Tank gave the kids a mock salute. “Nice to meet you guys.” He glanced over the waivers, and then back at Kelsey. “You adopt some kids while I wasn’t looking?”
Julia grabbed the edge of the counter and stood on her tiptoes. “No, silly, she’s our babysitter. At least for today. Tomorrow Hope is coming but Kelsey said she’s still going to visit us because we are the best kids ever. Our dad’s at work. Is your name really Tank?”
He smiled. “I don’t know if you’re the best kids ever, but you are pretty lucky, because Kelsey’s the best climber I’ve ever seen, and she doesn’t usually bring kids here. So you must be special. And no, my name’s really Ernie. But don’t tell anyone, okay? I think Tank sounds better.”
Matt elbowed Luke. “See? Famous,” he mouthed the last silently.
Luke scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever.”
Tank caught the tension between the two. He leaned forward on the glass countertop. “Did you know Kelsey’s climbed all of the fourteeners in Colorado?” he whispered, with a conspiratorial sidelong look.
Luke frowned. “What’s a fourteener?”
Tank put a hand over his heart. “You don’t know what a fourteener is? Where are you from?”
“We’re from New York,” Luke said sullenly. “As if you couldn’t tell.”
“We moved here because our mom got a new job,” Julia explained.
“I see.” Tank rubbed his chin. “Well, then you should know that a fourteener is a mountain that’s over fourteen thousand feet. There are only eighty-eight in America, and fifty-three of them are in Colorado. And your old babysitter has climbed all of them.”
“Spare me,” Kelsey said, glaring at Tank. She could just imagine what the kids would say when they saw Ross that night.
Not that she was thinking about Ross. Because she wasn’t. She’d stopped thinking about him days ago, when it became clear that “can I call you sometime?” was Ross-speak for “Thanks for the hot sex, but we probably shouldn’t see each other again.”
She’d considered not bringing the kids climbing today. Separating herself from the Bencher family was probably the best idea. Seeing them again was just prolonging the inevitable.
But then Matt had called to ask what they should wear, and if his dad should buy something special, and Kelsey could hear Julia in the background yelling in a funny, singsong voice, “Kel-sey, we miss you.”
And she was undone.
When was the last time anyone—other than Marie—had missed her when she left? When had she ever been the object of such undeserved, unrestrained affection?
“Can you get the kids some shoes, Tank? We’ll just boulder today.”
He nodded. “Of course. Sizes?”
While Tank and the kids exchanged shoes, Kelsey looked around. The gym was enormous, with one side dedicated to long, roped climbs, and the other to shorter climbs that could be done without a harness or ropes. One corner had climbs especially designed for kids, with the hand and footholds closer together, and shorter drops from the top.
A group of climbers waved to Kelsey as they walked in. She’d been coming here for years, sometimes twice a day when she was training for a big expedition, and had taught a variety of classes as well, filling in wherever they needed her when she was between trips. Besides the climbing walls, the gym had a workout area with a few pieces of cardio equipment, weights, and pull-up bars. In the evenings, it became a hangout out for a group of regulars. Kelsey had tried to bring Marie once, but her friend been overwhelmed by the bare-chested, muscley men and athletic women who sipped wheat-grass shakes between pull-ups. An hour later, she’d pulled Kelsey out of the place and made her promise never to bring her back.
Some things, she’d proclaimed, did not go together. Marie and climbing walls were two of them.
Kelsey had laughed her off but didn’t waste time protesting. Though she enjoyed Tank and the people she’d met at the gym, she’d never gotten particularly close to any of them. For them, climbing was a sport, a way to blow off steam or meet people. If they felt like knocking off halfway through a workout, they would. If they lost their nerve on dicey overhang, they jumped off. Kelsey didn’t have that luxury.
After getting their shoes settled and finding an empty cubby for their things, she led the kids over to the easiest climbing wall. She gave them a brief lesson on climbing—little things, really, about leaning into the wall, using their legs, and moving slowly from hold to hold—and then a much longer lecture about safety. When she was finally done, she surveyed her audience.