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I want to smother her with affection. To hold her cheeks and whisper dirty things in her ear. To put my lips to hers before she climbs four-hundred feet in the air.
But with everyone here, it’s like I’m only her bodyguard.
Her friend.
Like we’ve shot backwards, and I can’t paddle to the place I want to be. That feeling settles inside me like a chainsaw. Just friends.
Only friends.
I’ve never hid my affection in a relationship. I hate this. And the worst part: this is all either me or Banks will ever get with Sulli. One of us will never know more.
On the grass beneath the cliff-face, Banks is standing beside me, toothpick between his lips. He gives me a look like I’m pacing around the rock and biting my nails.
All I’m doing is running my palms back and forth. Under my breath, I tell him, “I liked it better before.” I catch his gaze for a second. “When it was just the three of us.”
“Yeah.” Banks nods about five times. “Me too.”
We both go rigid. Watching Winona climb a traditional route parallel to her older sister. Placing gear, she’s the lead climber while Maximoff is her belay, climbing about six-feet below.
While Winona stops at an anchor she just placed, she grips a Canon camera strapped around her neck. And she films Sulli.
Jack should be up there.
He’s climbed and filmed Sulli before. But apparently at the RV camp yesterday, he tore a muscle in his shoulder playing basketball with most of SFO and Jesse.
I wasn’t there. But as the story goes, Oscar raided every RV for ice, even knocked on other campers’ RV doors to gather more ice. Ensuring his husband had proper first-aid.
Jack’s seventeen-year-old shaggy-haired, surfer brother is here to help shoot, but Jesse isn’t that skilled at rock climbing. Winona ended up offering to get some footage for the production team. She loves photography, but mostly, she was just excited to climb next to her sister.
I run my palms together a few more times, glance at Banks. Glance at Team Apex. Glance at her cousins. Glance at Ripley. Baby needs a bodyguard. Glance at SFO and Jack’s cameras. A tripod is set-up near me and Banks. The lens is aimed at Sulli.
Jack adjusts the camera on the tripod. His teenage brother is squatting closer to the rock face, filming from a different angle.
My eyes flash back to the rock at sudden movement. Winona. She drops her Canon. Hooked to her neck, the camera thumps against her chest, then she slips.
Maximoff pushes off the rock with his feet, giving her slack as the rope catches her fall.
Sulli never flinches. Still focused, she rises.
“Watch out for those fire ants! I hear they can be bad around here!” Lincoln on Team Apex yells up at Sulli.
Now she flinches, and instinct propels me towards these idiots. I’m boiling and running, and Banks is hot on my heels. Just as livid, and we’re not even twenty-feet on them when they bolt.
Racing away like—
“Fucking cowards,” Banks growls the words I feel.
Breathing hard, we glance back at Sulli.
She’s rappelling.
I head quickly to the tripod. “Did she slip?” I ask Jack.
He shakes his head. “I think she was freaked out.”
I frown, and Banks’ eyes tighten on Sulli, more concerned. Like a boyfriend would be. Jealousy bites at me.
Banks is on my side. Better to have him overly concerned about Sulli than only partially. That’s what I’m telling myself.
I rest my hands on my neck, hot with frustration from so many directions. And I whisper to Banks, “We should’ve cut them out on Day 1, not had a prank war.”
“It’s too late now.”
What was I thinking?
Probably, have fun with Sulli. Yeah. I can’t help it—I enjoy having fun with her, spending time with her, kissing her. I remember shopping for crickets, trying to pay for her, taking her on an afternoon date.
Regretting the prank war means taking back those moments, and I won’t return those. Not for any price, not for anything. So I shelve the bowl of Instant Regret this time.
But Team Apex can’t distract Sulli while she climbs. If she’d been free-soloing today, she could’ve fallen and been severely injured or died.
My muscles tighten. “Next time they come back to watch her, we threaten them,” I tell Banks like an order.
He nods, “Don’t have to tell me twice.” He’s all-in.
Intimidation is literally our best bet.
* * *
Sulli safely on the ground, we all start packing up to leave.
I help Sulli coil her rope, and Banks hands her a water bottle. Close by, Jack is on his knees packing up the tripod in a case.
He catches my eyes. “Same old, same old, right?” he asks in a staple-Jack-Highland-smile. Bright and charismatic—the kind that made me not trust him. Now, I know that smile as purely genuine.
But being real, constant positivity is off-putting to me after a while. I wouldn’t hang out with the sunshine Care Bear every day of the week, so I take Jack in small doses. It’s one of many ways we’ve maintained a good friendship after a rocky start.
