I don’t blame her. I just wonder what it would have been like to have someone more present.

  I shake my head, tapping the notebook with the pen in my hand. “Okay. So, kayaking, getting high, what else?”

  Amanda and I spout off ideas, tossing the creative branch back and forth until we have a full page and it’s bleeding onto page two. There’s everything from go on a real date, from Amanda, to have a movie night, me. Some of it may seem boring to a person who has lived a normal way of life, and other things are a bit braver, like get a tattoo and climb a mountain.

  “I think we should also write in amendments for spontaneous ideas,” I say. “Or rather, ideas for each other.”

  “Like?”

  “Like… I really want you to try meditating with me, even though that’s not something you listed.”

  She groans. “Ugh. Sitting in the dark, in silence, with nothing to do but listen to my crazy brain race?” She shakes her head. “Hard pass.”

  “It’s more than that,” I say on a laugh. “Come on — you’ll want to do the same to me sometime, too. There’s going to be something you want me to try that I don’t want to try. And I expect you to force me.”

  “Oh, is that your kink?”

  She winks, and I give her a look, all the while trying to ignore how the word kink sounds rolling off that sweet tongue of hers.

  “I think this is the only way we really break out of our routine and our comfort zone. We’ve got to be pushed.”

  “Fine. Spontaneous is allowed. But only because I want to make you drive with the windows down and Taylor Swift’s Red album up at full blast.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Instant regret.”

  That earns me a laugh, a sweet, airy one that sounds like wind chimes on a summer breeze.

  “Okay,” she asks. “What do we do first?”

  “Hmm… I vote climbing.”

  “Climbing. Okay. When?”

  I check my watch, noting that it’s only seven. “Has Dr. Simmons cleared you for physical activity yet?”

  “As of my three-week checkup yesterday, I’ve been cleared for just about everything. He said walking as much and as consistently as I have been has helped a lot, and that everything is healing up nicely.” She pauses, making a sort of scoff through her nose. “Still don’t understand how I was cleared to have sex before I was cleared to vacuum, but whatever.”

  I smirk. “Alright, then. Let’s go right now.”

  “Right now?”

  “No time like the present, right?” I ask, standing and offering her my hand to help her up.

  Her mouth gapes. “But I… I’m not ready. I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can. I promise. And you’ll never be ready if it’s up to you. Luckily, it’s not. Now,” I say, wiggling my fingers until she lets me take her hand. I pull her to stand, holding her steady. “Go get changed and stop arguing.”

  I smack her ass playfully as she passes me on her way to the window, and she gasps, turning to swat me in the chest and nearly losing her balance in the process.

  “Hey! It’s a friendly gesture in sports.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she says, narrowing her eyes, but she can’t hide the smile that curls on her lips as she ducks inside the window.

  And I can’t hide how badly I want to smack that ass again.

  AMANDA

  “There is no way in hell I can do this.”

  I stare up at the rock-climbing wall, a bland, beige thing covered in different-colored hand and foot grips that look like a rainbow of death from this perspective.

  “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for,” Greg says from beside me, his gaze crawling up the wall, too.

  “I don’t mean the rock wall,” I say, turning to face him. “I mean this epic wedgie.”

  I point to said wedgie, given kindly by the harness one of the employees strapped me into. It cuts right up between the legs and is anything but forgiving.

  Greg looks where I’m pointing before letting out a sharp laugh, and then he nods back toward the counter. “Come on. Let’s get some chalk on and give it a try.” He pauses then. “Are you sure you feel up for it, though? I don’t want to push you if your injury—”

  “I’m fine,” I say, dragging out the last word like a little kid. “If anything hurts or feels like it’s stretching in bad ways, I’ll come back down. Promise.”

  He presses his lips together, but doesn’t argue further, and then we’re listening to the employees walk us through the basics of climbing as we chalk our hands and get strapped in for our first route.

