Still, it’s all I have to hold onto, except for the memories of how good she felt beneath me, in my arms, and on my tongue.
And yes, I fucked up.
Fucked up big time.
The question is, can I make her see it wasn’t her? That as clichéd as it sounds, it really was me. About me, and my need to succeed. About my own disappointment. About coming down off a high I’d been on for two years and falling so hard, I didn’t know when I hit the ground.
“Well?” Cam smirks.
Snapping out of it, I open my door and look over at him with a grin. “When was the last time you climbed, or got in the ring?”
I don’t bother to wait for an answer because I already know it’s been years. Me, on the other hand, every weekend before my fall from Wall Street I was either climbing or at the boxing gym.
So who do you think is going to show whom what?
Cam might be one of those strong-shouldered dudes with a cocky smile who could definitely break your wrist arm-wrestling if he wanted to. The thing I think he has forgotten is that when I’m sober, I’m faster than him.
Always have been.
Long soul-searching talks forgotten, I’m out to show him I’m back, and boy am I back.
As soon as he turns the corner to the front of his Jeep, I grab hold of him around the neck, jerk him backward, and dig my knee right into his spine. His arms flail and he tries to roll me over his back. Not happening. I apply a little more pressure and hear him grunt.
“Who did it?” I hiss into his ear.
“Did what?” Cam gags for air.
I hold tighter as he twists. “Shot down the Knicks in the 1995 playoffs.”
There’s a twist, a useless attempt to kick my legs out from under me, and even an elbow to the gut. Yet, I still have him in my hold. “Reggie Miller, with back-to-back three-pointers,” he finally gasps.
Releasing the vise hold I have around his neck, Cam falls to one knee on the grass, sucking in air and trying to get his breath back. When he does, he looks up at me. “Fucker.”
“You’re lucky,” I say, grinning, and then put my hand out to help him up. “I was going to ask who shot the craziest game-winning buzzer-beating shot ever, and I bet that would have taken you a lot longer to remember.”
“You know, you really are a sight for sore eyes?” I turn to see my brother leaning against the handlebars of his motorcycle, just shaking his head.
“Yeah, well you’re making my eyes sore now.”
Brooklyn joins us and the three of us laugh, the way we did whenever we all got together growing up, and then we all lock hands, ghetto-style.
Once inside, though, we get serious.
Wearing a pair of Brooklyn’s nylon cargo pants and one of his Dri-FIT T-shirts because all my shit was thrown, like literally, into the back of Cam’s Jeep, I use my hands and feet to find the holds.
I move upward at a pretty good pace considering the amount of alcohol I most likely still have left in my system. The rope tied to the harness around my waist is under the control of my belay partner, who just so happens to be Cam right now.
Hope he doesn’t let me fall if I misstep.
Nah, just kidding; he is belay certified.
He wouldn’t to that.
Would he?
As I ascend the wall, I create slack with the rope, and Cam does his job keeping it tight.
Brooklyn is on a route beside me. “You’re slow today, big brother.”
I shoot him the finger.
He laughs.
“So how’s it been living with a chick?” I ask casually, probing a little for information without making it look like I am.
His fingers tighten around the handle. “Good, man, but I have to say it’s not without its complications.”
I reach a little higher, my body going live wire. “Oh yeah, in what way?” I mentally prepare myself for what he is about to say.
He rises a little and peers down. “Ever since New Year’s she’s been really fucking moody. Always making comments about the chicks I’m hanging out with and never going out anymore. You know, I think she might have a crush on me.”
Jealousy swims in my veins. I look up, trying to keep my temperament at bay. “By the looks of things last night on that table, it’s you, little brother, that has the crush.”
“Me, hell no! That’s just the way we roll. Besides, she is not my type at all. A little too headstrong, if you know what I mean?”
It takes everything I have to not burst out laughing. And I mean everything. “Yeah, chicks are complicated,” I say straight-faced, and then turn my attention back to the climb with the biggest fucking smile on my face. Talk about wires being crossed. Neither of them actually likes the other and both think they do.
It truly is a laugh-out-loud moment.