Read Online The Memory Thief by Emily Colin - Free Book Online Page B

litigator. That seemed unlikely; he didn’t look like the type of guy who spent a lot of time behind a desk, but hey, anything was possible. “I thought I was the one who answered one question with another,” I retorted. Banter was fine. Banter I could do.
    â€œFair enough. I’m a climber. I got bored. Also, it’s good exercise.”
    This was not the answer I’d anticipated. “Climber, like rock walls?”
    â€œClimber, like Everest.” He was grinning at me again.
    â€œRight.”
    â€œYou don’t believe me? Would you like to Google me?” He was making a beeline for my laptop, still on the table behind us.
    â€œYou climb mountains?” It just figured.
    â€œMountains, glaciers, ice, whatever’s around.”
    â€œAnd trees,” I reminded him. “Don’t forget trees.”
    â€œLike I said, whatever’s around.”
    â€œYou go around hanging from trees whenever you get bored?”
    â€œUpper-body strength,” he said. “I’m not good at just sitting around.”
    I stared at him, my arms folded, until he went on. “I got in last night, and I woke up early to go running, but then I had to give a talk to a bunch of folks for Outdoor Adventure Weekend. You know, owl prowling, orienteering, and me, your friendly neighborhood climber. So after that, I decided to blow off some steam.”
    He’d just gotten here last night. That explained why I hadn’t seen him around. I would’ve remembered, for sure. “Did you really climb Mount Everest?”
    â€œIf I say yes, does that mean you’ll go to dinner with me?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œFine. You want the truth?” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I got three hundred feet from the summit and had to turn around. Weather. I’m going back in a few months to try again.”
    He looked so sheepish, it was my turn to laugh. He looked puzzled, and the more puzzled he looked, the more I laughed. What kind of ridiculous day was this? It just kept getting better, too. No wonder he’d found my incident with the log so hilarious. I considered it an act of supreme balance if I walked the morning’s first cup of coffee across the room without spilling it, and here he was, feeling embarrassed because he hadn’t made it to the top of the tallest mountain in the world. If there was ever a sign that two people were mismatched, this was it.
    The look of puzzlement on his face began to fade, morphing into something else. It took me a moment to realize that I’d hurt his feelings with my little laughing jag. I put real effort into trying to stop, and wound down into giggles. When I could speak I said, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at myself.”
    The eyebrow again.
    â€œNo, really. I have no sense of balance at all, like you might have noticed.” I gestured at the journals in my bag, and then outside, in the vague direction of the trail where I’d run into him earlier. “I can barely walk uphill. If I tried to make it up one of the little mountains around here, I’d fall halfway down in about a second.”
    â€œNo you wouldn’t,” he said. “I would never let you fall.” He sounded offended.
    â€œYou haven’t done a great job thus far,” I snapped before I could help myself.
    This time he lost it. He laughed with the same abandon he had before, wild and contagious, until I was laughing, too. “You’re right,” he said. “Our first expedition, and I totally suck as a guide. You don’t owe me a thing.”
    I considered his fantastic laugh, twisted sense of humor, and good looks, and surrendered. “You win,” I said to him.
    â€œI win what?” he said, wiping his eyes.
    â€œDinner. I’ll go to dinner with you.”
    That sobered him up. “You will?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “Great.” He