Page 12

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KIT

DAY 7: UHURU PEAK TO MWEKA CAMP

18,000 feet to 10,000 feet

T he descent happens lightning fast. It took us six hours to reach the summit, but a little over an hour to get back to last night’s camp. The gravel skids under our feet—if Gerald were here, I’m sure he’d offer us a dire warning about this. We use climbing poles as we skitter and slide down the hill. It’s more like skiing than it is hiking, and it’s also more terrifying than anything we’ve had to do over the past six days.

Miller, as usual, doubts my ability to manage this and remains inches from my side. Now, however, I wouldn’t want him to be anywhere else.

Everyone’s moving at such varied paces that he decides when the two of us will take a break and pulls me off toward a boulder. It’s only as I sit down that I realize my thighs are shaking from the exertion. I never dreamed going down would be this taxing.

He hands me half of a chocolate bar. “You looking forward to getting home?” he asks.

I blink at him. I thought I’d be looking forward to it. I thought I’d be desperate for it. Weirdly, I’m not.

“I’m looking forward to a shower and a real bed and food that isn’t stew,” I reply. “But the rest of it…” I shrug.

He elbows me. “You’ve got your supermodel mother’s looks and your billionaire father’s fortune to spend, and the best you can do is shrug?”

I hitch a shoulder as I pull my balaclava off. Despite the cold, I’m now sweating. “My life is a Tuesday.”

His head tilts. “Huh?”

“Thursday, you’re excited for the weekend, right?” I ask. “You’re making plans. And then you get to the weekend. Friday and Saturday are great. Sunday night is depressing; Monday’s just drudgery. You don’t want to get out of bed. Tuesday also sucks, but you know that if you keep moving forward, it could get better. My life used to be a Thursday or even a Friday. And now it’s a Tuesday. I don’t hate my life. I’m just moving through it, waiting to get to a Thursday that never seems to arrive.”

His tongue slides over his lip. “So what’s Thursday, then? A wedding to this boyfriend you ostensibly love?”

I frown at him, ignoring the dig. “I don’t know. I don’t know if marriage will make my life Thursday again. Or kids. Or moving up in the company. None of those things necessarily feel like the answer, but if they’re not, what is? Do I just stay in bed and hope life will move forward for me?”

He’s quiet. Maybe he just agrees with my plan, though it seems unlikely. When does Miller agree with anything I’m doing?

“I like Mondays,” he says after a moment, partly unzipping his jacket. “I like Tuesdays too. You know why? Because I make my own schedule. I don’t have to go into a job I hate, so all the days are good ones. When I worked summers for my dad, doing that grind, I was miserable.”

I groan. “I thought you might take my analogy a little more metaphorically than you did. I’m not talking about the literal workweek.”

“I know. And I’m not either. I’m saying that maybe the reason you can’t escape from Tuesday is because you’re on the wrong track, because you’re living a life where Tuesdays suck. And you keep trying to make this one set of plans—marrying the idiot and taking over a company you’re not all that interested in—work. What if it isn’t where you’re stuck in this life, but that you’re not in the right life at all?”

My eyes fall closed. “I wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with my life instead.”

His exhale ruffles my hair. “Maybe instead of planning a wedding, you should be trying to figure that out.”

I say nothing, but it’s been hitting me more and more on this trip—how much I miss the way I felt with Rob. I’d thought I was ready to go through life without it and now, looking over at Miller’s concerned face…I’m not quite so sure.

* * *

Eventually, we reach Kosovo. The porters cheer for us as tears roll down my face.

It seemed like we were climbing to the summit forever, as if it would never end, and now it has…and I wish I had more time. Not a month. Not even a week. Just a handful more of these simultaneously peaceful-yet-anxious, boring-yet-thrilling days with him.

I laugh as I brush tears away, and Miller wraps an arm around me. “It’s okay, Kit,” he says, plucking the water bottle from my hand. “Get out of your clothes while I refill these.”

I dive into the tent and strip, then quickly wipe myself down and put on a fresh base layer. If I never have to wear another sweaty jog bra for the rest of my life, it will still be too soon.

