by Tracy Wolff
Panic overwhelms me, and I blurt out the most outrageous number I can think of. “One hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
I expect him to recoil in horror considering Indigo’s rates are outrageous at a hundred and fifty dollars an hour. But I underestimated Shawn because he just smiles like the cat that caught the canary and can’t wait to eat it.
Then he says “Done,” and my whole damn life flashes before my eyes. Because I. Am. Screwed.
Chapter 11
Shawn
I really wish I had a picture of Sage’s face right about now. Then again, maybe a GIF would be better. The way her mouth is opening and closing like a guppy’s is guaranteed to amuse me for days to come.
Not that I blame her for being shocked. It was absolutely absurd for her to ask me for a hundred fifty K for two and a half weeks of yoga lessons—which, I’m sure was the point—and it was even more absurd for me to agree to it. But one of the best things about being paid thirteen million dollars a year? If I want to spend one hundred and fifty grand for yoga lessons (and to get an exceptionally interesting woman to spend some time with me), then I can. That Sage was so sure I would say no makes the fact that I can say yes even sweeter.
“Excuse me?” she finally manages to sputter.
I can play with her a little, but I decide why be a sore winner. I got what I want—or will have soon, if things continue going as planned. “Who do I write the check out to? You or Soul Studio?”
“I…what…you…but—”
Not gonna lie. It’s amusing as hell to see her so lost. Still, I’ve got things to say, terms to lay down, and I can’t afford to get distracted by how cute she looks when she’s flustered. And she does look cute. Really, really cute. Her eyes go all wide, her cheeks go all pink, and she keeps shoving a hand through that sexy as fuck hair of hers, like somehow she’s going to find the answers if she just tugs on it hard enough.
“I do have some requests, though,” I tell her as I pop the case off my phone and pull out the check I put there this morning before heading over here.
“Requests,” she repeats.
“Yes.” I plop the check on the one corner of her desk that isn’t covered. “Do you have a pen I can borrow?”
“Pen,” she repeats again, and this time I swear she sounds even more flummoxed than she did a minute ago, when I told her I accepted her terms.
“Yes. Pen. So I can pay you.”
That must shake her out of her shocked stupor, because suddenly she’s springing up from the desk like a damn jack-in-the-box. “You can’t pay me a hundred thousand dollars for two weeks of yoga classes.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” I remind her helpfully as I finally find a pen hiding under the large blue binder on the corner of her desk. “And sure I can. It’s what we agreed on.”
“I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to get you to…”
“To settle for India or whatever that other instructor’s name is?” I start filling out the check, leaving the payee line blank for now.
“Indigo. Her name is Indigo.”
“Good for her. I’m still not interested.”
Sage shakes her head as she stares at me with eyes that have turned a light brown color. “I don’t understand you.”
“What’s there to understand?” I give her the breeziest smile I’ve got. “I need a yoga instructor. You are a yoga instructor. I want you to train me, and you want a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to train me. It’s pretty straightforward if you ask me.”
“Yeah, well, no one’s asking you,” she snaps.
“Fair enough.” I sign my name with a flourish. “If you give me your last name, I’ll make this out to you. Otherwise, I’m making it out to Soul Studio.”
“Can we just take a second and talk about this?” she demands.
“Exactly what I’m trying to do. Since your fee is a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for two and a half weeks—which is seventy-five thousand dollars a week—I figure that entitles me to house calls.”
“House calls?” She turns white at the mention of the seventy-five thou a week. “You want house calls?”
“Yeah. It’s obviously a problem for me to come here during the studio’s regular hours, and you said you’ve got another job besides this one, so I figure working at my place in the off-hours is the best way to keep this under wraps and still get me the PT I need.”
“I’m not really going to charge you seventy-five thousand dollars a week, you know.”
“Sure you are,” I answer, handing her the check made out to the yoga studio. “See? I’ve already paid.”
She starts to rip the check up, but I stop her by wrapping my hands around hers. “It’s fine, I promise. More than fine, because now I don’t feel like you’re doing me a favor.”
“Of course you don’t! I’m fleecing you.”
“It’s not fleecing if I think you’re worth it. And I do.”
“So I’m just supposed to take the check?” She still looks completely incredulous.
“You’ve already taken the check, so the hard part’s over. Now all you have to do is agree to show up at my house the day after tomorrow at around three o’clock for a session.”
“The day after tomorrow?” she queries, and of course now is the time—and that’s the question—when the shock wears off. “Why not tomorrow?”
“Because I’m busy.”
I grab the brochure she tried to give me earlier, scrawl my address and phone number across the top of it. “Thursday,” I say as I hand it to her. “Three o’clock.”
“I can’t do three. I have a two o’clock class. How about four?”
“Four works. Text me when you get there and I’ll open the gate for you.”
“Gate,” she says faintly.
“It’s a safety precaution. No different than at Hunter and Emerson’s place.”
“I know. It’s just…”
“Just?” I arch a brow as I wait for her to articulate her thoughts.
