Leaving Everest

by Westfield, Megan

  Over at the other table, the A-Team was even rowdier than usual, and Claudia and her brother, Juan, had hijacked Doc’s grunge music and replaced it with Latin music on the karaoke machine. A few of their Cuban teammates had gotten up to sing and dance.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dad walk into the big top.

  “Touch of empty-nest syndrome, Greg?” Doc yelled from the kitchen.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, giving him a hug.

  “How’s everything going?”

  “Great.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt. I’ll catch you in a bit, okay?” He shook hands with Luke before going over to the kitchen where Doc dished him up a plate of eggplant.

  Most of A-Team and some of the UW clients were up dancing with the Cubans now. Ernesto, another of the Walkabout crew, dragged a protesting April up to dance.

  As I sat back down, I scooted my chair closer to Luke, trying to get him to turn toward me. I was testing the waters, looking for an extra smidge of confirmation to make me braver. I scooted even closer. Our pants brushed. That got his attention.

  “What did your other email say?” I asked. “The one you didn’t send.”

  Once again, he held my eyes. Heat spread through me like an Etch A Sketch wand.

  “You really want to know?” His voice wobbled, like he was nervous.

  “Yes.”

  He leaned in to whisper in my ear, but we both retracted immediately. Whispering would attract too much attention in a tent full of gossip-starved clients.

  Instead, he grabbed an adult coloring sheet and a blue marker from the caddy in the middle of the table. He flipped it over to the blank side and wrote something. He folded the sheet twice, hesitating briefly before slipping it under the table to me.

  The paper was crisp in my fingers as I unfolded it.

  My stomach did a free fall as I read his words.

  My heart still belongs to you.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Before I could respond, there was an arm lifting me out of my chair and pulling me onto the makeshift dance floor. It was Juan. I quickly shoved Luke’s message into my pocket.

  I’d never Latin danced in my life, but it didn’t seem to matter, with Juan directing me like a life-sized doll.

  “You’re a natural!” Juan yelled over the music.

  My mind remained with Luke.

  My heart still belongs to you.

  I could have broken free of Juan and gone back to Luke, but I didn’t. Not yet.

  Ever since our exchange at the puja ceremony, I’d been looking for certainty. I wanted to be certain that he was available, certain he was interested. And now I had it. But that next step! That’s what I wasn’t certain about now. What to do or how to go about it. Before this had been testing. Flirtations. But to take action? No matter what, it would change things, and it would put Luke and me in a dangerous position, given that any sort of relationship between two guides was forbidden.

  “Loosen up!” Juan said, giving me a playful shake.

  I thought about Luke and how he’d been giving me small clues all along, but even that moment in the pantry with the bracelet hadn’t been enough to truly make me believe it. Luke had always been the bolder and braver of the two of us, and tonight he’d had to literally spell out what his feelings were for me.

  He’d written it out and…I hadn’t responded.

  I shot a glance in his direction, but he wasn’t there anymore. He wasn’t anywhere in the tent.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Juan, wiggling from his grip.

  I went straight for the door. Luke wasn’t outside, either.

  I didn’t have my headlamp, but the big top’s skylights were bright enough to dimly light the way to the UW section. God it was cold out here in short sleeves!

  I shook his tent with our signature one-two shake.

  No response.

  “Luke,” I whispered.

  Still nothing. My chest grew tight with panic. Did he think I’d blown him off?

  After waiting a minute, I repeated his name, this time louder in case he had his earbuds on.

  The UW Huskies pennant flapping from the top of his tent was my only response. Where could he possibly be?

  Not knowing what else to do, I dejectedly started back to the warmth of the big top. I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t analyze it. I just had to go with it.

  “Emily,” Luke said. He was standing in the door of the UW team tent where I hadn’t even thought of looking.

  All doubt was gone. My heart pounded out of my chest.

  He stepped outside as I walked over to him. I was so caught by the longing in his eyes that I misjudged the distance and wound up practically on top of him, and then his hands were on my face pulling me the rest of the way in.

  There wasn’t time to think about what I was doing, about how all the mechanics of kissing your best friend would work. As soon as our bodies connected, our lips were together, and it was just him and me, kissing with the exhilaration of climbing through a crux even as your mind is telling you that you won’t be able to do it.

  We pulled away from each other slightly. My breaths were short and fast. I just kissed Luke. My Luke.

  He nudged me around the corner to the dark side of the tent, and I didn’t have a chance to have any other thoughts because he was kissing me again, and I was kissing back like I needed him to live. Like it hadn’t ever been any other way between us. His mouth opened, and our tongues slid together. He tasted like the British wintergreen gum he always chewed.

  He slid his hands down my shoulders until his warm palms were directly against the bare skin of my upper arms. Startled, he squeezed them and stopped kissing me.

  “You’re not wearing a coat.”

  I shook my head.

  He unzipped his down jacket and pulled me in tight. I wrapped my arms around his waist as he zipped the jacket up my back. He pulled the knit hat off his head and put it on my head instead.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I had stupidly been outside in sub-zero temperatures in nothing but a T-shirt, and he hadn’t chided me about it. Further, he was sharing his jacket and hat, which was ultra-chivalrous. These things somehow struck me as more odd than us kissing, and it made me shy.

  As if sensing this, he tightened his arms around me and twisted us so we both had a view of the sky. In the Himalayas, you’re ten-thousand feet closer to the stars than anywhere else in the world, and tonight I felt that more than I ever had before. The netting of stars was a canopy just for us, exactly as described in one of my favorite poems.

