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“Fuck you,” he says to me. One more time. Like I’m the cause of all his pain.
It rips into me, and we breathe heavily. Staring at each other.
A hot tear rolls down his cheek.
Something wet trails down mine. I push Lo all the time. Very few people push me. And maybe I fucking needed this—but I’m still conflicted. No one but Daisy understands what climbing truly means to me. She’s never pressured me to quit. She doesn’t want me to.
Quietly, I tell Lo, “You’re asking me to cut myself off at the knees.” I’ve always lived to ascend. As a kid, it was the only thing that would grind at my bones, that called me to wake up, that pushed me to go.
I have never gone a year without climbing since.
It motivated me. It challenged me. It’s a part of me. The way I go at life, I go at it like a climber would—self-disciplined, aggressive, tenacious, persistent.
It is a part of me.
But I sit here, and I know. It’s not my greatest love. It’s not why I woke up today. It’s not what will grind at my bones tomorrow. It won’t push me to go in a year.
When I turn my head and meet Daisy’s glassy eyes in the archway, she gives me a weak, tearful smile in support. She means more to me—our life together means more to me. I shouldn’t have to quit the thing I love to prove this.
Selfish, I hear my brother call me.
This is the most selfish I’ve ever fucking been, and it’s tearing at me because I don’t think I can live without climbing. I don’t know how.
Most of the girls are crying now, some in the kitchen, visible from here.
“Mommy?” Moffy whispers up to Lily, the boy hanging onto her leg. She wipes her cheeks with the sleeve of her onesie.
Lo pulls a smashed wrapped box out from beneath his ass and chucks it. After a long moment, his head swings back to me. “When you have a fucking kid, you make a lot of sacrifices, Ryke.”
“Have you ever loved something? Not someone, but something.”
“Whiskey.”
I glower. “Drinking’s not a hobby.” Though for Lo, maybe it was.
“It’s a thing,” he snaps.
I shake my head at him. “When you love something so much, it feels impossible to let it go. It’s like a kid. Can you understand that?” It’s a part of me, Lo. Please fucking hear me.
His throat bobs. After a long pause, he says, “No.”
I don’t want to look at this like losses and gains and weigh my love for everyone against a sport. Connor Cobalt can fucking do that.
I have always stared my life straight in the fucking eye and held the line. I’m not terrified of it being cut short. I’d rather live fully and briefly than to live long and empty.
I’m just not fucking sure I can be fulfilled without rock climbing.
“So…?” Lo asks.
“I’ll think about everything.” Climbing is safer in other areas: sport climbing, bouldering. They’ve never been my fucking favorites, but they’re alternatives.
Lo lets out a wounded, exhausted breath. “You’re killing me here.” The way he says it, it’s like I’ve been slamming him into Christmas trees for years. He’s that scared he’ll lose me.
I fucking rub my eyes. “I’m sorry.” I wish I could just give it up.
This would be so much fucking easier if I could just say goodbye.
DAISY CALLOWAY
The emotional brotherly breakdown from two hours ago has been bulldozed by my Christmas present that is unequivocally, extraordinarily better than chocolate.
I said that to Ryke, and he rolled his eyes like I was teasing him.
I wasn’t.
Currently, I sit on an iconic red sleigh in the middle of the snowy, picturesque woods. A majestic chestnut horse leads the way. I’ve never been on a sleigh ride. Ryke knew that. And so he conjured this postcard-worthy scene out of nowhere.
No bodyguards. No paparazzi. For now at least.
We’re both seated up front on the slender bench, reins in his hands as he guides the horse. The back of the sleigh is filled with dark green blankets, and gold bells jingle as the horse trots along an unmarked path, weaving between sky-scraping fir trees.
Ryke even let me steer, but I passed the reins back after I almost overturned the entire sleigh. It’s not like he rented this for us. He said, I know a fucking guy who owns a farm and gives out sleigh rides. He’s big into rock climbing. I understood instantly.
