The sun was just starting to rise above the horizon, spreading its golden light through the trees and across the neighbourhood as I pulled up to Mila and Jack's house with two kayaks strapped to the roof of my car.
I thought about honking to get their attention but considering it was just past 6am I decided the polite thing to do would be to knock on the front door, as I was getting out of the car I saw the front door swing open and Mila stepped out, the gorgeous brunette was wearing her pink Among Us hoodie that she was wearing when we first met and a pair of very short exercise shorts, a small backpack and a very big smile across her face.
"Morning Rob, you ready for some adventure?" she called as she strode down the stairs towards the car.
"Absolutely," I replied, smiling back at her and checking out her legs as she opened the door to climb into the car, her eyes met mine as I looked up from her legs, had she caught me checking her out, it was hard to tell but I swear her smile turned slightly mischievous, "Where's Jack?" I asked, looking past her towards the stairs.
"Oh, he's not coming," she said matter-of-factly, "He was up late last night with his girlfriend," she wiggled almost imperfectively in her seat before adding "They finally got to sleep about two hours ago."
I was fairly sure I knew the reason for their late night, but I was curious if I could tease Mila about it, "They weren't fighting, were they?"
"I think it started that way." she said looking at me out the corner of her eye, "But they got past their disagreement fairly quickly and they spent the rest of the night noisily making up," the mischief clear on her face as she looked into the back seat "Where's Shawn?"
"Oh, he couldn't make it, he got called into work last night and has to travel to London with Sarah," I said trying not to sound too disappointed that my friends were missing my annual kayaking trip.
"But the kayaks?" Mila asked pointing to the roof of the car
I smiled at the small amount of good luck, "We had already mounted them up when Shawn got the call, so he said I could borrow them."
"Oh, well at least we got the kayaks," she smiled at me looking a little concerned and then asked, "do you want to cancel? the kayak trip is how you celebrate your birthday and now none of your friends will be here, I'd completely understand."
I smile back, looking her in the eyes, "No way! Why would I cancel when I get to spend the day with my favourite adventure buddy."
Mila blushed a little "Your favourite huh?"
"Besides" I said "I've spent all this time getting the kayak's hitched up, we may as well put that time to use," I added with a little mischief in my voice.
Mila's smile got bigger as she looked at me "Oh, I just realized I forgot something in the house, I'll be right back!" Mila opened the car door and rushed up the stairs back into the house.
I admired her as she ran up the stairs, I had always had a crush on her, but I was dating someone when we'd met and so we had become good friends, by the time I had broken up with the girl I was seeing she was dating someone else. I'm glad the timing was never right because I would have certainly messed up this great friendship by confessing my crush. I sat in the car for a few minutes wondering what she could possibly have forgotten, I was just thinking of getting out of the car to see if I could help her when she came out the door looking exactly the same as she did before.
"All set!" she said as she got back into the car
I gave her a once over, not hiding the fact that I was checking her out "And what exactly was that about?" I asked acting very seriously.
"You'll see," she said with a twinkle in her eye, "Now if you don't hurry up, we're going to be late."
"We can't be late," I replied "We're the only ones on the river today and we already have the kayaks."
Mila was suddenly impatient to get going, "I want to get as much time on the river as possible, I've got to some sun before the summer starts,"
The image of here in one of her bikinis flashed through my mind, her hoodie was hiding a great body and she had such great taste in bikinis that showed off her body, I had to remind myself that it's impolite to ogle your friends, I shook my head, started the car and exclaimed excitedly, "Let's get this show on the road!"
We spend the next three hours talking about everything from politics to the latest TV shows we were watching, I always enjoyed Mila's company, we got on so well and I always felt at ease with her, if she disagreed with me, she always said so and was willing to hear me out, she would also call me out if she thought my reasoning was BS if she thought I had a blind spot, the reason our friendship worked was because she was willing to let me do the same, some of our mutual friends didn't get our friendship, some thought it was too confrontational, we'd had our share of blow ups in the past, but they seemed to have gotten fewer and fewer as the years passed.
The drive to the river was relaxing, Mila had taken her hoodie off an hour into the drive, she was wearing loose fitting white crop and I could see the straps of a red bikini underneath, I felt myself getting a little aroused by that thought, I recalled she wore a red bikini on our summer vacation last year, it left very little the imagination and I was hard most of the day, her boyfriend at the time didn't like how revealing it was and so she hadn't worn it again the whole vacation, the idea that she was wearing it now had my brain spinning.