Miller taps on the pole just as I’m sliding into my sleeping bag and I shout that he can come in.

“I assume you won’t be offering me a similar amount of privacy?” he asks, grinning.

“What tipped you off?”

“Well, the fact that you’re already in your sleeping bag was the first clue.”

I laugh and roll toward the outside of the tent. “I already got an eyeful the last time,” I reply, closing my eyes. “I’m covered.”

The clothing he’s removed lands just behind my ear. “You sure?” he asks, his voice a low growl, and I clench at the sound.

In a parallel universe, one in which I’m not nearly engaged, one in which he isn’t the love of my sister’s life, I’d roll over and take a nice long look.

And then I’d pull him down on top of me and it wouldn’t matter in the least that neither of us had showered in seven days. I’d welcome every dirty inch of him.

Repeatedly .

“Positive,” I reply, but my voice is wispy, threadbare.

I am not positive. At all.

When I hear him climb into his sleeping bag, I roll in his direction and tear up again. It’s just exhaustion making me so emotional, but it’s still embarrassing.

“You did it, Kitten,” he says, squeezing my hand. “I’m so proud of you.”

I smile. “I’m glad you were with me for it.”

“Me too.”

When we wake two hours later, we are still holding hands.

* * *

We’re the first ones in the dining tent. Miller smiles when the plate of stew is placed in front of me. “Tell me the first food you are going to eat when we get back,” he says.

I groan. “You know what I want? And it won’t make much sense given how cold it is, but I want an ice cream sundae. No, scratch that—a brownie sundae with ice cream and hot fudge and nuts and whipped cream. And a cherry. Multiple cherries.”

“You’ve come a long way from the girl who didn’t want to have any sugar in her coffee.”

“Right now, I would like to pour sugar packets in my open mouth,” I respond. “What about you?”

He closes his eyes. “A steak,” he says, running his tongue over his lower lip as if he is already tasting it. I picture that tongue in ways I should not and banish the image. “A steak, covered in melting butter, with a baked potato. No, a loaded baked potato, dripping in cheese and bacon.”

“Okay, that sounds good. What’s after that?”

His eyes sweep over my face. “After that, I think I would want something very different.”

My breath stops right in the center of my throat. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that he was referring to sex, and if I really, really didn’t know better, I’d say that he was referring to sex with me.

I shouldn’t allow my head to go in that direction, but it’s been a long day, and I am excruciatingly relaxed, so I allow myself to picture it—the way he would kiss, and the way his beard would be rough against my skin. The way his hands would roam, beginning at my waist and sliding lower, tightening around my hips as he pulled me against him.

And when that happened, I would reach for his belt and then his zipper, and when his jeans fell to the floor, I’d let my palm slide against him, rock hard, eager for friction.

That’s when he would take charge, kicking off the jeans entirely and lifting me. Carrying me to the bed, landing above me, every bit as eager for what comes next as I am.

Stacy walks into the dining tent. “I don’t know what y’all were thinking about, but it sure isn’t this stew.”

My gaze meets Miller’s. His eyes are burning.

“Ice cream,” I whisper at the same moment that he says, “Steak.”

I suspect he was lying too.

* * *

We return to our tent to pack up our bags for the second to last time. I want a bed and a closet and regular food, yes, but I’m already sad at leaving this behind.

He dumps his daypack out on his sleeping bag and so do I—we’ll need entirely different things for this warmer climb down to the final camp than we did heading to the summit. “So, are you going to call your dad tomorrow and admit you were wrong about everything?”

“Of course not,” I reply, tightly rolling up my filthy clothes and shoving them to the bottom of my bag. “He’s already way too confident about his dumb ideas. I’m not encouraging him.”

“Not all his ideas are dumb,” Miller says. “Like having you stalk me here.”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t actually believe that, right? There are eight routes and a million tour companies. He couldn’t possibly have known what route you were climbing or with whom.”

He shakes his head, pausing in his own packing to meet my gaze. “No, I don’t think he had you stalk me. I think he heard me talk about it and thought it might be just the thing to make you see the light.”