  “You go first,” I say to Greg when we’re all ready to go.

  “Chicken.”

  I just stick my tongue out as he chuckles, and then his muscular arm stretches overhead, massive hand curling around the first grip as he pulls himself up. Every muscle in his back and shoulder flexes with the movement, and then the other hand is up, grabbing a higher grip. He hikes one leg, foot balancing on a grip and highlighting the fact that his ass is just out of this world.

  And I bite my lip to keep from whimpering.

  Now I’m really glad I asked him to go first.

  With his focus locked on what he’s doing, I take the opportunity to stare without worrying he’ll catch me and it’s then I realize that line I’ve drawn between us is pencil thin. I watch every muscle as he climbs — which he does effortlessly, or so it seems, his arms and legs moving in time as he rapidly ascends the wall.

  Thirty-four. He’s thirty-four, his body as lean and fit as it’s ever been, I’d wager. He doesn’t know the pain of his knees giving out on him yet, or how it feels to just sleep wrong and have a back thrown out.

  He rings the bell at the top, and then smirks down at me with a challenge in his eyes before rappelling back and making his way down.

  “Your turn,” he says simply when his feet land beside me.

  I sigh, hanging my hands on my hips and staring up at the wall.

  The crew set me up with one of the easy routes, one apparently used mostly by kids and pre-teens. But I watched said kids climb when we first came in, and those little buggers were fast and fearless.

  I, on the other hand, feel dizzy just looking at the first set of grips, let alone the top where the bell hangs.

  “You’ve got this,” Greg says, moving in a little closer, his voice low and rumbly in my ear.

  I almost shiver, almost let out a pathetic little mewl, but then I see his hand winding back from the corner of my eye.

  I turn, catching his wrist in one hand and pointing the index finger of the other right in his face. “Don’t you dare smack my ass again.”

  He laughs, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “It’s good luck, I swear.”

  I flick him off, which earns me another laugh before he’s stepping back and giving me space.

  It shouldn’t be this easy with him.

  Why does it feel so easy with him?

  I still a breath, eyes trailing the wall once more as I shake off any thoughts trying to creep in. I need to focus — mostly so I don’t break myself climbing a damn kid route.

  “Here goes nothing,” I mumble to myself, and then I step up to the wall, reaching up to grab the first grip.

  I knew this would be a workout for my arms. I knew my legs would burn. I knew it’d be hard. But I didn’t expect it to be so much pressure on my fingers.

  The first few climbs aren’t too bad, and I actually think I might be able to do this. I curl my fingers in the grooves of the grips, holding on tight as I assess the next move. Then, I pull, reaching for the next marker as my foot finds grip on one below me.

  But the higher I climb, the more my fingers ache, especially when I have to pause a moment to figure out what move to make next.

  “Gah, my fingers!”

  “Use your legs more to hold you while you figure out the next move,” Greg yells from below. His voice sounds so soft, so… distant.

  And that’s when I make the mistake of looking down.

  When I was focused on climbing, I was only looking at the grips above me and the wall in front of me, nothing else. But now, looking down at where Greg watches me from below, I realize how high I am, how far away the ground is.

  Panic.

  Fast and furious, my heart begins to race, my ears going fuzzy, vision swaying and crossing as I grip as tight as I can to hold on.

  Greg must see it, the fear sparked by looking down, and he holds up his hands, trying to calm me. “You’ve got this, Amanda. Focus on what to do next. One grip at a time.”

  “I can’t,” I almost squeak, so quiet I’m not sure he can hear me. “It’s too high. I’m too heavy.”

  That makes Greg grit his teeth, and even from this high up, I can see the muscle in his jaw flex hard. “You’re not too heavy. You’re a strong, badass bitch.”

  I choke on a laugh. “You just called me a bitch.”

  “It’s the good kind of bitch.”

  “Can you two stop with the cursing, please?” one of the employees interrupts, giving us a look. “There are kids here.”

