With Akara and Banks, I feel as mighty as the mountain I’m about to climb.
Concentrate.
While they watch me prepare, I realize I’m used to their protective gazes on me while I climb. Having them here begins to calm me. My pulse eases, and the rush of the river, the chirp of birds, and rustle of leaves all fall silent.
It’s just me and the rock…and my dad.
I smile up at the crag. Imagining him in his teens, using his raw strength to free-solo to the fucking top, and here I am, years later.
“I’ll see you up there, Dad,” I whisper, my heart filling. “I just have to practice first.”
With another measured breath, I see the path I need to take like a map in the natural stone. Smiling, I grip the rough edge.
And I ascend.
20
BANKS MORETTI
Covertly, I pop three Advil in my mouth while Akara and I watch Sulli’s first day of climbing. The pain meds aren’t for my internal oohs and ahhs and Mary, Mother of Gods seeing Sulli do death-defying shit. It’s just for the thunder-fucking headache.
Though, watching her climb is incredible and agonizing. Her strength and agility are on full display as she scales the rock over and over. Nothing I could accomplish.
Right now, the harder pill to swallow is knowing I can’t do anything for her. It’s all Sulli up there, and I can only protect her once she’s back on solid ground.
The upside: she’s still climbing with rope.
She’ll be practicing for a while, until she’s positive she can climb without safety gear.
Akara is beside me. Quiet. He hasn’t said anything since this morning when we kissed her. With Sulli in the air and us on the ground, we only have each other’s company. Cell service went to hell once we left our campsite, and our comms connection was lost too.
Akara has been sitting. Leaning against a flat rock that juts up like an arrowhead.
I can’t sit down.
My arms are crossed. My nerves at an all-time high watching her attempt the same portion of cliff over and over again.
She leaps between one protruding rock to another, a cavernous hole separating them. Each time she tries, she misses the second handhold, and her rope catches her before she falls.
“She’s gotta do that without a harness,” I whisper more to myself.
Akara must hear because he says, “It’s not a big gap. She’s done larger. I think she’s just unfocused.”
I uncross my tensed arms. “So we’re distracting her?”
“Probably,” he says, but he doesn’t seem worried. “She’s careful. She won’t free-solo until she’s ready.” His confidence in her—and lack of blatant outright fear—reminds me how much he’s seen her climb over the years. How much he’s probably watched Sulli’s dad and sister also scale mountains.
I’ve only just recently tagged along in the past year—when Akara created his security firm and he kept putting me on her detail.
“Sit down,” Akara suggests. “It’s always worse if you don’t relax.”
Taking his recommendation, I sit back against the same rock beside him. We’re almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and I flinch when she falls again. Rope catches her and she gingerly swings back to the same handhold.
“The Rooster has a girlfriend,” Akara suddenly says.
“You’re still keeping tabs on him?”
Ever since Sulli broke up with Will Rochester, Akara has put the shitbag on his watch list. Disgruntled exes coming back into the famous ones’ lives isn’t a far reach.
Jane’s ex-friends-with-benefits did even worse than tiptoe into her sphere again. Nate, the sick fuck, stalked Maximoff and then created a scene out of The Shining in his bedroom with animal’s blood.
Wasn’t around to see it.
My brother was.
Thatcher wouldn’t talk much about what he saw—much like I don’t care to rehash Sneakers, the stalker that I encountered with his dick out in Jane’s bedroom.
Sulli’s ex is probably less likely to do something sadistic, but I wouldn’t put it past him to say mean shit online. How he went around Sulli’s back to tell Akara not to flirt with her was pure coward shit. He could’ve just talked to her about it.
Respected her enough to have a conversation than play games.
Even thinking about that rich turd is like listening to two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. Annoying as hell.
“I’m just keeping him on my radar for right now,” Akara says to me, our eyes on Sulli. “He posted on Instagram.”
“When?” I pull out my phone. No service.
“Yesterday. I would’ve told you, but I couldn’t really figure out how to segue into that after the