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“This—I mean, really!” I sputter, infuriated. I whack my hands on his back. “Put me down!”
He doesn’t answer. Just walks towards the slides, whistling away like he’s carrying a pillow on his shoulder and not a full-grown woman. He even has the audacity to say hi to people passing us by, like this is totally normal. I have the pleasure of seeing the shocked, mildly concerned faces on the other side of his greeting.
“Put me down! Pops would not approve of this.”
We’ve reached the base of the Monster Slide and Ethan lowers me to the ground with a surprising amount of gentleness for someone who just strolled around with a friend-nap victim over his shoulder. He smiles at me, and there’s a flash of something tender in his eyes. “I think he would. If he knew you were endangering the pool attendees.”
Dang it. He’s probably right.
He holds an arm out and gestures up the slide. “Ladies first.”
I’m about to protest, but he silences me with a look. Not a mean or harsh look, but a “you know you’re going to do it anyway” kind of look.
I give him a long glare before turning away and climbing up the Monster Slide. I don’t say another word to him, but he’s right behind me the whole time, whistling like we’re grocery shopping and not risking our lives.
As we climb higher, my anger turns into something a lot more primal and fear-based. Soon, I’m crawling—both due to the exertion, and due to the thought of being stuck on this metallic, creaky, ancient stairway to an even more terrifying slide.
Finally, it’s too much.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I utter, slowing to an official stop. I hate how small my voice is.
Ethan stops, too. He doesn’t usher me forward or push me, but he doesn’t back down either. “Sure you can.”
He says this with so much confidence, so much certainty. It makes me doubt his sanity and/or memory that he has this much faith in me. “You don’t know what I’m capable of anymore.”
He’s silent for a moment, and I suddenly wonder if my words bothered him. When he speaks again, his voice is heavy. “It’s been awhile Val, but I still know who you are, know how brave and strong you are. You can do anything you put your mind to.”
Except stop thinking about your lips, apparently.
FOCUS, Val! This is neither the time, nor the place.
But actually, thinking about his lips is working for me…
Slowly, I start up again, remembering his lips when he smirked at me by the pool. Is that weird? Maybe. But credit where credit’s due, I manage to climb the final two levels to the platform without stopping once.
“You did it!” Ethan exclaims when we reach the top.
I high-five him with no small amount of pride. I did do it! I’m one step closer to New Val.
“You made it,” a flat voice says. The teenaged pool attendant is sitting in his chair, scrolling through his phone and bouncing his leg impatiently. “I’ve been waiting for ages. I thought maybe one of you was really old or injured or something.” He dignifies us with a bored glance. “You are old, though.”
Ethan raises an amused brow. “Thanks for waiting for us.”
“Yeah, I mean you’ve got, like…” The worker checks his watch. “Three minutes and forty seconds.”
“Not a second to lose then.” Ethan walks towards the slide. “Shall we, Teeny?”
I step forward slowly and my entire being recoils to see the height, the sheer steepness of the slide. It literally goes straight down, maybe even concaves towards the bottom. I was never good at math, but surely that angle is more than 180 degrees?!
“I just…” I stutter, my voice squeaky. Fear always turns me into one of those animated mice from Cinderella. “I don’t think… I can’t.”
“You did the stairs, didn’t you?” Ethan says reasonably. “You can do this, too.”
“You can go down together if you need to. All of the really young and scared kids do that with their parents,” the worker adds helpfully. Not. “Whatever floats your boat.”
He doesn’t seem to realize how perfectly apt that expression is given where we are, but Ethan catches my eye with a smirk. And suddenly, the thought of sliding down with him seems even more dangerous than going alone.
“What do you say, Teeny?”
