Page 9

9

KIT

DAY 5: BARRANCO TO KARANGA

12,800 feet to 13,600 feet

I t’s no longer raining when the porter wakes us in the morning.

I thank him, though I want to groan aloud, while Miller turns on the lamp.

Once again, the inside of the tent has iced over, but the tent isn’t bowing at all. At the risk of sounding suspicious, I’m not sure why my tent is withstanding the weight of the ice so effortlessly while Miller’s buckled.

Whatever. I sort of liked feeling him there beside me in the darkness, heavy and solid. It was oddly comforting, though I’ll never, ever say that aloud.

“Rise and shine, Kitten,” he says.

Ugh. That nickname .

“Give me a sec,” I reply. “I’m trying to figure out what symptoms I should feign to be carried back down the mountain.”

He laughs. “Imagine all the shit Gerald will talk if you do that.”

I throw my covers off. “Thank you for that motivational speech. Let’s go kick the Barranco Wall’s ass.”

We pull on multiple layers over the woolens we slept in, repack our gear, and go to the dining tent. The energy today is nervous and I see why: now that the rain is gone we’ve got a clear view of the wall, and from here, it looks as if we’ll be scaling a cliff.

“One of you is definitely not making it,” Gerald says, nodding at me. “The wall is hard as hell.” He’s generally full of shit, but I’ve heard about the wall prior to the trip, so I’m worried that, just this once, he might be right.

I sip my coffee and scoop some eggs I probably won’t eat—the altitude and nerves have taken a hit on my appetite.

“More, Kit,” Miller says quietly, sliding the fried bread my way.

“I was planning just to eat all the snacks you’re carrying up,” I reply.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,” he says, but his grin—that shy dimple blinking to life—says that he’d probably let me.

“Please be careful today,” Stacy begs of her kids.

“It’s not even supposed to be that bad, Mom,” says Alex. He grins at me, but it’s definitely been different between us since he learned I’ve got a boyfriend. Or perhaps it’s different because no one seems to believe Miller’s tent actually broke.

“There’s a portion of it called the kissing wall,” Stacy replies. “You know why? Because the trail is so narrow that you have to kiss the wall not to go over the side.”

My stomach drops, and the face I seek is Miller’s. I never wanted his to be the face in the crowd for me, the point of reference, the thing that reassured me, but it is and up here, he’s all I’ve got.

“ It’ll be fine ,” he mouths, his gaze holding mine. I’m not going to let you get hurt is what that gaze says, and I believe him.

This is how Miller and Blake are different: Miller says very little and means every word, while Blake tends to say things he doesn’t believe in the least. He’ll announce that every meal is the best meal ever, that your favorite comedian, movie, or sport is the same as his. Tell him your dream destination is Botswana, or Bolivia, or Bhutan, and he’ll tell you he’s dying to visit.

It’s not lying so much as it is agreeability and exuberance, but it makes it a little hard to believe him when we’re alone. When he tells me how much he loves me, but he’s also watching the game. When he tells me how beautiful I am, except he’s just trying to get me in bed or isn’t even looking at me as he says it.

If Miller said those things, they’d hit different. He’d look you in the eye as he said them. The words would sink so deep they’d engrain themselves into your very bones.

My stomach flips over at the thought in a way that’s pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. I don’t even want someone to like me that much because I don’t want to like anyone that much in return.

But God, a part of me wishes I did.

We return to the tent for our daypacks and set out. Gerald, as always, is loping off ahead. Leah no longer bothers trying to keep up with him—not that I blame her. I’d have made an effort not to keep up with him in her shoes.

Today, Miller stays close to my side. I’m not sure if it’s because he actually wants to be there or because he’s worried about me climbing the wall, but I no longer mind. I like the porters, and I like the Arnaults, and I don’t mind Leah when she’s not singing or providing fake health advice, but Miller is my favorite person to talk to.

There’s a certain degree of comfort when he’s near. It’s as if, even should things go wrong, they’d still feel okay if he was close. It should probably bother me more, but this all ends in three days. Blake wouldn’t begrudge me taking comfort in a friend’s presence, even if that friend is a really hot and presumably single male.

“Why did you decide to do this trip?” I ask as we progress ever closer to the wall. The air is cool and the rock-littered ground is relatively flat, but I’m already breaking a sweat in the bright sun.

He hitches a shoulder. “I have this thing. The six-month rule. Every six months, I’ve got to do something really hard—something I’m not even sure I can do.”

I laugh. “That sounds…unnecessary.”

