Page 51 of Winging It with You

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 ofThe 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 oldoak 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, butthat’snot exactly helping.”

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

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