Morning Hike

As she promised, Ali messaged him a few days after they arrived back home in California that she was going for a hike in the morning.

It couldn’t have been any better timing for Mark who was struggling to find much to do other than daily gym sessions and having his parents hang around him.

The next morning, they met up at a location decided by Ali, nice and early.

Ali had chosen a lookout on the outs of San Fransisco. The two couldn’t have picked a better day, the sun was out, not too hot, not too cold.

Conversation was slow for a while as they walked up through a dirt walking track, while the sun rose.

“You keeping up alright back there?” Ali said, looking back over her shoulder to check up on the struggling Mark.

Mark responded with a thumbs up, he was almost out of breath. Trying to keep up with the very fit Ali was no easy challenge. Made even harder that he was staring at her ass the entire time, covered in her black Adidas athletic shorts.

It matched well with her small black adidas backpack, her black sports bra and even a black adidas hat. Clearly she loved the colour and loved that brand.

Mark tried his best to keep up with her, keeping her in his neat sights. It didn’t take too much longer to get to the top.

“Phewww, what a relief,” he said as he got to the top, Ali standing up there with her hand on hips. She didn’t even look like she broke a sweat.

“Good job!” she said, offering him her hand for a hi-five.

“You were right about this view, looks incredible,” Mark said, finally getting a proper chance to admire the view of the water way down below and a large bridge that had hundreds of cars crossing both ways.

Ali stood next to hear, checking out the view herself, “I love it up here, just low how small the cars on that bridge look from up here.”

They took a seat up top on the lookout which was completely empty besides them. It was where they finally had a chance to talk since Mark had been mostly out of breath for most of the walk.

“Can you hear that?” Ali said, turning her head to the side to face Mark as they say on the bench seat.

“Hear what?” he said confused, there was no sound except for a slight breeze and the rustling of some trees.

“Exactly,” she then said, “Isn’t it great? Nothing but silence, before college when my parents were going through a divorce, I would come up here to get away from everything, just me and my thoughts.”

“Ohh I didn’t know they were divorced, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said sympathetically.

She smiled, appreciating his words, “Thanks but they’re back together now, it was only temporarily,” Ali explained.

For the next hour or so, the two just chatted. Nothing sexual, just everything to do with their personal lives, growing up in different parts of San Fransisco and how they ended up at the same college.

Things turned a little darker when Ali brought up an incident from earlier in the year where she was sexually assaulted by a fellow student. She was still struggling with even though she would never really admit it.

The student ended up facing criminal charges but it still didn’t feel like closure for Ali. “It’s just made everything so much more difficult and then I tend to snap at people who don’t deserve it. Like you, my emotions got the better of me that day.”

“You were right though,” he told her, “Everything we talked about at that night at the motel, you were right.”

They had a moment where they made eye contact with each other and held it for a moment. He felt a tingly feeling in his stomach.

Mark really liked Ali and the more they talked, the more he could see himself one day getting in a relationship with her.

“So you doing much for Christmas,” Mark asked her.

“Hmm just seeing family,” she said, “Oh actually, almost forgot, Miranda’s flying over from Michigan, so think she’ll stay at my house for her time here. She’s **** to go to a Warriors game.”

“The Warriors are playing Christmas Day I believe,” Mark said, surprised he remembered when the city’s NBA team was playing.

“You a basketball fan? You could come with us if you like,” she offered.

“That would be great, I love basketball, I was already planning to go,” he said.

It wasn’t true, he had no plans whatsoever to spend Christmas Day watching the NBA live. However, it was yet another opportunity to spend time with Ali. Throw in Miranda too and you’ve got yourself two girls to check out on Christmas Day.

Sure beats spending Christmas with the family.