He smiles down at me, but it quickly flickers out. “Our lives are too easy. Humans evolved by constantly being on the lookout for trouble…When your life is as relatively danger-free as ours, you start finding shit to worry about where there’s none.”

I take a sip of my water. “What do you mean?”

“Someone’s walking behind me for a block, and I start preparing for a fight,” he says, adjusting his ball cap to block out the sun. “Something goes wrong with a project and I begin picturing how the whole thing could fall apart, or a flight’s delayed and I worry that it’s going to be canceled.”

That just sounds smart. It’s worrying ahead that prepares you when things go to hell. “What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong,” he says, “is that modern life consists entirely of those small, meaningless moments. You’re supposed to be able to shut it off. You’re supposed to have times when you don’t have to be vigilant. Except when all the meaningless bullshit constitutes a danger, it means you’re never out of danger. You’ll see what I mean when you get home. For a brief period of time, none of that stuff will bother you.”

I want to argue that what he’s saying doesn’t apply to me, except maybe it does? I’m always worried about stupid shit at home, and I worried the whole way here—about the wine stain on my T-shirt, that my luggage wouldn’t lock, that some foreign government would try to take my sleeping pills away from me.

Even my concerns about that luxurious tent seem ridiculous now. There were armed guards patrolling that gated camp. We were pretty darn safe.

“So what’s your next six-month thing?” I ask as he steers me around a small boulder.

“I’m attempting to summit Everest in June,” he says. “I thought the acclimatization here would be helpful.”

My chest squeezes. “Everest…are you serious? Isn’t that, like, technical stuff? Ice climbing?”

He nods, guiding me around a rock I definitely would’ve tumbled over if he hadn’t. “I’ve done a fair amount. I think I’ve got the skills but a lot of it is a crapshoot, with the weather. And that’s sort of the point: it’s the danger inherent in truly not knowing whether you can pull something off.”

My breath stills at the image of him up there, attempting something that has killed so many people.

“You do all these trips alone?” I ask. “Like…you didn’t want to do this with a girlfriend or whatever?”

He grins, biting his lip. The dimple appears. “Is that your way of asking if I’m single?”

My eyes roll. “You wish. My sister is happily married now. You blew that one incredibly thoroughly.”

He blinks, as if it wasn’t the answer he’d expected. Maybe he just suspects it’s a lie, which it is.

“A trip like this,” he replies after a minute, “or Everest…it’s the kind of shit most of my friends don’t want to do. Most of the women I’ve dated wouldn’t be into it either, but it’s also a big commitment. You don’t ask a woman to plan something six months out unless you’re positive you’ll still be with her six months out, and I never am.”

“That,” I say, pointing at him, “is exactly why I’m relieved not to be single anymore.”

“You were tired of men not inviting you to Everest?”

I laugh. “No. I’m tired of guys my age wanting to sleep with a buffet of women until they hit fifty and beyond. You all turn into Gerald eventually.”

I hop from one rock to the next and his arm snakes out to keep me steady. “I’m not turning into Gerald, and I don’t want a buffet of women. I just want to find one I can’t wait to get home to.”

There’s something about the low purr in his voice, the steadiness of that hand on my arm, that makes a muscle clench tight in my stomach. Being the girl Miller West wants to come home to would be pretty magical. Being eager for someone to come home to you would be pretty magical too.

And for all the things I have with Blake…I don’t have that.

We are nearly to the wall now. It looks only slightly less vertical up close than it did from afar—the rocks appear carved to do maximum damage, smooth and angular, with virtually no vegetation or handholds to cling to if it all goes wrong. “I’ll be right behind you, Kit,” Miller says. “Don’t worry.”

I shake my head. “Actually,” I whisper, “can you stay behind Maddie instead?”

He raises a brow. “Her dad and her brother can look out for her.”

“Epilepsy can be impacted by altitude. We’re ascending pretty significantly today...I haven’t wanted to alarm them, but I’m scared about what could happen here and they’re not expecting her to have a seizure.”

He gazes at me. “That’s what you’ve been so worried about. That’s why you’re memorizing everyone’s oxygen levels.”

I shrug. “Can you just watch out for her? I’ll be fine. I mean, aside from being born without coordination.”

“Sure, Kitten,” he says gently.

The rock scrambling isn’t as terrible as I’d thought it might be, but the big daypack sure doesn’t help. Miller stays behind Maddie, mostly, but does come up behind me at one point to give me a small lift onto a boulder.

I thank him, pretending I don’t still feel his palm against my ass as I continue on.

There’s not a lot of conversation as we climb since we’re all single file and focused. I occasionally check back on him. He nods at me and says, “You’re doing great.”