I groan, preparing to be annoyed. “And what light is that?”

“Kit, you say that your life is a Tuesday. Well, let me point out what your life consists of: first, a guy you never even mention, and you know why? Because he doesn’t factor into anything. You don’t need him, and you might care about him, but I don’t think you love him.”

“I told you I’m just a private person.”

“Bullshit,” Miller says, throwing a candy bar from his daypack onto my sleeping bag. Even when he’s arguing with me, he’s trying to take care of me. “And you know what else? I know the guy, and he’s not good enough for you. Not even close. You deserve someone who has your back.”

“I don’t need anyone to have my back. I’ve got my own back.”

“Yeah,” Miller says, “but you shouldn’t have to. And you belong with someone who wants to have it for you.”

I swallow hard. Miller’s had my back this week. He’s wanted to have it, too, even when he pretended he didn’t. And I loved that he was there, but if he’s going to wind up with any of the Fischer girls, it won’t be me.

“The other thing you haven’t mentioned all week is your job,” he continues, rolling up his sleeping bag.

“That doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people didn’t discuss work.”

“Do you know what Leah does?” he demands. “What Stacy and Adam and Alex and Maddie do? Yes, because they’ve all mentioned it. Over the course of seven days, you haven’t mentioned Fischer-Harris once . You know what you have discussed? Maddie’s epilepsy meds. Adam’s creaky knees. That growth on Gideon’s neck. You memorized everyone’s oxygenation and spent an entire afternoon pondering how repeated exposure to altitude might impact the porters’ longevity.”

I frown at him. He’s not wrong. I spend a lot of time, day to day, thinking about health. It fascinates me in a way that publishing does not. But not everything you’re interested in has to be a career. “I already told you. I don’t want the responsibility.”

He cinches the bag his porter will carry. “What that doctor said was right. The fact that you take it seriously means you’re one of the few people who’s really ready for the responsibility it entails.”

“So you want me to give up a cushy job with tons of money so I can go back to school for five years and take on way more stress for way less money?”

“No,” he says, motioning me off my sleeping bag, which he begins rolling up for me. “I want you to be full . I want every one of your days to feel like a Thursday rather than a Tuesday. And it seems to me that the track you chose back before you were a little broken by life is probably the one that will make you the happiest.”

I shake my head. “I’d be thirty-four when I was done.”

“You’ll be thirty-four either way,” he says. “Do you want to be thirty-four at a job you hate or at a job you love?”

He may, once again, have a point.

We get our stuff packed and begin hiking again, descending five thousand feet to Mweka Camp for our last night out in the wild.

I talk to Maddie on the way down about her MSW program. She responds in whispers, which is kind of sad because it isn’t something she should have to keep a secret.

But I guess we’ve both got things we don’t want to discuss aloud, because when she asks what the plans are for my engagement, my stomach sinks.

Miller was right earlier. I’ve barely thought about Blake over the past few days, which is telling in and of itself. What I’ve thought about, to the exclusion of all else, is Miller. And even if he’s off-limits, I now know I’m still capable of wanting someone so much that my bones ache with desire. Marrying Blake isn’t fair to anyone, isn’t fair to Blake especially , because if another Miller comes along a decade from now…I can’t swear I’d let him walk away.

“I think maybe I’m going to end it,” I tell Maddie. “I don’t have a lot of time. I know my mom’s planning something for late March that sounds like an engagement party, and I’m just not ready. I sort of suspect I’ll never be ready.”

“My brother will be thrilled,” she says, “but I’m guessing he’s not who you’re interested in.” She glances back at Miller, twenty feet behind us.

“I’m not interested in anyone,” I insist, but it sounds exactly like the lie it is.

Blake was the perfect middle ground between everything I wanted and everything I didn’t want. I was willing to compromise because it didn’t feel like I had a choice. I was willing to run the London marathon rather than something more far-flung. I was willing to move to the suburbs though I dreaded the commute. No one forced me to live this life full of Tuesdays. I chose it for myself. And Blake is the biggest Tuesday of all.

