“You ask a lot of questions for someone who isn’t ‘invested in the situation,’ ” I air-quote him from the beginning of our hike. Slowly, almost casually, he rests his forearms on the table and draws in closer, caging his drink behind his large hands. He raises his eyes to mine right as his now-familiar scent wallops me in the face like a dictionary of romance hero smells. Cedar, whiskey, and bad decisions. “I guess that was until I had to carry the ‘situation’ down a mountain,” he says, and his gaze feels like a towrope dragging me in. My pulse is the whole percussion section of an orchestra.
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