She gives me a self-deprecating little smirk that only heightens the attraction I’ve felt since I walked through the front door of this studio. I really, really want to kiss it off her face. But she hasn’t cashed the check yet, and I have no intention of tipping my hand this early in the game.
“It’s just I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.”
I grin at the Wizard of Oz reference. Old movies are totally my thing. “You want to know a secret?” I ask.
She looks wary. “I don’t know.”
I lean forward until my lips are barely an inch away from hers, which isn’t hard since they’re already right there. Damn, her height is a turn on. “You never were in Kansas. And neither was your little dog.”
She purses her lips, says primly, “I don’t have a little dog.”
“And Dorothy didn’t have a flying house, but that didn’t stop her from meeting the wizard.” I tap my finger on the brochure a couple times. “Four o’clock. Thursday. I’ll be waiting for you.”
I close the last little bit of distance between us, brushing my lips over hers in a kiss that’s just as sweet—just as hot—as I remember. And then I book it out the door before she can call me on the fact that the wizard was just a sad, scared little man hiding behind a curtain.
Chapter 12
I should have let Sage come over today. Should have taken Hunter up on it this morning when he asked if I wanted to go to the zoo with him and the kids. Should have found something, anything, to do today but stay locked in my house, staring at the fucking walls.
But I didn’t and now here I am, going out of my mind.
It never gets any easier. It’s been two decades. Isn’t it supposed to get easier?
Today marks twenty years since my mother and baby sister died, and the pain still feels brand new. Mos
t days it’s just a dull ache, just a little twinge now and again that reminds me that I’m missing something important—like an arm or a leg—even though I’ve learned to live without it.
Most days it’s bearable.
But today…today is rough. Rougher than I expected.
Maybe because it’s been twenty years.
Maybe because I’m watching Hunter’s niece and nephew struggle with the loss of their own mother.
Maybe because I’m just a giant puss who can’t get his shit together even after all these years.
Whatever it is, today I miss them like it’s been twenty minutes since they died in that car wreck and not twenty years.
The old guilt rises up, threatens to swallow me whole. If she hadn’t been driving me to my game, if we hadn’t been rushing because I’d begged her not to be late because I didn’t want to run punishments, if I’d just been more understanding of my mom’s crazy schedule and less a part of the madness, maybe things would be different. Maybe they’d still be alive.
The therapist my grandma sent me to when I was young told me I’d drive myself crazy thinking like that, and she was right because just going back there makes me feel like I’m drowning. If I sit here all day thinking about how my little sister would be turning twenty-three next month, I’ll lose my shit completely.
Fuck it. Just…fuck it. I have to get the hell out of here.
Jumping to my feet, I head to my exercise and gear room. I always keep a few backpacks ready to go in case I get the bug, but once I grab one I still take the time to go through it, to make sure I’ve got everything I need.
A stop in the kitchen for some snacks—a few packs of oatmeal, some granola bars, trail mix, a couple bananas and some water—and I’m gone.
Normally I know exactly where I’m going when I set out on one of these free-solo trips, but today I don’t know where I’m going to end up. I’m vaguely thinking Mount Woodson or Torrey Pines, but when the time comes to turn off, I just keep my foot on the gas and my Range Rover heading north.
About halfway there I finally figure out where I’m heading and exactly what peak I want to climb today. I probably shouldn’t even attempt it—I do my best climbs early in the morning, but I won’t even make it to Tahquitz Peak before noon.
Still, it’s where I want to be, and I’ve been doing this long enough to know that’s half the battle. Besides nothing in San Diego County is high or hard enough to give me much of a challenge, and that’s what I need today. Something to do that requires enough concentration that it’ll force me to think only about which handhold I’m going to use next or how to get to the next pitch instead of dwelling on my mom and Sarah and a bunch of might-have-beens.
Yeah, climbing probably isn’t my smartest move with my shoulder not quite back to normal yet. But I’ve got a clean bill of health from the doc—everything that should be healed is healed, so it’s not like scaling the side of a mountain is going to do any more damage to it. It might hurt like hell, but I’m okay with a little pain. If I wasn’t, I would have lost my fucking mind a long time ago.
Besides, it’s one more distraction and today I’ll take whatever I can get.
I’ve got music blasting as I drive—a nice little AC/DC, Metallica and Aerosmith mix that makes it impossible to think and has the added side benefit of getting me pumped as fuck by the time I pull up to Devil’s Slide. It’s close to a five-mile hike from here into Tahquitz, with a twenty-seven-hundred-foot elevation gain. South Ridge is an easier route—a little shorter and less elevated hike—but I’ve done both and I prefer Devil’s Slide.
I stop just long enough to check my supplies one more time—I may be an adrenaline junkie but I don’t have a death wish, no matter what Coach seems to think. No way I’m hiking in to Tahquitz, and then free-soloing it, without making sure I’ve got what I need.
It’s a good trail, a solid hike up that takes a lot of concentration in some spots and not so much in others. But my favorite part of the hike is the scenery. I spend most of my free time on the beach in San Diego, and while I love the Pacific, it’s kind of nice to be up here in the mountains with a whole different kind of scenery.
