Completely (New York 3)
He fetched a lot of cups of tea. Pitched a lot of tents. Carried newspapers, started fires, watched climbers, and figured out that exactly two kinds of people showed up to scale the tallest mountain in the world: the megalomaniacs, who were obsessed with their own power, and the walking wounded, who wanted the mountain to heal them.
Kal was neither. He’d never climbed to the summit of Everest. He’d never wanted to.
The only reason he’d come to Nepal this season was guilt. One of his cousin’s friends, a guy from Namche named Pasang, had called him up.
I need an ice doctor. Kal had the skill and experience to round out his team. Pasang put the screws to him. You owe me. I could really use you.
Pasang had lost his shirt on Kal’s trekking guide initiative, lost his house in the earthquake, and lost his daughter to traffickers.
Now Pasang was missing, presumed dead.
Kal was finished with Everest.
He’d help the people who really needed hi
m—his mom, his family—instead of wasting his time in the Khumbu, where nothing he’d ever done had made one bit of a difference.
He ran his fingers up and down the neck of the wine bottle. He needed to turn off his brain for a while. Probably he should have bought a couple bottles of wine. He could knock himself out.
After he was done checking on the princess, he’d do that, maybe. Give his head a rest. Get some sleep.
The door opened a foot.
She stood in the crack, hair toweled but not combed, a man’s white Oxford shirt buttoned askew over a pink T-shirt, jeans too big for her hips, bunched at the ankles. Barefoot. Shivering. Either those weren’t her clothes, or she’d lost twenty pounds since she bought them.
If the headlines he’d seen in his news feed were to be believed, the princess here belonged to the megalomaniac category of Everest climbers—completely full of herself, looking for attention that would make her feel more powerful, more important, more alive.
Kal had been raised by a megalomaniac. Abused by him more times than he could count. He didn’t like them much.
This woman, though—she needed someone. The rest of her team was long gone, out on the first morning flight to Kathmandu before she’d even made it off the mountain. He’d kept her at Camp One the longest of any of them because she held her shit together better than most. But keeping your shit together had a price, and the princess was paying it now.
Kal felt responsible.
“Come in, please.”
He rose, dimly aware he should be exhausted and stiff. In fact, his body felt immaculate.
That was the adrenaline. It would wear off, and the crash would be a son of a bitch.
Kal picked up the things he’d brought and stepped to the door. Eyes averted, the princess moved out of the way.
In her world, her real world, people like Kal were nothing more than specks. Given a place, expected to stay in it, rewarded with reasonable salaries and thank-yous delivered with three seconds’ sincere attention. He doubted she knew his name, doubted she’d paid him enough mind at Base Camp to even be able to distinguish him from all the other Sherpa guys.
Kal didn’t hold it against her.
Megalomaniacs gotta megalomaniac. Princesses gotta princess. He chuckled to himself, and she looked at him, forehead furrowed.
He downgraded his assessment of his own condition from maybe a little weird to definitely losing his marbles. Beneath the tray, Kal slid his fingers to his wrist and checked his pulse. A little fast, but steady.
That was fine. Food, wine, sleep, and he’d be right as rain again.
Inside her room, he set the tray on a bench along the wall and sat. The hotel was comfortable for the Khumbu region—tatty if you were a trekker who’d just flown in from Europe, but downright luxurious if you were on your way back out after weeks hiking at altitude. He’d made sure the princess had the best room available, with an en suite bathroom and a double bed.
Plus, the Wi-Fi worked. She’d plugged her phone into the only outlet. It buzzed quietly from the floor.
She stood at the threshold, staring at it.
“Shut the door,” he said.