  Greg and I share an embarrassed smile, and then he claps his hands together. “Come on. Keep going. You’re strapped in, remember? You’re safe. Just get to the top.”

  I turn back toward the wall with a deep inhale, setting my shoulders square and my brows in a furrowed determination as I plant weight into my right foot and reach up for the next grip.

  My arms ache, fingers crying out in protest, legs shaking from how high I continue to climb, but I don’t stop. One foot up, then a hand, then a foot, then rest and assess, then another hand, another foot.

  And the strangest thing happens…

  The higher I climb, the more emotional I become.

  Every push of my quad, every pull of my bicep pricks my eyes with tears. My nose stings as the wave washes over me.

  And I think of Josh.

  I think of how hard I had to fight just to clearly see the situation I was in with him, the abuse and the addiction, the co-dependency that had me imprisoned.

  Even once I figured it out, once I decided enough was enough, I had to face his rage, his attempts to break me and make me feel like I was the issue, his gaslighting and narcissism.

  For two long years, I’ve fought to free myself of that man.

  And when I look up at how close the bell is, it feels just like that freedom — close enough to touch, but still distanced by hurdles I have yet to overcome, hurdles I know won’t be easy.

  I close my eyes, blowing out a breath through pursed lips.

  “I can do this,” I whisper.

  And then I push.

  One step at a time, my fingers and arms and legs aching, I climb the rest of the way up the wall. Tears blur my vision as I do so, but I ring that bell with all the enthusiasm of a show girl at a carnival.

  “I did it!”

  “Hell yeah, you did!” Greg hollers back up at me.

  The employee narrows her eyes, but Greg quickly apologizes and then turns back to me and mouths, “Fuck yeah.”

  I chuckle, using one hand to wipe the tears from my face as I look down and get weak in the knees again. “Now how do I get down?”

  “Hold onto the rope at the base of your harness and kick back off the wall.”

  “So, you’re saying, just fall?” I mock, shaking my head.

  Greg laughs, and when I catch his eyes, the laugh slips, the smile going along with it.

  I don’t know if he can see it from all the way down there, how my face is shining with the remnants of the tears I let fall, or how I’m shaking, how that climb meant more to me than just accomplishing something physical.

  But there’s something in his gaze, something deeper than him just telling me it’s safe to rappel off that wall.

  It’s like he’s saying it’s safe to fall into him.

  I tear my eyes away, reminding myself that’s the furthest thing from the truth as I grip the rope, close my eyes, and kick back.

  Just as he said, the suspension catches me, helping me rappel down nice and easy. Before I know it, my feet are on the ground.

  At least, for a split second, until Greg scoops me up in his arms like I weigh half of what I actually do, and spins me as much as he can with me still being attached to the wall.

  “I told you,” he says cockily when he drops me back to the ground.

  My body slides along the length of his as he sets me down, my arms gripping his, our chests pressed together. For a long moment, he holds me there, his smile leveling out as I struggle to catch my breath — both from the climb and from being in his arms.

  I glance up at him through my lashes, and suddenly he’s breathing heavy, too.

  But as quickly as the moment happens, it disappears, Greg releasing me and clearing his throat as I step back with a furious flush.

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s see if you have that same smirk on your face when I make you get a pedicure,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood and ignore the fact that his sweaty body was just touching mine.

  Greg makes a face, but before he can retort, his phone buzzes loud from where we stashed our stuff in a nearby cubby.

  I work on releasing myself from the harness, thanks to some help from the employee who seems less than amused by our first climbs, all the while watching Greg’s face as he reads a text message on his phone.

  “Do you need to go in?” I ask, making my way over to him. I swipe my water bottle from the cubby and take a big swig, arms still shaking.

  “No, it’s my buddy Asher. He’s a firefighter and they’re doing a stair climb this Saturday at Raymond James. It’s a fundraiser. He’s asking if I’ll be on his team.”

