Page 14

LOGAN

T he harness was a death trap—designed to frustrate even the smartest of users. There were way too many buckles, at least sixteen more straps than necessary, and every time I put it on, it felt wrong.

“Fuck.” I stepped out of it again and stared at it. I didn’t even want to do the ropes course, but I wasn’t about to give them another excuse to corner me with their judgmental anger and hair-trigger fists.

“You have it backwards,” Dean said as he approached. The sweater he was wearing hugged tightly to his strong shoulders and tapered at his waist. The thin athletic shorts did nothing to hide his huge thighs. I hated to admit that I thought about them more than I should. But it was hard not to, when he was parading them around. I could swear that our only saving grace during a bear attack would be that Dean Tucker could probably choke it out between his legs with little to no effort.

I shook my head clear of the thoughts and cursed again at the tangle of straps in my hands.

“Can I help?” He asked me with his hand extended for the harness.

“I can put on a couple straps, Tuck.” I kept the harness close to my body and turned my eyes back to it with a small frustrated sigh.

“I don’t want you breaking your legs. Just let me help, it won’t kill you.” He snapped his finger at me and grumbled.

It might.

I handed him the harness and watched him sink to his knees on the soft forest floor. Jesus fucking Christ —those were the only words left in my vocabulary as he tilted his chin up to look at me and the sunlight danced around in those seaglass eyes.

“Right foot,” he said, without missing a beat or noticing how flustered I had just become.

Shit.

“This is fucking dumb,” I growled, but stuck my leg out for him.

He held out the harness, letting me step into it, and I became oddly aware of his fingers and palms as he lifted it over my hips–careful never to touch me.

“Can you hold this?” He asked, his eyes level with my hips and I gripped the belt as he started to tighten all the straps, one at a time, left to right. He looked at the straps on my inner thighs and paused before looking up at me. “Can I touch you?” He asked, his voice lower than before, and I nodded, turning my head away from his burning gaze.

His fingers smoothed out the strap before he held it flush to my thigh and tightened it up against his hand. I could feel every move he made without looking at him, his knuckles brushing over the other thigh as he repeated the progress. I kept my eyes on everyone else, trying to focus on something or anything else than his touch.

I expected to find people staring, but no one seemed to care that Dean was on his knees helping the ‘enemy’. Everyone was too busy tightening their own harnesses or planning strategies for the course. At Lorette, such a public show would have been considered cause for ridicule. The homophobic slurs would have been flying the moment Dean offered his help, but here no one gave a shit.

It was strange being around people who were so well-adjusted.

It didn’t excuse the brutal rage that festered between Todd and I, but at least it wasn’t being backed into a corner. Here I could breathe long enough to fight back.

Ian’s sick smile flashed through my mind, his hands, the running water—

"Okay, enough," I snapped, stepping back from Dean.

He put both hands in the air to show me that he wasn’t touching me anymore and rose to hover over me again. It wasn’t threatening, but he waited until I’d calmed down before he asked: “Is it tight enough? Check for me.” He nodded to my waist and I gave it a tug. There was barely a finger space between the belt and my skin. “Good.”

Dean watched for a second longer and I knew he wanted to ask what the outburst was about, but someone called to him.

“Yo, Tucker, can you help me too?” Jensen stood with the harness tangled in a massive knot and a stupid look on his face. Dean looked back at me to check one last time, the pause enough to make me want to tell him to fuck off, but I held my tongue.

I don’t need your pity .

I inhaled a breath of clean air, untainted by his scent, and went to stand with the rest of my group. Todd was running his mouth about being the best at the course while the other three were staring up at the ropes like they were going to vomit.

“Who’s going first?” The instructor asked, scanning the group.

“Logan.” Todd offered me up to the wolves without a second of consideration, but I wasn’t going to let him win this stupid game he was playing. If his intention was to rattle me, it wasn’t going to work. I was going to run the course, faster than him, and then I’d be done for the day.

“Fine,” I said, stepping forward.

Todd glared at me and crossed his arms over his shoulders.

“It’ll take a lot more than a punch and some first grade insults to get under my skin, Todd. You and the brat pack can brainstorm while I run the course. Maybe you can come up with something that will actually hurt my feelings?”

“If you fall and fuck up our time, I’ll finish what I started.” Todd cupped his face and called out to me, but I only responded with laughter.

I’d like to see him try.

I climbed the thick tree trunk one step at a time, using the small wooden boards nailed to its center, until I reached a long, narrow platform that held one of the other instructors.

“I’m going to clip this here.” He pointed to the loop on my harness and I nodded, trying not to look down. My hands shook at my side but I was determined to prove them all wrong. I don’t think I was actually afraid of heights, but being suspended in the air was a whole other shock to the system.

“You’re going to start here and zig zag down to the finish line.” He moved his hand through the trees, pointing out the route quickly before asking me if I was ready. I nodded but the contents of my stomach were threatening eviction and I could already feel how much stronger the wind was above the trees.

