking hilarious.
“Don’t laugh.” Maritza reaches for her foot and moans.
“Oh, shit.” I drop to her side, examining her left ankle.
“Don’t touch it.” She swats me away.
“I’m not going to touch it, I just want to look at it.” With gentle hands and barely any pressure, I examine her ankle the way I would an injured soldier’s on the battlefield. “You think you can stand on it?”
“Um, no.” Her eyes brim with tears and she glances away. “And for the record, I’m not crying. It’s just … the pain is making my eyes water.”
“Here. Let me help you up. If you can’t stand, I’ve got you.” I don’t give her a chance to refuse, instead I slide my forearms under her arms and slowly bring her into a standing position.
With her left knee bent, she taps her toe on the dirt before attempting to stand.
“I can’t,” she says. “I swear, Isaiah, I’m not being a baby. It just really fucking hurts. I don’t think it’s broken, I think it’s just … really twisted.”
“Fine,” I say, placing myself in front of her. “Hike’s over.”
Draping her arms over my shoulders, I then reach for the backs of her thighs.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Climb onto my back. I’ll carry you back to the car.”
“You’re going to carry me on your back for almost two miles?”
“I don’t suppose you saw any wheelchair rentals on your way up the mountain, did you?” With her legs wrapped around my hips, I hook my hands behind her knees.
“Smart ass.”
She’s leggy but light and this is going to be a piece of cake. I’ve carried grown men farther distances than this before.
Twenty minutes later, we arrive back at the street parking, and she carefully slides down my back, leaning against the passenger door of her blue Prius for support.
“You going to be able to drive home?” I ask, examining her ankle, which is already starting to swell like a son of a bitch. “Damn. You got yourself pretty good.”
Crouching down, I give it a closer look. Maybe she could drive herself home just fine, but she’s not going to be able to get out of the car once she gets there, not without some help.
“We need to get some ice on that,” I say, frowning. “Give me your keys.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m taking you home. Unless you want to ride in my car … I just figured you’d feel safer in yours. You know, since we’re strangers.”
Digging into a little zippered pocket in her tiny shorts, she hands me a valet key, which I use to unlock her passenger door. Helping her in, I get her seatbelt and tell her to keep her ankle elevated. Rounding the front of the car, I climb into the driver’s side.
I’ll have to Uber it back here to get my car later.
Pressing the “home” button on her GPS, we turn ourselves around and head down the steep hills that led us to this mountain trail, coming to a stop just before a busy road filled with lunch hour traffic.
“You doing okay?” I ask, glancing at her while we wait for the light to turn green.
Biting her lip and wincing, she nods. Her ankle is resting on her dash and I swear it’s growing bigger by the second.
The radio plays some cheesy pop song and I keep an eye on the GPS, focusing on getting her home. Twenty minutes later, we pull up to the familiar iron gate outside her grandmother’s sprawling, hacienda-style mansion. Reaching into the console, Maritza retrieves a remote, pressing a black button.
The gate swings open and I pull through.
“Just … drive around back to the guest house. I don’t want my grandma to see you. She’ll ask too many questions and then she’ll invite you in for tea and that’s going to turn into her showing you her Oscar and making you watch Davida’s Desire.”
“I see your sense of humor’s back. Feeling better?”
“Kind of.”
I come to a stop outside her little white guest house, and by little, I mean only in comparison to its big sister out front. This place, which looks different in the daylight, is still massive and it’s positioned just outside a sparkling teal-blue pool with trickling fountains and a Grecian-style cabana. There’s a lot of different styles going on here, but somehow it all fits in an eclectic, crazy famous person kind of way.
Killing the engine, I step out and move around to her side, getting her door. Placing her arms around my shoulder, I help her out and she hobbles to a side entrance where she punches in a key code. A second later, the lock beeps, and we’re in.
“Couch?” I ask. She nods, and I help her toward her emerald green velvet sofa. We prop her left ankle on a pillow I’ve placed on her gold-and-glass coffee table covered in fashion and lifestyle magazines, all of which are addressed to Melrose Claiborne. “All right. I’m going to grab you some ice.”
I head to her kitchen, which is the most eighties-looking thing I’ve ever seen, complete with yellow appliances and carpet on the floor, but judging by the kitschy accessories, it seems she and her roommate have completely embraced the vintage theme and made it their own.
Yanking the top door of the little yellow fridge, I grab an ice tray and check a few drawers until I find a spare hand towel.
“Here.” I return to her side, taking a seat next to her and placing the makeshift ice pack on her ankle. She breathes in through her teeth. “You okay?”
Maritza nods, leaning forward to place her hand over the towel, brushing mine in the process. “I’ve got it now.”
Reaching for the far end of the coffee table, I grab her TV remote. “Anything else you need?”
Her brows meet as she thinks. “Nope. I should be good for now.”
Pulling out my phone, I tap my Uber app.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Getting a ride back to my car.”
Glancing up at me through long dark lashes, she chuckles. “You’re welcome to stay here if you want. We can … I don’t know … watch Netflix or something? The day doesn’t have to be a total bust.”
Sitting my phone aside, I drag my thumb and forefinger down the side of my mouth.
“I’d like you to stay,” she says, point blank. “Honest.”
I pull in a hard breath, giving it some more thought. Sightseeing and Saturday-ing is one thing. But hanging out on a couch watching TV and trying to fight this bizarre attraction between us is something else entirely.
It’s almost reckless.
“Don’t make me beg, Corporal,” she says with a teasing tone. “I just feel bad that I ruined our hike. And also, I don’t want to sit here and be bored the rest of the day …”
“Fine. I’ll stay for a little while. But only if I get to pick what we watch.” If I’m going to stick around, it has to be on my terms.
“Oh, now that might be a deal breaker for me. I kind of had my heart set on watching season three of Fuller House.”