Page 27 of Winging It with You

Theo

Ituango Dam

Cauca River, Colombia

“I’d reconsider eating that if I were you,” Ellie says, popping out of nowhere.

Asher and I both freeze mid-bite of the burritos we grabbed from the makeshift production tent and set up shop to eat at an open picnic table.

I think I can speak for both of us when I say we’re both next-level starving and in desperate need of some actual sleep after Jo’s continued assault on our individual REM cycles.

And don’t even get me started on the way we’ve been zigzagging all over creation—each flight path and production destination more inefficient than the last.

“Why?” Asher asks with his mouth full, a big ol’ glob of sour cream on the corner of his mouth. His cheeks redden slightly when I hand over a napkin, miming where he should wipe.

I’m grateful for the interruption.

Lately, my thoughts have been a confusing swirl of our kisses, now plural.

It’s technically only been one.

One on camera and then an almost-one free from prying eyes.

I look over at Asher, who’s now wiping his face clean, and wish I knew what he was thinking.

He’s given me no indication what’s going on behind those eyes of his.

How much of this is just the game for him?

I could have kissed him in the stairwell last night.

For a moment, he looked like he even wanted me to.

But I promised we’d play by his rules. As much as I’m starting to hate it.

“Hey, I’m just the messenger,” Ellie says, putting her hands up defensively and pulling me out of my funk. “All I heard is that whatever they have planned for us today would probably be easier on an empty stomach.”

Ugh. Please don’t be an eating challenge.

“I’m not eating bull’s balls,” I groan, and both Ellie and Asher slowly turn their heads in my direction, a confused the fuck did he just say expression plastered across each of their faces.

“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen that one episode a few seasons back where they made all the contestants eat all that inedible shit? ” I ask, in full defense mode.

“I…” Asher starts, mouth wide open. “I literally don’t even know what to say after that.”

I shrug off his comment. “A first.”

Ellie laughs. “I’m curious, though—is it just bull’s balls you have an aversion to? Balls in general?”

Asher leans forward on his elbows, placing his chin on his fists. “Yes, Theo—do tell the class where you stand on balls .”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“Oh, honey ,” I say, mirroring his body language. “Only you know the answer to that.”

Well, hopefully he’s going to.

The flush that’s become my newfound Asher obsession returns to his cheeks and he leans back in his seat, quietly retreating from whatever game of chicken we’d started. A subtle smirk makes a timely appearance at the corner of his mouth.

“Um…ew,” Ellie says through a pretend and overly dramatic gag. “I’m literally right here.” She shakes her head, quickly turning on her heel before heading back in the direction she came from.

Jo, with a very grumpy-looking Arthur trailing behind her, makes her way over to us before either of us can carry this ballsy conversation any further.

She’s on a phone call and spewing out one-word responses left and right, but that doesn’t prevent her from eyeing our burritos.

She purses her lips in such a way that it makes me set down my greasy goodness immediately.

“Can you get them set up?” she asks Arthur, covering her phone with her hand.

“Here you go, guys.” Arthur holds out a pair of bright-yellow helmets, each with a small camera mounted on the front. “You’ll want to make sure that’s on good and tight.”

Asher takes one of the helmets and eyes me.

“Let me guess, you aren’t going to tell us what we need this for, are you?” he asks dryly.

Arthur makes a show of zipping his lips and throwing the invisible key over his shoulder. “You know I can’t do that,” he says, prepping the removable mics.

“You’re so elusive, Arthur,” I tease, and Asher and I pin the small devices to our shirts. “So mysterious and full of secrets.”

He responds with a scowl.

“All good?” Jo asks, pocketing her phone.

Arthur nods. “Perfect—we’ve got to head over to the staging area,” she says, turning and leading us toward where the rest of the crew is milling around.

Each time we step foot on one of the locations they’ve set up for a challenge, it’s like finding ourselves in some sort of temporary city.

Cords and tents and random Pelican boxes piled high.

They do a good job of keeping the actual challenge element a “secret,” but when we round another row of tent-covered folding tables, there’s no way for them to hide that.

“What is it?” Asher asks beside me. “A dam?”

But before we get a clear answer, Jo is pulling us each by an arm.

“Alright, here’s your mark. Please be safe and try to remember to smile!

