Page 20 of Yours To Take
The trail widens up ahead and I fall into step once again beside her.
“Just me.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine life without my brothers and sisters.”
“How many do you have?”
“There’s five of us.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine growing up with that many people in the house.” I laugh.
“You’re telling me. And I’m the baby.”
“I’m guessing you got away with a lot growing up.”
Her smile is contagious. It’s the one that I can imagine working on everyone she knows to get what she wants.
“I did. It drove my older sister, Layla, crazy. She was always in trouble for breaking curfew with her boyfriend.”
“You didn’t get in trouble?”
The trail gets darker as we head farther into a copse of trees.
She shakes her head. “All my friends had curfews, so I never had the chance to break it. Dixon is a small town. If you were going to be home late, your parents knew before you even had the chance to tell them.”
“I don’t know if I’d like being the center of gossip.”
“Oh, you are.”
“Wait, I am?” I hold out an arm, stopping her.
“Of course you are. The hotshot writer from LA? You were the talk of the town at the farmers’ market this past weekend.”
“What were they saying?”
Gemma digs in her backpack and hands me my water. I take it, gulping down a few cool sips.
“Ghost Pepper Dick wanted to know if you were going to make us all sound like hillbillies when you write us into your show.”
I nearly spit out my water. “I’m sorry. Ghost Pepper Dick?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Ghost Pepper Dick. He grows peppers and makes hot sauce. He’s been doing it since I was little, and that’s what Peter called him.”
“Well, you can tell Ghost Pepper Dick that he’ll be in my series, and I won’t make him sound like a hillbilly.”
“He gets to be in it? Does that mean I get to be in it too?”
I hand the water bottle back to Gemma. Lifting the bottom of my shirt, I wipe the sweat from my brow.
I don’t miss the way her eyes track over my stomach.
“If you want to be.”
Her eyes snap back up to mine, a blush blooming in her cheeks that wasn’t there before.
“Who do you think would play me?” Her smile is glowing as we head farther up the mountain.
“That’s a loaded question.”