  “His team?”

  Greg nods. “It just means I’ll climb the stadium with him, get people to pledge they’ll pay a dollar a step on our team’s landing page, that sort of thing.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Greg pauses, arching a brow at me with his hands hovering over the text. “Let’s?”

  “Yeah,” I say, instantly flushing and tucking my hair behind one ear. “I mean, if you want someone else on the team, that is. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time, since David was in school, and I ran fundraisers all the time for the PTA.”

  My voice fades, heart aching in a foreign way that makes me press my fingertips over my chest to soothe it.

  I miss that, I realize distantly.

  Greg’s eyes are softer when I look at him again, and he nods, offering a small smile. “It would fit with our breaking out of the comfort zone theme, wouldn’t it?”

  “It may also fit in the breaking Amanda’s legs theme but hey, I’ve climbed a wall, what’s a little stadium?”

  Greg barks out a laugh, eyebrows shooting up as he texts his buddy back. “Alright, then. I told him we’re in.”

  “Sweet,” I say. Then, I look back up at the wall, shaking my head with my hands on my hips. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “I can.”

  I flush again, looking at Greg for just a split second before I start gathering my things. “We better get going. School night and all.”

  Greg nods, chewing the inside of his cheek like he’s biting back something he wants to say. Whatever it is, he holds it in, getting his own things together before we make our way out to his car.

  “We almost got kicked out for our language back there.”

  I snicker. “Unsurprised.”

  “We need a hand sign. A secret one that no one else knows, and one we can’t get in trouble for.”

  He pauses by his car, looking at his hand with a concentrating frown before he holds it up. His thumb is straight, fingers curled so the tips of them touch the middle of his thumb right between the joints.

  “A b,” he says, twisting his wrist until I see the shape correctly. “For badass bitch.”

  I laugh, mimicking the sign on my own hand. “How about just b for badass?”

  Greg smiles. “Perfect.”

  The drive to his condo downtown is quiet, music from my playlist softly playing while we ride with the windows down. And when he pulls into one of the temporary parking spots in front of his building, he cuts the engine, staring at the steering wheel for a moment.

  “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  He nods, a little smile on his lips. “Yeah. I forgot what it feels like, to do something fun, something not planned.” He shakes his head. “I get so stuck in my routine sometimes, in working out and eating right and giving my all at the hospital. I really wanted to make a good impression when I first got the job, you know? But now, I have the reputation. Everyone knows me, trusts me, relies on me.” He pauses. “But I didn’t realize how much life I’d given up in the process.”

  He grabs the back of his neck, frowning like he’s just realized it.

  “Sometimes, I have entire weeks go by in a blur. It’s just wake up, work out, spend the whole day at the hospital, eat dinner, watch a little TV, go to bed, repeat.” He drops the hold on his neck, head hitting the headrest behind him. “How sad is that?”

  I sigh, nodding in understanding. “It’s not sad. It’s easy to do with narrow focus like that. But it’s not a bad thing. Your job is important. You help people. You take away their pain.”

  Greg smiles, but it’s weak, falling to soon. “Yeah.”

  I watch him for a moment before playfully slugging his arm. “Hey, that was just one thing off our list. Don’t worry. I promise not to let you down. Accountability Partner, ready for duty,” I say in a stern voice, sitting up taller in my seat and saluting him.

  That finally breaks him into a small laugh, but then his eyes are on me, the silence of the night suddenly louder than any music we had playing. I feel the humid air moving in on us through the windows, wrapping us up in a place that feels like it’s just for us.

  Greg swallows, his eyes tracing my features. He grips the steering wheel tight, like if he doesn’t hold onto that, he’ll put those hands on me, instead.

  God, how I want him to.

  That thought slaps me into the present, and I shake my head, smiling as I reach for the door handle. “Get upstairs and get some sleep. This girl needs to get home. I’ve got a quiz tomorrow morning.”

 

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