A beep came from Cal’s pocket. He took out his phone, responded quickly to a text, and put it back. Then he skidded down the little rise he’d climbed and resumed the hike. He was looking straight ahead when he said, “Something’s been bothering me all week, and I need to get it off my chest.”

His words and tone gave me pause, and I gulped.

“Something’s not right with her.”

“What do you mean?”

He broke the stick into two pieces and then started to break those pieces into even smaller pieces, tossing the fragmented twigs off the side of the trail as we walked. “I realize it’s not cool for me to put you in this position, being that she’s your boss. And if you and I didn’t have the history we have I wouldn’t even bring it up.”

“It’s OK,” I told him.

He ran his hand through his hair and said, “I think she’s seeing someone.”

My mouth went dry, and I had to swallow too many times to get any words out. “What makes you think that?”

“You can’t tell her we had this conversation.”

I made some gesture to indicate I wouldn’t.

He rolled the last piece of stick back and forth between his fingers and said, “She won’t fuck me.”

This caught me off guard for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I’d assumed they’d been fucking all week while I was alone in my room thinking about all the fucking they were doing.

Cal looked to his left, into the woods, and said, “Not once since I got back. Not even in Big Sur. And if your girlfriend won’t fuck you in Big Sur, you’ve got a problem.” He shook his head. “Every time I try, she makes an excuse. Fine, she jacked me off after I bugged her long enough, but that’s it. And trust me when I say October is a passionate woman. She usually jumps my bones the minute I get home. But for the last week and a half, nothing.”

I felt a rush of panic coming on and picked up the pace to get us home before I started acting guilty. “Have you asked her about this?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”