Haven’t you ever been so crazy about someone that the rest of the world seemed to pale by contrast? Miller had asked me that night in the tent.

The answer was yes, once .

And now the answer is yes, twice .

Miller shines so bright for me now that I can barely see anyone but him.

* * *

We reach Mweka Camp at dusk. We are filthy and exhausted, but it’s our last night and the air is so warm and oxygen-rich that I’ve got more energy than I’ve had in days.

We eat our final dinner together—surprising no one, it’s a mysterious stew full of unidentifiable ingredients—talking about the first thing we’ll do when we get to the hotel (“shower” is everyone’s answer aside from Maddie, who wants to go on social media).

After dinner, we pull our chairs out and sit under a canopy of stars because this is it, our last night, and it’s warm enough to stand the chill. We talk about what we’ll eat when we get home. Our favorite memories of the trip. What a dick Gerald was. The hardest moments of trying to reach the summit this morning, though it now feels like a million years ago.

And then Leah asks who brought booze and several nervous hands are raised, since none of us were supposed to have brought alcohol onto the mountain. Stacy expresses dismay that Alex and Maddie both brought flasks before admitting that she and Adam did as well.

“Let’s play Never Have I Ever,” suggests Leah.

“I don’t think I wanna play that with my parents ,” Maddie says.

“I don’t think I want to play with my kids,” says Stacy with a laugh, but she and Adam finally decide they’ll be the ones to turn in.

Kindly, they leave us their flask.

“Never have I ever given a blow job,” says Maddie.

Everyone drinks, indicating they have given a blow job, aside from Miller.

“What?” Maddie gasps at her brother.

He shrugs. “I’m open to experimenting.”

“Never have I ever cheated on someone,” I say.

Once again, Miller is the only one who doesn’t drink, and I’m a little surprised by that—not that I necessarily thought he was a cheater, but I guess that the speed with which he dumped Maren always led me to believe that he thought women were expendable once upon a time.

“Never have I ever received or given anal sex,” says Leah, keeping it classy as always. She then drinks and all of the rest of us drink as well. When my flask lowers, Miller is watching me, and he appears unhappy with my answer, which is ridiculous. He drank too.

“Never have I ever dumped someone by text,” I say, annoyed that he was judging me.

Miller frowns at me and drinks. Everyone else drinks as well, so I guess that it wasn’t quite as unusual and terrible as I’d thought it was at the time.

“Never have I ever been with two people at once,” says Maddie.

Leah drinks. Alex drinks and then, with a shrug, Miller drinks, and a fiery pulse of irritation flares in my chest, though I have no idea why.

“Never have I ever wanted somebody that I was not supposed to want,” Miller says, his gaze holding mine.

I hesitate. I am not going to drink. But there’s a challenge in his eyes, daring me to tell the truth for once. And the truth is that I have never, in my entire life, wanted someone quite this much. That just his gaze on me now is enough to make my every muscle tighten, to send a rush of heat between my legs. He could make me come in two seconds flat if I let him try tonight. He wouldn’t even have to remove the base layer. He could probably just roll on top of me and kiss my neck and I’d go off like a nuclear explosion.

I pick up my flask and take a sip. He picks up his, too, and drinks, holding my eye the entire time.

The game ends relatively quickly because we run out of things everyone has done, aside from Leah, who’s apparently done everything and everyone, and wants to add Miller to that list, judging by the way she kept eye-fucking him during the game.

“Hey, thanks for helping Gerald,” she says as we walk to the bathroom. It’s a weird thing to bring up, several days after the fact.

I shrug. “I didn’t do much.”

“We aren’t really a couple,” she says. “He offered to pay for the trip if I came with him. It was just kind of, you know, a trade.”

I am tempted to point out that this is essentially prostitution, but I don’t care enough to bother.

“Well, now you get the trip and a tent to yourself without putting up with him,” I reply.

“Yeah,” she says, looking at the ground and scuffing her foot. “That’s sort of why I stopped you. I just thought that since you and Miller are always bickering and it seemed like you guys were a little pissed at each other tonight, we could switch? I don’t mind sharing a tent with him if that works better for you.”

