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“You can do this, Brooky . . . Brooklyn,” he corrects, and I’d laugh at his charm if I didn’t want to pass out from exertion.
I don’t feel like I’ve moved at all, but I must be close. Cameron pulls one hand away from the wall and is somehow able to grab the back of my thigh, lifting me as I work to stand on my own. His boost is just enough to help me clear the final distance, and in a second, both of my feet are resting on the wider ridge, allowing my hands to rest and recover.
“Yeah!” he shouts, his voice echoing again.
“Woo whoo!” I repeat his celebration from before, and his warm laughter hugs me from behind. I’m a little delirious from this effort, and maybe a bit drunk off of his nearness, so I scream out again, this time startling a few bats that better not be living in a cave a foot away from me.
“Oh, my God!” I flatten to the wall as Cameron laughs hard, covering my body with his.
“They’re more afraid of you. I promise. You just scared them out of their home,” he says at my ear.
My heart is racing, and even though I’m tired, that’s not what has my pulse beating so wildly. And I swear I feel Cameron’s heart beating too, his chest flat against my back, his fingers woven through mine where they grip the ridges in the rock.
His nose tickles my jawline and I swallow as his lips part.
“What do you say. One more step?”
He’s too close to be able to focus on his face as a whole. All I see is the lines of his features, the slope of his nose, plump curl of his lip, rough skin along his jaw. His breath is warm, and he smells like honey and fire. Maybe it’s the woods around us. Maybe it’s my imagination. I know if I quit, this closeness goes away, though, so I nod slowly.
“One more,” I whisper. I’m able to catch his eyes dart to my lips when I speak, and my body thrums with renewed energy.
“Okay, I need to hook us up to the next peg. Hold on,” he says, practically jumping on one leg from our comfortable shelf up to a jutting rock that he grabs with his hand. He pulls himself up with one arm, bracing his weight against the wall with his foot as he reaches down for the rope, sliding it through his palm until he finds the next carabiner to hook in place. He makes it happen then palms the wall to steady himself on his way down. His feet bracket mine again in a second.
“Where do you want to step?” he asks.
I jerk my head in his direction with wide eyes.
“Part of the process,” he says.
I return my focus to the wall and lift my chin, looking for signs of a good place to land. Everything looks the same to me, as if I’m scaling a blank canvas or a smooth wall covered in faux rock that barely boasts texture.
“Feel it,” he breathes.
My chest quakes at his suggestion. He’s talking about the rock, but is he maybe also talking about the intangible? His heavy breath moves slowly through his chest, pushing his body into mine more before releasing. I dare say he meant that both ways.
Feel it.
My hand ventures away from his without me giving it much thought. I turn my head so the bottom of my chin is flush with stone as I look to follow my own hand’s path. Every lip feels too small, every crack too tight. My fingertips run along old holes left behind by climbers before us, or hooks that have given way.
“I can’t,” I say, starting to panic. We’re still not so high that I would get hurt on a fall, but we’re up a lot more than a couch height now.
“Try your other hand,” he says, leaning into me for support.
I rest my right hand back in its original spot then palm my left one along the rock’s face until I feel a good-sized ridge that seems to fit my palm almost perfectly.
“Here!” My body jolts with excitement.
Cameron reaches up and clings to the rock next to me.
“That’s perfect,” he says. “Where will you step?”
I glance down, using the distance of my last step as my guide. Nothing pops out, so I let go with my right hand and feel along the wall as I did before. There’s one spot, and the standing room is mere inches from what I can tell, but I think if I can hold on with my hands, I can do it.
“Here,” I say, patting the wall.
Cameron’s right hand lets go of its hold, and he has to grip at my side to keep himself in place before centering his balance again. My stomach tightens under his touch, instant visuals of his hand continuing to move along my body, caress . . . touch.
“Oh, shit!” I blurt out, my balance lost in an instant. I slide several inches down the face of the wall even though Cameron’s grasp is fast around my waist. The ropes tethering us are taut as he basically smashes me against the rock to keep me from falling further.
