Page 16 of The Other Side of Paradise
“Uh-huh. We’ve already hazed you, you’re stuck with us now.”
He made a good point. Oh well.
Between the blowup at the beach and the search party, Brooklyn’s worried text, and Ryan’s seeming disappearance, I’dthought the situation was serious, but joke was on me, because when I showed up at the climbing gym that night, Ryan was having the time of her life climbing one of the lower-grade walls and overtly flirting with Brooklyn, who was openly staring at Ryan’s ass. And Ryan didn’t even seem to mind. I’d give the two of them four hours before they were fucking, by my estimate.
Also, Ryan was better than me at climbing. On her first day.
I stormed across the gym floor towards them, huffing while I carried my bag, and I said, “Jesus Christ, she just started and she’s already so good that I hate her.”
Ryan looked back down at me from where she was up close to the top of one of the smaller walls, her face flushed with exertion—or maybe from overt flirting with Brooklyn, I didn’t know—and she beamed and said, “Hi, Allison. Love you too.”
I laughed, standing under the wall and looking up at her. “I hate you, asshole,” I said. “Fall off.”
“I think I won’t,” she said breezily.
“Nice to see you,” Brooklyn said, stepping up casually next to me, practically glowing. She must have really been having fun here so far with Ryan… “Good day at work?” she said, and I ignored her, gesturing to Ryan.
“Holy hell, though, how long have you been here? It takes me like an hour to get anywhere.”
Brooklyn spoke up for her. Like a damn couple. “Just a bit,” she said. “She clapped her hands with chalk and leapt up onto the wall and started jumping around like she was born to do it.”
“I literally hate you both,” I laughed, and I slung my bag onto the floor close to the benches by the wall. Still, I was happy for them—Ryan clearly needed every nice thing she could get right now, and Brooklyn, well, at least she didn’t have to feel guilty about the whole Shane thing anymore.
I dropped onto the floor and fell into my warmup stretches, or at least as well as I could manage—physical activity wasnotmy thing, and even just the stretches tired me out. When Brooklyn sat with me, I lowered my voice and spoke just for the two of us.
“So everything’s okay now with her?” I said, voice carefully measured, and she shrugged.
“Her family are all douchebags, but aside from that, she’s doing well, actually.” She beamed, and she raised her voice, pulling Ryan into the conversation. “Not only that, but she’s agreed to help me with your mission.”
I was going to throw up. “What?” I blurted, and I hugged myself tightly, shooting her a look. “Oh my god, are you going around talking to people about that?”
Ryan let out a curse from the top of the wall, and she fumbled, falling off the wall and landing on the ground. She landed elegantly, feet-first with knees bent and softening her landing. Usually when I went down I just hit ass-first and called it a day. Ryan turned back to me with a big smile, clearly a little out of breath and flushed from the exercise, and she said, “Yeah, Brooklyn told me all about how you want to go around having tons of hookups with total strangers—”
“Fuck off,” I laughed, standing up. “IsaidI’d be curious totryit literallyonetime.” Still, it wasn’t as mortifying as I thought it’d be—like maybe there was part of me that felt now likeoh, I’m cool and have casual sex too, like a cool adult.
Ryan gave me a casual, breezy smile, and she said, “Me too.” I paused.
“What, you want to hook up with a girl, too?” I said, and she shrugged.
“While we’re laying it all out in the open, sure. Just while I’m here. I asked Brooklyn if she could help me pull off the same thing. So we’re in the same boat.”
She wasn’t looking right at me when she said it. I guess she was just as awkward about this as I was. That was kinda refreshing, actually.
Still, I wasn’t letting her off the hook. I narrowed my eyes. “So you finally admit to being gay.”
She gave me a deadpan look. “No, fully heterosexual. Just like every woman who wants to hook up with another woman.”
Oh, she wanted to give me attitude, huh? I gestured to Brooklyn. “There’s one right there,” I said. “Brooklyn would happily—”
Brooklyn cut in, her voice raised a fraction. “Allison, are you planning on climbing today, or just standing there talking about how desirable I am?”
I snorted. I guess she still didn’t want the dark secret of her wanting to fuck Ryan coming out yet. “Ew,” I said. “I don’t know which sounds worse. Okay, I’ll climb literally once so you can get off my back.”
But I guess it wasn’t too bad. Even though Ryan was better than me, which was desperately annoying on her first time doing it, she was still closer to my level than she was to Brooklyn’s, and I felt a little less like the one loser off in the corner doing loser climbs. We stuck to the same grade, Ryan obviously trying to show off a little bit, and I made small talk with her in between complaining about the wall. Or complaining to the wall. I just hated the wall.
All things considered, it was almost kinda fun. Mostly just because the two of them were easy to get along with. I’d still have rather done literally anything else with the two of them if I wanted to hang out, but it was cool.
And Brooklyn also casually dropped at one point that she was taking Ryan to her usual club Casablanca after this. Tohelp Ryan find a girl.I… was sure Ryan would find one. Seriously, a million dollars said they were fucking tonight.