” she chirps, and I’m pretty sure neither of us change our tired expressions.

But when I reach for Asher’s hand, intertwining his fingers with mine, his own smile makes an appearance.

Jenn and Ellie are only a few yards to our left. We seem to be the last pair in a long row of contestants at the base of what appears to be a massive concrete wall.

“Stand by,” a random PA calls out from behind us, and the hum of chitchat dies down as Dalton emerges from somewhere out of view.

It’s like they intentionally keep him away from everyone to ensure he’s happy and unbothered.

Like some moody show pony that can only come out when the attention is all on him.

Camera one on Dalton.

He takes his place in the center of the stage with a grimace and an impatient eye roll, rudely swatting away the hand of someone who tries to blot his overly tanned forehead.

We’re rolling in three…two…

And as always, the second the camera’s red light turns on, he transforms.

“Welcome to yet another exciting episode of The Epic Trek ,” he beams, and his smile looks more and more like a snarl in disguise. “Today, we’re taking our show to new heights… literally .”

Ugh, cha-ching…

Dalton looks up and both the camera operator and I follow his gaze. On some unseen and unheard command, sets of rope ladders are launched from their waiting places at the top of the wall, unrolling messily until they reach the bottom where we’re waiting.

Dalton resumes, turning his gaze back to the camera. “Each team will race up the side of the hydroplant behind us here. But as we all know, what goes up…”

Here we go.

“…must come down.”

Great.

As Dalton’s opening narration continues, several members of production step forward, handing Asher and me each a complicated-looking harness and motioning for us to put it on.

Through confused glances, fumbling hands, and multiple failed attempts to get strapped in, we’re escorted toward the base of the wall where our respective ladders wait, swaying side by side.

If I wasn’t fighting heartburn over the challenge waiting for us, my eyes would definitely be zeroing in on Asher’s very visible bulge thanks to how…formfitting…his harness is.

Arthur has stayed in our peripherals; his camera zeroes in on us as we both keep glancing up the wall. My stomach is in knots and I try to guesstimate the height we’ll have to scale—a couple hundred feet, if I had to put a number on it. Heights and me? Yeah, we don’t get along.

Never have. Not since my sister left me stranded in that old oak tree when we were kids.

We’d made a zip line deep in the woods behind the outhouse, and as soon as we made it to the top, she turned her ass right back around, leaving me frozen, clinging to the trunk of the tree until my dad had to climb up himself to get me down.

“And for our trekkers at home who have been chiming in online,” Dalton says, “we heard you loud and clear—which is why for this challenge, each contestant will be tethered to their partner so they’re forced to complete the climb as a team.”

An overcaffeinated PA steps forward and secures a thick, tightly woven cord with metal clips on Asher and me and then attaches us to our respective ladders.

“Contestants, at the sound of the buzzer,” Dalton instructs us, “you’ll begin your ascent to the top. The first team to successfully make it up…and down…will be safe from elimination this week.”

His comment is followed by a lingering and unnerving silence.

And then the signaling shriek of the buzzer.

Asher shoots unexpectedly fast up his ladder, and thanks to the tether between us, pulls me right along with him.

I match his pace to avoid any unnecessary tension growing between our harnesses—which, considering all the pretending…

or not…we’ve been doing, seems incredibly fitting.

Yet here we are, scaling some ridiculous wall like a pair of spider monkeys.

The rough rope of the ladder burns against my increasingly sweaty palms, and after what feels like a decade of climbing, I make the foolish mistake of looking down, officially and completely halting any progress we’ve made.

Asher looks back at me when he feels the rope pull against my deadweight. “Everything okay?” he asks, an eyebrow raised.

“Funny thing…” I say, through clamped-shut eyes. “We might just have a tiny problem here.”

“Huh?”

“A problem,” I repeat, clinging to the rope now. “I have a problem with heights.”

Asher climbs down a few rungs of his ladder so he’s now parallel to where I’m rooted in place. “I don’t get it, you’re a pilot. How is that possible?”

“Um, that’s flying.”

He nods in agreement. “Right…in the sky. Certainly higher than—”

“Hey Ash?” I cut him off, my eyes now snapping open and finding his. “You may or may not realize this, but that’s not exactly helping.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says urgently, putting a warm hand on my back. “What can I…? Do you want to turn around?”