Counter Lotus

Chapter 7

Those small tasks felt nice to do now that she was gone. I'm not saying Liz would object to any of those things anyway while she was here, but it offered a stronger sense of independence I suppose. The whole reason I was excited to move here was to start enjoying my life more anyway. It was time to embrace it, right?

It encouraged me to make plans with Jamie again. If anyone could show me a good time, he seemed to be the guy. Not to mention there was plenty I still needed to experience here!

So, the next few days when I wasn't working, we spent time hanging out. For all the things we did, I was grateful he didn't suggest anything water-related. I had a feeling he knew what happened at the beach still bothered me. Regardless of that though, he managed showing me plenty of other things around town. For how small of an area we lived in, I was surprised how capable he was of making the most mundane things fun – like when he showed me a few more hiking trails around town. The one in particular was quite memorable.

"How far up do you think you can climb one of these bad boys?" he asked, pausing in our walk to pat the trunk of a huge tree. A tree with no branches or limbs until about 15 feet up.

"Pretty far if I had a ladder." And if I wasn't scared of heights.

"All you gotta do is try. If you couldn't tell, I can do anything," he said smugly.

"Yeah? Fine big shot, let's see you scale a flat tree trunk with nothing to help you."

Jamie smiled amusingly as he studied the perfectly smooth surface of the bark. He brushed his curled brown locks back and rubbed his hands together. You know, the perfect warm-up routine for anything. Then he tried jumping, digging the tip of his shoe into the bark, and when it caught nothing, he skidded back to the ground.

I could not help but snort and hold my mouth. It was quite hilarious how much he tried though. If there was one thing I was learning about Jamie... he was easily distracted and so random. For how many more times he looked like an idiot by trying to climb an un-climbable tree, I had to admit: I admired his determination.

It even made me determined. Which was why that small joking task derailed our hike. After failing miserably, we sought after better climb-able trees. The best one we found took a hot minute to spot. We moved a few feet off the trail until I found a sparse pine tree with low hanging branches. Yes guys, to say the least, I was up for the challenge.

"Have you ever climbed any trees before?" he asked, naturally using the low branched to climb up into the tree.

"Yeah, a couple times back home. Can't say it was an intense sport I participated in," I said, watching him several feet above my head.

He stopped and stood on a branch, holding onto another above him. "Well, it's an intense sport here. Come on, get up here, I don't have all day to hang around." Then, he bent his legs and hung by his one arm holding the branch above him.

I snorted and cringed. "I don't understand how you can have such an ego and be such a fucking dork."

"Lots of practice."

I won't lie though. Seeing him effortlessly hold his tall and toned body by one hand made his strength rather impressive. I learned he was even stronger than he looked too because when I tried simply getting into the tree... it was not as simple as it seemed.

I grabbed a branch and hoisted myself up onto the low branch, but climbing any higher required a more difficult maneuver. I tried wedging my foot into a nick in the bark and using it to boost myself up to the next branch... and my shoe slipped. Why wouldn't it? My four-foot climb ended and I stumbled back to the ground and fell on my ass. Oh yes, entirely embarrassing. It made us both crack up laughing.