Page 33 of Honeymoon Phase
I wonder what it would take to get a rescue team up here and help me down? Fuck, they can’t do that. I have to figure this out myself. Which means I have two choices: continue climbing and risk freaking out at the top and being unable to come down. Or bitch out and start descending now and embarrass myself in front of my town and my family.
As I fight to catch my breath, I hear my damn niece’s voice in my head.If you love her then you have to go for it, Luke. Love is stronger than pride.
I inhale a deep breath and glance down again, spotting my brothers all down there staring up at me. Damn they worked so hard to help me get here today. I can’t give up now.
As I dig deep for the strength to move my foot up, it’s then that I hear my dad’s voice creeps in my head.“Get your ass up that pole, Luke. We don’t have all day.”
That brings a smile to my face. I miss his voice. I miss his presence. God, what I wouldn’t give to hear what he thinks of all this. Before I know it, my body is moving again and I’m climbing, up, up, and up. I don’t know how long it takes. Timesort of moves strangely when you’re suspended a hundred feet in the air and all you can hear is the deafening wind. But when I ring that bell, my adrenaline spikes and I start skating down that pole faster than I could have ever imagined. My gloves squeeze hard on the rope to hold tension as my feet move impossibly fast in and out of the pole. The crowd cheers loudly and I feel victory on the tips of my fingers when suddenly, my spike misses a notch.
My heart jumps into my throat and I feel myself falling, sliding down the fucking pole, my chin scraping against the rough wood as I go, unable to stop my descent. I’m like a fucking car crash happening in slow motion but everything is a blur.
I’m airborne for what feels like a whole goddamn minute before my back strikes something hard. My body convulses when all the wind gets knocked out of me and I fight to catch my breath, my whole body seizing up in a desperate attempt to save my own fucking life.
Murmured voices are loud all around me and I blink up, seeing only the blue Colorado sky and by the time my body finally stops torturing me and lets me take a full breath in, my vision is clouded by the view of my brothers’ bearded faces.
“Holy fuck, Luke, are you okay?” Calder asks, grabbing my face and yanking it toward him.
“Ow,” I cry, my body contorting weirdly on the mat below me. This mat looked a lot softer when the other competitors landed on it.
“You skidded down half the pole, Luke. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Didn’t do that on purpose,” I croak, feeling every muscle in my body weep in agony.
“Is anything broken?” Wyatt’s deep voice cuts in.
I wince and shake my head. “Don’t think so.”
“God, you’re an idiot,” Calder says with a laugh.
“Was I fast?”
“No, not at all,” Calder replies, laughing some more.
“Really?” I squint to look up at all my brothers’ faces to confirm that Calder isn’t fucking with me.
Max injects an opinion next. “You were fast when you fell maybe, but the climb took ages. Some of the audience got bored and went home. Mom took Ethan to get a pretzel.”
“Seriously.”
“But it got interesting when you dropped at the end,” Calder says, looking down at me with wide, eager eyes. “Did you mean to do that?”
“No, I didn’t. Why, did it look intentional?”
“No, not at all,” Wyatt replies curly. “You fell like a rock.”
“My chin hurts.”
“Yeah, you’re bleeding pretty good,” Max eyes it nervously, looking like he could puke at the sight of it. “The EMT is coming over now. Can you feel your legs?”
I wiggle my legs and nod. “Yeah, I can.”
“Good,” Calder huffs. “I really don’t want to have to come back and work for Wyatt again.”
Wyatt cuts Calder a menacing look and suddenly my brothers are all shoved out of the way and a small hand whacks me hard on the chest that was just deprived of oxygen for a few seconds.
“Are you happy, you fucking idiot?”
My brows furrow. “Not especially. I think I’m bleeding.”
