Page 30 of My Favorite Bad Decision
He smiles down at me, but it quickly flickers out. “Our lives are too easy. Humans evolved by constantly being on the lookout for trouble…When your life is as relatively danger-free as ours, you start finding shit to worry about where there’s none.”
I take a sip of my water. “What do you mean?”
“Someone’s walking behind me for a block, and I start preparing for a fight,” he says, adjusting his ball cap to block out the sun. “Something goes wrong with a project and I begin picturing how the whole thing could fall apart, or a flight’s delayed and I worry that it’s going to be canceled.”
That just sounds smart. It’s worrying ahead that prepares you when things go to hell. “What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong,” he says, “is that modern life consists entirely of those small, meaningless moments. You’re supposed to be able to shut it off. You’re supposed to have times when you don’thaveto be vigilant. Except when all the meaningless bullshit constitutes a danger, it means you’re neveroutof danger. You’ll see what I mean when you get home. For a brief period of time, none of that stuff will bother you.”
I want to argue that what he’s saying doesn’t apply to me, except maybe it does? I’malwaysworried about stupid shit at home, and I worried the whole way here—about the wine stain on my T-shirt, that my luggage wouldn’t lock, that some foreign government would try to take my sleeping pills away from me.
Even my concerns about that luxurious tent seem ridiculous now. There were armed guards patrolling that gated camp. We were pretty darn safe.
“So what’s your next six-month thing?” I ask as he steers me around a small boulder.
“I’m attempting to summit Everest in June,” he says. “I thought the acclimatization here would be helpful.”
My chest squeezes. “Everest…are you serious? Isn’t that, like, technical stuff? Ice climbing?”
He nods, guiding me around a rock I definitely would’ve tumbled over if he hadn’t. “I’ve done a fair amount. I think I’ve got the skills but a lot of it is a crapshoot, with the weather. And that’s sort of the point: it’s the danger inherent in truly not knowing whether you can pull something off.”
My breath stills at the image of him up there, attempting something that has killed so many people.
“You do all these trips alone?” I ask. “Like…you didn’t want to do this with a girlfriend or whatever?”
He grins, biting his lip. The dimple appears. “Is that your way of asking if I’m single?”
My eyes roll. “You wish. My sister is happily married now. You blew that one incredibly thoroughly.”
He blinks, as if it wasn’t the answer he’d expected. Maybe he just suspects it’s a lie, which it is.
“A trip like this,” he replies after a minute, “or Everest…it’s the kind of shit most of my friends don’t want to do. Most of the women I’ve dated wouldn’t be into it either, but it’s also a big commitment. You don’t ask a woman to plan something six months out unless you’re positive you’ll still be with her six months out, and I never am.”
“That,” I say, pointing at him, “is exactly why I’m relieved not to be single anymore.”
“You were tired of men not inviting you to Everest?”
I laugh. “No. I’m tired of guys my age wanting to sleep with a buffet of women until they hit fifty and beyond. You all turn into Gerald eventually.”
I hop from one rock to the next and his arm snakes out to keep me steady. “I’m not turning into Gerald, and I don’t want a buffet of women. I just want to find one I can’t wait to get home to.”
There’s something about the low purr in his voice, the steadiness of that hand on my arm, that makes a muscle clench tight in my stomach. Being the girl Miller West wants to come home to would be pretty magical. Being eager for someone to come home to you would be pretty magical too.
And for all the things I have with Blake…I don’t have that.
We are nearly to the wall now. It looks only slightly less vertical up close than it did from afar—the rocks appear carved to do maximum damage, smooth and angular, with virtually no vegetation or handholds to cling to if it all goes wrong. “I’ll be right behind you, Kit,” Miller says. “Don’t worry.”
I shake my head. “Actually,” I whisper, “can you stay behind Maddie instead?”
He raises a brow. “Her dad and her brother can look out for her.”
“Epilepsy can be impacted by altitude. We’re ascending pretty significantly today...I haven’t wanted to alarm them, but I’m scared about what could happen here and they’re not expecting her to have a seizure.”
He gazes at me. “That’s what you’ve been so worried about. That’s why you’re memorizing everyone’s oxygen levels.”
I shrug. “Can you just watch out for her? I’ll be fine. I mean, aside from being born without coordination.”
“Sure, Kitten,” he says gently.