Is there a parallel universe in which I could go with him to Everest? One in which it wouldn’t upset everyone in my world, and Maren and Blake wouldn’t consider it a betrayal? I’d only be there as a friend—ensuring the altitude wasn’t getting to him and that he wasn’t making stupid choices—but no matter how married Maren is, even a friendship with Miller would be a slap in the face to her—the worst sort of disloyalty.

We pass the kissing wall, which isn’t as terrifying as it sounded, and, at last, we’re done with the most intimidating part of the trip aside from the push to the summit. Everyone cheers. Leah and Gerald sloppily French kiss—my stomach revolts. The Arnaults hug each other.

I wish I could hug Miller, but that would be weird. He lopes an arm around my shoulders and gives me a quick squeeze instead, as if I’m his kid sister.

It isn’t quite enough.

* * *

We get to Karanga Camp by lunch, an early day for us. The views are astonishing but it’s too cold and windy to enjoy them. We change into dry clothes—this time, since it’s not raining, Miller gives me some privacy, though he claims he’s doing it so I “ don’t get too titillated .”

We spend the afternoon in our sleeping bags, watching 30 Rock on his phone. And the whole time I’m wishing we could turn it off and just talk. I want to know why he left the Hamptons the way he did. I want to know why he never could see himself getting serious with my sister and whether there was ever anyone he did get serious with. These are questions I probably shouldn’t ask.

“Why didn’t you join your dad’s firm?” I demand, reaching over to pause the show. He quirks a brow at me in surprise. “I mean, why suffer through it and then not use the degree? I’m assuming law school isn’t the cakewalk everyone makes it out to be.”

He laughs quietly. “I wasn’t aware people were calling it a cakewalk.”

I grin. “Maybe not. But your dad built them a stadium so you wouldn’t have to go to class.”

“Exactly. With the money he made defending human traffickers.” He shrugs. “I went to law school for the wrong reasons, and I left in the middle of my second year to start the company.”

I curl up with my head on my pillow. I never realized he’d left law school. “What reason? A love of money?”

He grins. “No, I still love money. But there’s this expression—rags to rags in three generations. You know, some dirt-poor ancestor worked himself to the bone, but a few generations later his descendants are so accustomed to being given everything that they think they don’t have to work and do ridiculous shit instead. I never wanted to be a lawyer, but I also didn’t want to be that kid. I didn’t want to aimlessly float through my twenties.”

I laugh. “I’m not sure I’d consider the creation of some incredible and, I assume, highly profitable, app to be ‘ridiculous shit’.”

He lies down and faces me. “Careful, Kitten. That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“True. And I haven’t looked at the app yet. I bet it’s terrible.”

He laughs again. “There’s the Kit I remember. I was just sort of waiting until I had an alternative, and then we got this child custody case at my dad’s firm when I was working there for the summer. The mom had taken her kids to the mountains and one of them got stung by a bee and reacted but had no idea where to find a doctor. I just thought how fucking terrifying that would be. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t some easy way to find the information.”

His face has come alive, talking about it; his eyes are brighter.

What opposite paths we’ve taken . He broke away from what he knew to find something that would make him happy, regardless of the risks.

And I gave up the thing that was already making me happy for no reason at all.

* * *

Dinner is stew and kebabs again. The altitude is killing my appetite, as is four straight days of eating the same shit.

“You ate almost nothing,” Miller says as we climb into the tent.

“I’m saving room for Chipotle or McDonald’s at the next camp.”

He grins and reaches toward his bag. “Guess what I brought?” he asks, swinging a box of Raisinets over my head.

I groan. “My favorite. How did you know?”

He glances away. “It was only ten years ago. I haven’t forgotten everything.”

“Are you going to share?” I ask.

“You’ll have to work for it,” he says, pushing the words out through his lips in a way that is undeniably sexual.

I blink in surprise and he laughs. “No, I’m not asking you to prostitute yourself. Just answer a question.”

I frown, suddenly wary. There are questions he could ask that I definitely don’t want to answer. There are questions, in fact, that I won’t answer, even when I pose them to myself. “What?”

“The guy you were so crazy about, before Blake. What happened?”

I grow still for a moment, then flop down on top of my sleeping bag. “Are you hoping I’ll say I broke up with him by text?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think it ended like that or you wouldn’t be this messed up over it.”

No, I guess I wouldn’t.

“He died,” I reply. “And I really don’t want to discuss it. You can keep your Raisinets.”

He places them on my sleeping bag. “No,” he says softly. “You’ve earned them.”