Page 133 of Something Like Hail

Noah snorted. “I’d like to see you try!”

“Then give me aboost!”

He sighed and assumed the classic position,linking his fingers together to form a stirrup of sorts andcrouching so Harold could put his foot in it.

“On the count of three,”Harold said.

“Just do it now,” Noahsaid.

“Okay. Ready?Go!”

Harold leapt and Noah lifted with all hisstrength. As soon as Harold’s tennis shoe left his hands, he wincedand pulled away, worried that the foot would hit him in the face.He should have expected worse, because an entire body crashed intohim and knocked him to the ground.

“You all right?” Haroldasked, lying not far away.

“Yeah. You?”

“Uh, I think so. Harderthan it looks.”

“Your head or the jump?”Noah stood and brushed himself off. “Now can we try thebuzzer?”

“He won’t let us in,”Harold said. He sat up and pulled out his phone. “I saw a differenttechnique once. Let’s see… Yeah! Here!”

He stood and held out the phone. Noah tookit and watched a short video clip. In it, one person braced himselfagainst the wall like he was about to be frisked. Then another ranup from behind, jumped onto his shoulders, and leapt again to grabthe top of the wall to pull himself up.

“Uh-uh,” Noah said, handingthe phone back. “No way!”

“At least try it once!”Harold pleaded.

“Fine. Assume theposition.”

“I need to gofirst.”

“I bet you do!”

“I’m serious,” Harold said,unbuttoning the sleeves of his dress shirt to roll them up. “I’mstronger than you. Have I mentioned that I’ve been workingout?”

“Multipletimes.”

“That means I have themuscle to pull you up after me. Don’t make me beg. I will if I haveto.”

Noah shrugged. “Go ahead.”

Harold walked closer. Much closer! Then hedropped to his knees and looked up at him with big brown eyes.“Please? I’ll do anything. Anything at all!”

“You motherfucker,” Noahsaid, laughing and shaking his head. “Fine. One try! If thatdoesn’t work, we—”

“Ring the buzzer, I know.”Harold remained on his knees. That was hot, but when he lifted oneleg to put his foot on the ground, Noah thought of another scenariothat wasn’t at all sexual. Harold was down on one knee. And it madehim want to cry.

“Get up,” he said, taking astep back. “I mean it.”

“Okay,” Harold said easily.He stood and turned back to the wall. “We can do this.”

“You’re paying for anymedical bills,” Noah retorted.

“Yeah, yeah. Hit the walland spread ‘em.”

Noah placed his palms against the wall andstood with his butt jutted out, his legs splayed to each side tohelp brace for impact. It really did feel like they were attemptingsomething out of the Kama Sutra. The advanced edition. Then heheard footsteps running toward him and closed his eyes. In thevideo clip, the jumping man’s feet had touched down on his friend’sshoulders. In reality, Harold landed in the middle of Noah’s backbefore leaping again. That hurt, but the pain was brief, and Noahwas more interested in the results.