The rock climbing community is small, and everywhere we travel, I’ve seen Ryke call people to meet up and climb. I wasn’t surprised that he knows someone here or that this person trusts him with valuable things.
Once upon a time, I’m sure this man trusted Ryke with his life. As most rock climbers eventually do.
Nestled close to Ryke in my winter clothes, his arm warming my shoulders, I watch him for a second and ask, “How did you know?”
His eyes flit from me to the powdery road, flat at the bottom of the mountain. “Know what?”
“That I’m the one. That this is the ‘can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff,’” I quote It Takes Two with as much of its original gusto.
He rolls his eyes, but I’m positive he understands what I’m talking about this time. Because he watched the movie with me.
“Do you want to know when I knew?” I ask him, swiveling more toward his body, less towards the road, and his arm falls off my shoulder.
The sleigh slows, and when I scan my surroundings, I realize we’re in a snowy field, a red barn far off in the distance. The rest is just white nothingness, a few skinny trees, and us.
He removes his beanie and fixes his flattened hair. Now it sticks up every which way. Very, very handsome. “How about we make a fucking pact?”
I straighten up, really curious. “Okay.”
He raises his brows. “I haven’t even said what it is. You may fucking hate it.”
“I’m willing to take the gamble,” I say with a growing smile. “The danger!”
He tosses his beanie at my face before standing up and hopping onto the ground. Then he begins unhooking the horse from the sleigh as he says, “I’ll tell you when I first knew this was the ‘can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff’ the day we get fucking married. And you can tell me then too.”
“Like our vows?” I’m really surprised he’d be willing to share this in front of everyone.
He nods and then ties the horse to one of the skinnier trees.
“Are you just trying to stall to figure out an answer?” It’s an honest question. “It’s okay if you are—”
“I fucking know,” he cuts me off, climbing back onto the sleigh. “I’ve fucking known for a long time.” He removes his gloves and then clasps my hand, pulling me to my feet. I feel short for some reason. Maybe it’s because he’s so sure of our relationship. Of where we stand. His confidence draws me closer.
Then he guides me to the back of the sleigh.
“Do I get a hint?” I’m even more curious. How will I survive until our wedding day without knowing when he knew I was the one?
“You already made the fucking pact.”
I rock on the balls of my feet until he brings me down to the furry blankets. We sit side-by-side, and I scoot even closer. Our knees knock together, his masculinity cloaking me. Larger, taller, rougher.
“I have this theory,” I begin, “that pacts aren’t truly bound until…” I trail off with a lit-up smile.
He cups my cheek, eyeing my pink lips. “…until?” he pushes.
“Until we fuck. Have sex. Make love. All at once.”
His jaw clenches in arousal, letting me see that much. Then Ryke unzips my jacket. Twenty-seven, experienced and rugged among the wilderness—I drink in his build while he drinks in mine. He handles me protectively like he wants me close in case anything happens.
“Are we going to test my theory?”
I whisper as he pulls off my jacket and I unzip his, both of us beginning to shed each other’s clothes.
He raises his brows at me again, the mystery alive.
Then he tugs my ankle, and my back thumps on the soft mound of blankets. My giddy smile stretches. What an adventure. I breathe deeply, and he hovers above me.
“I’m going to fuck you,” he says, yanking off my pants. The cold nips my skin. “I’m going to have sex with you.” He kisses me strongly while lifting my sweater off my head. “I’m going to make love to you.” His eyes bore into mine. “All at fucking once.” His gaze dances over my features. “Not because of a fucking theory. I can’t think of a place I’d rather be right now than with you. Truth is, I can’t think of a place I’d rather be in fifty fucking years than next to you.”
My breath shallows, and I reach up, my hand grazing his rough, hard jawline. “You think we’ll live till we’re seventy?” I’ve never pictured us that far ahead. Besides the baby planning, we’ve always been such a “present moment” couple that seeing beyond a few years is foreign to me.
“Yeah,” he says with a reverent nod. “We’ll be fucking old with blown-out knees and aches and pains.”
