I feel him nod his head to the right. I glance over and see a different colored wall—steel-gray instead of black, like this one is—and say, “I see it.”
“OK, good. Now put your foot where I told you.” I have to stretch. Like really stretch my leg to reach that foothold. But I get the tip of my toe on it and he says, “Good. Now put your right hand on the pink hold right up there.”
I have to stretch my arm too. It’s all the way straight, like no bend at all. “Andrew,” I say, my breath betraying how scared I actually am now that I fully comprehend what I’ll have to do to get to the top. “I won’t be able to pull myself up.”
“You don’t need to pull yourself up. You’re going to use your legs for lift, not your arms. Just grip it with the tips of your fingers and then lift your left foot off and swing your body to the right a little.”
“I don’t think I can,” I say. And I’m serious. Totally serious.
“Listen to me. I know what I’m doing. When you lift that foot and swing your body, you’re gonna change your center of balance immediately. And it’s going to feel right. Trust me.”
Center of balance makes sense to me. I know how that works from all those years in gymnastics. So I do as I’m told and… and he’s right. He’s actually right! The second I lift my left foot and swing my body over—his body pressing hard against me still—I am centered again and don’t feel like I’m gonna fall backwards anymore.
He’s quick to tell me what to do after that. Like he knows I’ve given in to him. That I trust him. And I follow every direction. I put my hands and my feet exactly where he tells me to. We angle over onto the steel-gray wall and then the climb gets easier. I actually start picking my own path and Andrew backs off a little, concentrating on his own climb.
It’s like… we’re climbing together now. As partners or something.
And then—too soon almost—we’re there at the top.
I swing my leg up and pull myself over the edge and the whole fucking gym erupts with clapping and whistling. And people are shouting, “Go, Eden!” and “He saved her!” Which… I mean… Dramatic.
I roll onto my back, my button-down shirt almost wet with sweat, and smile at Andrew as he comes over the edge to join me.
“You did it,” he says, grinning wide.
“Thank you,” I say. “I don’t know what I was thinking, but…Jesus. I’m so hot.” He raises his eyebrows at me. Like he’s about to make a comment about me being hot. Or maybe I’m just delusional with rock-climbing endorphins and I just made that up. Probably that last one. But my fingers are busy unbuttoning my shirt, and then I sit up and take it off, throwing it off to the side.
When I glance over at him again he’s staring right at my tits.
His eyes lift up, big question marks in them. Question marks that make me remember why I tried to climb that stupid wall in the first place.
“Soooo…” he says, slowly. “Where you been?”
“What?” I say, fake-laughing the word. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t seen you since… And when I called you you hung up on me. What’s up?”
“Nothing. Why? Why is something up? Why would you think something is up? What’s up with you? You ever think about that?”
He closes his eyes and smiles. “Why’d you run?”
“What?” I say, fake-laughing harder and longer. “What are you talking about?”
“You saw Pierce and me and ran. Why?”
“I didn’t run! You ran!” I’m not sure I’m making sense. But sometimes if you commit to something hard enough you can convince people they’re wrong.
“I ran after you. After you got yourself stuck on a wall.”
I laugh again. Louder this time. Trying to buy myself some time. “Well… I mean, we were here to climb the walls, right?”
“Sort of,” he says. “I mean, this was constructed as a team-building exercise. Because… Oh, right. You missed Pierce’s opening statement because you came in late—”
“I… I…” I stutter. Because I was gonna say I got caught in traffic. But this is the TDH where everyone walks. So that excuse doesn’t work anymore. “I couldn’t decide what to wear,” I say.
“I don’t care that you were late. You don’t work for me. That’s not my point. I’m trying to make a point.”
“OK. So. Fine. Make your point. What’s your point?”
And then I see he’s looking at my tits again.
“My point is that Pierce’s big speech was about everyone at Le Man working together to find the Sexpert.”
“Oh,” I say. “Was it? Wow, that’s weird. He’s really upset about that, isn’t he?”
“Super upset.” Andrew nods. “He thinks he knows who it is.”