Holy shit. This girl’s “boyfriend” just got carried down the side of a mountain, and she’s already looking to fuck someone else. If I were a better person, I wouldn’t fault her for it, but I am not a better person and therefore, I do. “We’re good,” I reply somewhat coolly. “Thanks anyway.”

It comes out sounding an awful lot like “ Nice try .”

She gives me a small, tight smile. “Well, maybe I should check with him.”

“Knock yourself out,” I snap, walking into the bathroom. It’s just an expression obviously, but I am literally hoping she somehow gets knocked out before she gets a chance to ask. Because she’s a pretty girl and he’s apparently somewhat single...so why wouldn’t he go for it?

I return to the tent, pull off everything but my base layer, and slide into the sleeping bag. This time tomorrow I’ll have a shower and a soft bed and cell service. I’d thought those things would matter more than they do.

“Is it safe to come in?” Miller asks from outside.

“Suddenly, you care about that,” I reply acidly.

He unzips the tent, and I brace myself to watch him packing up his gear, explaining the situation. Instead, he removes his boots and his pants and then his jacket until he is stripped down to his base layer. And then he removes his shirt entirely.

Damn .

“What are we watching tonight?” he asks, sliding into the sleeping bag beside mine.

I blink at him. “Didn’t Leah ask you to share her tent?” I sound embarrassingly bitter rather than nonchalant.

There’s a glimmer of something in his eyes—a smile he is trying to hide. “Yes, she asked. I told her I was happy with the tentmate I have. I guess you told her the same thing.”

“I don’t know that I said I was happy necessarily,” I mutter.

He grins, and that dimple of his makes my stomach spin and swirl in the most delicious way. “Well, we’re both here,” he says, “so I’ll ask you again: what are we watching?”

I smile back at him, weirdly grateful that he has chosen me over her when I shouldn’t be. It feels as if I’ve spent a great deal of my life waiting for Miller to choose me, and tonight, he finally has.

* * *

For some reason, the camp is entirely deserted. The tents are ruffled by the wind, which whispers through the brush. It’s just me and Miller, standing ten feet apart. His dimple tucks into his cheek, and he looks both cocky and shy at once, such an unexpected combination in a man like him. When the smile fades out, I miss it.

I close the distance between us and press my thumb to the place where that dimple will exist when he smiles for me again. All his emotion now rests in his eyes, entirely focused on mine. He grabs my hand before I can pull it back, and then his mouth lowers.

There is nothing tentative about the kiss on my end or his. It is hungry and certain, something I know has existed inside me all along. It’s waited feverishly for a decade, and it’s not about to stop now.

He makes this sound low in his chest—a growl, a grumble—and then he is pulling me closer, and I need more and more of all of this. I need to feel his skin beneath this mountain of clothing that separates us. I want to be spread around him, glued to him, until I can’t tell where he ends and I begin.

The clothes, though. All these fucking clothes. I am twisted and tangled and kissing him, and he is kissing me and?—

“Fuck,” I gasp.

I’m in the tent, still in my sleeping bag, but half on top of Miller, who I have apparently molested, though with the way his hand is wrapped around the back of my neck and tangled in my hair, he seems to have participated fairly willingly himself. His eyes open, and he looks as astonished as I feel.

“Sorry,” he says. “Fuck, sorry.”

I roll off of him as if I am on fire.

“Don’t,” I say, winded with shock…and other things. “I’m clearly the one responsible for that. I was just having this dream and…God. Never mind. I’m incredibly sorry. Can we forget that happened?”

He exhales heavily, running a hand through his hair. Even through two sleeping bags and our thermals, I definitely felt how badly he wanted it.

“That must’ve been quite a dream,” he finally says.

Not if my life depended upon it would I admit that the dream was about him. “Yeah. I’m not even sure what it was about. Something from college. What were you dreaming?”

“I wasn’t asleep, Kitten,” he says. “I just didn’t realize you were .”

It punches all the air from my chest.

Neither of us utters another word.