It doesn’t hurt that it’s a beautiful day. Back home it was just another June gloom kind of morning, with a gray sky and a definite chill in the air. Up here, the chill is even more in evidence but there isn’t a cloud to be seen in the bright blue sky and the visibility is prime. I can see for miles over the mountains, and it gives me yet another thing to focus on as I climb.
When I hike this trail on the weekends, it’s usually pretty busy. But since it’s the middle of the day on a Wednesday, I’ve got it almost completely to myself. I only see three people the whole time I’m making my way to Tahquitz—a couple that I pass about halfway to the peak and one guy coming back.
Which means I’m alone when I get to Tahquitz a little over an hour after I start the hike. Once there, I pause long enough to drink some water and eat a banana and a packet of trail mix. Then I change into my climbing shoes and strap on my chalk bag and helmet.
I brought a lot more equipment—rope, runners, carabiners, anchors—but now that I’m standing here looking up at Tahquitz, I don’t want to use any of it. It’s not an easy rock to climb, but it’s nowhere near the hardest one I’ve traversed, either. There are several pitches on the way up where I can stop if I need to, plus it’s a pretty clean climb. If I take the route up I used last time, on the north side of the rock, there are a lot of handholds, too.
Still, I think about it long and hard. I’m pretty much alone out here. If something happens, I’m screwed. Then again, I’d still be screwed if there were a hundred people out here with me. If I fall off this rock, I’m not walking away.
But, I know I can do it.
With that thought in mind, I clip on my climbing belt. Then I strap some small runners to it as well as a couple of carabiners and anchors. It won’t help me if I fall, but if I get stuck up there, these will get me out of a jam.
And then I start to free-climb. It’s about a thousand feet straight up a sheer rock wall. I know from experience that it will slow down at the top, but right now it’s fast going because there are plenty of handholds and crevices to grab on to.
I blow through the first pitch, not even bothering to stop and catch a breath. By the second pitch, I need to stretch out my hands, so I take a few minutes to catch my breath and give my fingers a rest. The view’s pretty awesome up here at close to seven thousand feet, and I take some extra time to soak it in. To let it soothe the turbulence churning inside of me.
My mom used to tell me all the time that it’s all about the journey, not the destination. But I tend to be an eye-on-the-prize kind of guy, whether it’s the top of a mountain or a Super Bowl ring I’m working toward. Which is why standing here on this pitch, looking out at this million-dollar view, makes me feel close to my mom in a way few things ever do.
Which is why I can’t help but give myself a few more minutes to just stand here. To just be.
But too long of a rest when you’re climbing tends to get in your head, tends to make you start doubting yourself. Tends to make you start wondering if you really can make it or if you’re just fooling yourself. It doesn’t take long before those doubts become a twisted kind of truth, a belief that you really can’t do it. That it’s crazy to even try.
I’ve never been a quitter in my life, and neither was my mom. No way I’m going to start now.
It’s that thought that gets me moving again. I remember from my last climb here that there’s a pretty sweet path up a few feet from where I am, so I carefully make my way across the pitch—which is only about ten or twelve inches wide in most places. Once I get to where I think it is, I start to climb again.
There are a lot of good handholds right off the pitch, and I make it up another hundred feet pretty quick. My shoulder is starting
to burn from the exercise—not in a dangerous, I-need-to-worry kind of way, but it’s definitely letting me know that it’s there. And cruising toward not very happy.
I’ve got another pitch about seventy feet above me and then it’s a clear climb to the top—which means at this point I’m about seven hundred fifty feet off the ground. Definitely homestretch time.
I’m in a pretty good spot right now—standing on two good footholds that are almost even, with the rock jutting out to my left far enough that I can kind of lean into it and give my shoulder a rest. But the wind is picking up, and I can’t afford to waste much time, just in case it gets worse.
Looking up, I find a handhold just a little bit out of reach, so I push onto my toes and make a grab for it with my left hand. It holds, so I use a low foothold to give me the boost I need to swing up and grab an even higher handhold. It holds, too, so I use my left hand to start searching for another place to grab. Before I can find one, though, the rock I’m holding with my right hand pulls out of the wall.
And then I’m falling, my feet searching for traction as I try desperately to find a handhold, a crevice—anything to grab on to and keep myself from plummeting off the side of this damn rock.
My left hand finally catches on the crevice I used to pull myself up a few minutes ago—about twenty feet down the rock. I grab on as tightly as I can, cursing as my feet dangle uselessly in the air. Swinging my right arm out, I manage to find another handhold and grab on.
For a second, I’m just hanging there, arms spread wide above my head and feet all the way off the rock as adrenaline rockets through me. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
My shoulder is screaming at me now, air billowing in and out of my lungs as I try to get my breath back so I can think. Which is easier said than done when my right arm is on fire and my left hand is slicked with blood from scraping against the rocks.
Shit. I’m strong enough to hold myself for a while, so it’s not a total disaster yet, but it sure would be nice if I could find a fucking place for my fucking feet.