Chalk

10

I finally relented and took Alice with me two weeks after we met Edward in the tomatoes. She bugged me about it every morning over the sweet peas until I got sick enough of her and broke, agreeing to let her tag along. I still hadn’t told her about Jasper and his glitter fetish, not entirely sure how the two of them would be able to find common ground. He was usually scratched and scraped and dirty, while she was never anything less than impeccable. Which was why it took me so long to give in, and I knew within an instant that I had been so so wrong in thinking that she might be able rein herself in for this.

She showed up at my door wearing a fucking ballet costume. Literally. All puffy moss-green tulle and a bodice sewn with sequins and silky flowers and lacey embroidery. She had her big-ass camera around her neck because, along with getting drunk and pretending she was in Paris, she liked to pretend she was a photographer too.

“You’re not seriously wearing that,” I sighed, eyeing her and wondering just what all those chalk-covered climbers were going to think of me if I showed up with her in tow. “You got that from a costume store, didn’t you?”

“I did not,” Alice huffed and fingered the flowers at her waist. The top looked like one of those corseted contraptions from the sixteenth century and curved around her like a vise, her boobs practically spilling out of the top. “It’s from Neiman Marcus and it was very expensive.”

“Are you sure you want to wear it out in the woods? You’re probably going to ruin it.” I tried a last ditch effort, but knew that it wouldn’t work.

“You speak as if you don’t know me.”

---

Alice disappeared the moment we entered the trees. She’d been darting around the entire way up here, her camera firmly attached to her face. I’d convinced her to at least wear her knee-high boots since she was going to be tromping through bushes and brambles. Between those and the leather jacket I shoved her into to hide half of her getup, she looked like a forest-fairy from the wrong side of the trees.

I let her go, hoping that if she screamed loud enough I’d be able to hear her, and went off in search of the boys. Jasper had been joining us more and more ever since I did that Lock and Key problem ‘on sight,’ as though it changed something about me. I still kind of had the feeling that Edward let me slide in order to claim the distinction, what with his pointing out the crux and all, but he told me that I’d found that finger hold all on my own and that only my tiny little hands could have used it like that anyway.

According to him, he couldn’t even get the tip of his pinky into that hole.

I found them at the Passion Pit, the ground littered in crash pads and both of them shirtless this time.

Win.

“You’re going to have to campus around that lip. Go up from the right side rather than left.” Jasper was pointing to a jutting triangle of rock at least twelve feet above the ground, right in the very center of the stone.

“What’s a campus?” I spoke up, both of the boys looking over at me. Edward’s face broke out into a brilliant smile and I tried not to glance down at his abs. Dear god, were 24-packs even possible?

“Just hands,” he winked at me. “No feet.”

I looked back up at the spot Jasper had pointed out and got scared simply imagining Edward dangling from his fingers for several feet of rock with nothing but a deadly drop below him. Before I could voice my concerns he was already at it again, Jasper stepping in behind him and holding his hands just inches from Edward’s back as he climbed, in case he fell.

It looked impossible. The holds were spaced far apart and barely qualified as holds in the first place. Even Edward seemed like he was struggling and it didn’t surprise me that no one had ever topped this particular problem, its name was beginning to make more and more sense. Jasper stepped back when Edward got too far out of his reach, but didn’t leave the edge of the crash pad, eyes trained on his friend the entire time. I wondered if that was what Edward did as I climbed, my ass in his face, ready to catch me if I fell, and my face flamed a little around the edges.

Edward got stuck in the crux, just like I had earlier, and cursed under his breath. Grumbling at the rock as though they were long-distance friends with some serious quarrels to settle.

“What’s up with this rock?” I asked Jasper, both of us watching Edward slap the granite in frustration above our heads.

“He wants the first ascent,” Jasper whispered.

“Which is?”

“No one’s ever climbed it before. He wants to be the first.”

Edward finally calmed down enough to move onward and we watched him find a good grip on the edge of that jutting lip of stone, his face serious as he fingered gingerly along the edge. The panic was back, a fluttering in my throat that made my mouth go dry, as I watched him prepare to rely on nothing but his fingertips. A flash of glittered green caught my eye and I turned away from the rock to see Alice step out from the trees, her hair a complete mess, trailing bouquet of flowers in her hand. The sunlight pouring through the trees caught her ridiculous outfit and made her blindingly bright for a split second as she passed through the trees, and I heard Jasper’s breathing go shallow beside me.

“Who is that?” he gasped.

We both whipped our heads back to the rock at the sound of Edward’s exuberant yowl, wrenching our eyes from Alice to see him on top of the rock with his hands in the air, chest heaving, dripping sweat.

First ascent.

And we’d missed it.

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