“Don’t fall, Logan!” Todd’s irritating voice boomed up through the trees and scared a few birds resting nearby.

I flipped him off and stepped out onto the first bridge, hearing Dean call out that the time had started. I concentrated on the steps ahead of me, focusing on the way the shaking rope bridge felt beneath my feet, and used it to propel myself forward. If I could just count my steps, maybe I could forget the fear that coursed through me.

Being up this high reminded me of the apartment building we lived in. We were in the basement suite, the bars on the window preventing the sun from reaching my skin. So I’d climb the thirteen flights of stairs to the top and pick the lock on the chain that held the roof door closed. I could remember how horrible that part of the city smelled; the rotting homeless flesh that we were just weeks away from becoming, the stench of week-old vodka and smoke from the warehouse factories that our building was crammed between. But still, somehow, up there I felt free, the air tangled into my hair and snuck its way beneath my clothes. It cooled the stinging sensation of new cuts and healing burns. It was salvation to be up that high.

But it was also dangerous.

The ice in winter made the shoddy matting of the roof slippery, and when your boots are so old the treads on them are gone, there was never traction. I had slipped once, right off the side, I fell six feet onto the frozen rusted fire escape and broke my wrist.

I’d hid the bruised arm for weeks until one of my mom’s boyfriends saw it and quickly made a game out of the noises he could muster from me as he swung me around the living room. I’d passed out and woke up in the emergency room downtown, my mom nowhere in sight, but the doctors took pity on me and put a cast on me. They whispered around my bed like I couldn’t hear them, but the moment child protective services left their mouths. I was gone.

I missed the freedom of the rooftop.

“Good job!” Ella clapped from below as my feet made contact with the first platform. “Keep moving, Josh!”

The way my heart reacted to her positive reinforcement was infuriating.

Everything after that was easy. It took me a second to get into the groove of things, but by the time I came to the last set of ropes I had successfully blocked out the noise. Todd was on my tail. He had caught up when I slipped two stages back, and I could hear his heavy breathing as he pushed himself as fast as he could go.

“You alright back there, Todd? You sound like you’re in heat,” I called out, stepping onto the rope. It was three ropes, strung out tight in a triangle formation. Two for my hands, and one to balance across to the final platform before the zip line.

“Fuck you, Logan, just mind your business,” Todd responded, his words cracking as his balance wavered.

“Don’t fall. If you fall, we lose,” I said, poking the bear.

“They’ll still find a way to make it your fault, Josh. They always will.” Todd meant for his words to be a funny jab, but he wasn’t wrong. They would find a way to make it my fault if we lost. It wouldn’t matter if I ran the course without a slip, what mattered was being able to ostracize me from the team in unimaginable ways until the end of my god forsaken life.

My foot slipped from the rope and my arms tensed around the ones above my head as I hung in the air, dangerously high. My breathing became ragged as my heart rate spiked and I looked down at the ground.

Shit, that’s high.

“Get your feet up!” Someone called out to me, but the fear of falling had me gripped tight and my arms felt like lead as I attempted to swing back to the rope. I wasn’t going to be able to pull myself up. I was going to fall here and embarrass myself, and then Todd would be right, I would be to blame for the loss.

The rope was taught, dangling from the small carabiner. The only thing stopping me from plummeting to the ground. There was no fire escape to break my fall this time.

“Josh.” Dean’s voice was quieter than the rest and not below me, but ahead of me. “Hey, tough guy, over here,” he said, and my eyes directed upward to where he was crouched on the platform. “I thought you weren’t afraid of heights,” he mocked.

“I’m not,” I said, aware how shaky my voice sounded.

“Then why are you trembling like a wet purse puppy?” Dean teased, and the smile that formed on his face that made my blood boil.

“Shut the fuck up, Tuck,” I growled, trying to pull myself up again, but my body was still too heavy and my will to survive this situation was dwindling.

“They’ll never let you live this down,” Dean said. "But by all means, give up. Show them how much of a coward you are.” He cocked his head to the side.

“Whatever fucking mind games—” I grunted. I used all my force to pull myself up and clumsily found the base rope with my sneakers. Dean rose with me, never taking his eyes off me as I found my balance and started moving again “—you think you're playing, they won’t work.”

“No games,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not my reputation on the line, Josh. I’m the golden boy–everyone loves me. You’re the one who needs to impress, and you weren’t going to do it hanging from a rope while Todd teased you like a sixth grade bully.”

Dean reached out and grabbed the collar of my sweater, tugging me roughly onto the platform. “Congratulations, tough guy, you didn’t die and you finished in fourteen minutes and thirty nine seconds.”

“I didn’t need your help,” I snapped at him, unclipping myself so the last instructor could fasten me to the zipline.

“If you think insulting you is help, Logan, we have work to do.”