  …heaven’s embroidered cloths,

  Enwrought with golden and silver light,

  The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

  Of night and light and the half-light…

  The poem had been part of a sophomore-year English assignment, and Luke and I had been hanging out in my tent when I read it for the first time. I’d made him put down his book and listen to me read the whole thing aloud.

  Luke exhaled softly, and his face pressed a little harder against mine as we looked up at the stars. This was Luke’s cheek, with the tiniest bit of stubble, warming mine.

  We kissed again, this time more slowly and tenderly. Our first two kisses had made my body come alive, but this one touched my soul. The stars, they were more beautiful tonight because we were together. Everything was always more beautiful with him.

  “Your dad,” he whispered, breaking the trance. “He’s at Global tonight.”

  “I know, and I haven’t talked to him yet. I don’t want him to come looking for me.” Besides, there were eyes everywhere at Base Camp, and we both knew it.

  Neither of us moved to go inside. I tipped my head up, letting my lips drift across his. His fingers slid through the base of my ponytail, pushing our lips together harder.

  Slowly—carefully—he lowered his jacket zipper down my spine, and I stepped back, my hands not yet willing to release. He let h
is hands linger on my waist, his eyes solemn with the night.

  Without the protection of his jacket, I shivered in the cold. Reluctantly, I slid his hat off my head and handed it to him. “Coming with me?”

  He shook his head.

  Just as we turned to go our separate ways, he yanked me back, grabbed my face in both hands, and kissed me one more time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  What do you do after you’ve kissed your best friend?

  What do you do after you’ve kissed your coworker whom you’re not allowed to date?

  How do you react when you see the guy from last night during the day in front of the entire company?

  What you do is eat a protein bar for breakfast and hide in your tent with your phone, typing question after question into Going on Eighteen’s advice column search bar. But this was Mount Everest—where normal relationship advice was not applicable.

  I didn’t have much longer to hide out, though, with our all-staff meeting for Rotation One starting in fifteen minutes. I killed the remaining time doing a fancy Katniss braid from a Going on Eighteen tutorial. I’d just have to play it cool the best I could. The most important thing was not doing anything weird or awkward that would give myself away, like turning beet-red as soon as I saw Luke.

  Though I was right on time, I was the last one to the meeting. All the seats at the table were gone, but there were a few chairs open around the perimeter, with one of them being between Luke and Theo. Luke glanced at me, a smile playing on his handsome face from something Theo had said.

  I froze in the tent door like an idiot. So much for not doing anything weird.

  Thom gestured for me to hurry up and take a seat.

  Play it cool.

  The normal thing to do was to sit in the chair next to Luke, so that’s what I did. I didn’t dare look at him in these close quarters, but his proximity buzzed through me stronger than it ever had before.

  Jim launched right into the plan for tomorrow and the rest of Rotation One, which would begin with the clients’ two a.m. wake-up calls with tea and hot towels. He read through the client-guide assignments, which put me, Phurba, and the very experienced Dorje, together to work with Phil, Glissading Glen, and Johnsmith. He went on to cover the logistics of everything from radio check-in points to trouble spots in this year’s route through the icefall. We even went over the meal plans so that all of us could help manage client expectations in case any of them mistakenly thought Randall and his gourmet food were going to be accompanying us higher than Base Camp. Not that they’d starve; they’d still have Cook-Phurba up there with them.

  In all, we were there for two hours, which didn’t leave much time for all we needed to do before tonight’s early dinner and bedtime. I didn’t see Luke after the meeting as guides were pretty much sticking to their teams’ sub-camps today, and then I had gone down to Winslowe Expeditions to hang out with Dad and eat dinner.

  After finishing a few last-minute things in my tent back in Global City, I settled into my sleeping bag. My thoughts went straight to Luke. Why did it suddenly seem more improbable that we would kiss a second time than to have kissed the first time?

  My spirits sank as I considered it. Really, when would we have another chance to be alone together? Base Camp was so crowded, and everyone was always on the lookout for juicy gossip. And to repeat what had happened last night would be reckless. We’d be deliberately doing something that could get us fired. I needed this job badly, not only for the money but for my résumé and to help get a job after the season was over. Though Luke was reluctant about being an Everest guide, he needed the money, too. So did Mingma, for the rest of the earthquake repairs.

  I reached for the pair of folded jeans next to me on the floor of the tent, fishing through the pockets to find the coloring sheet from yesterday. I unfolded it, smoothed it out carefully, and read the words over and over for reassurance.

  My heart still belongs to you.

  Eventually, I put the paper away and turned off my headlamp. Not long after, there were footsteps outside my tent, and then it shook all around me in a one-two rhythm.

  My insides leaped.

  “Come in,” I whispered.

  Tonight, clouds covered the moon and stars, and when Luke clicked off his headlamp inside my tent, it was pitch black. He sat on my bed cross-legged. I could tell because I was doing the same thing and our knees were touching.

  Neither of us moved. I was all but holding my breath. Even though we were in physical contact, it felt as if there was a crevasse between us.

  “So, what was Greg doing at Global last night?” Luke asked. “Because I know he didn’t come for the eggplant.”

  I laughed. Okay, this was good. Joking was better than awkward silence. “I think he actually likes it.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Doc invited him up, and he said he wanted to see how I was doing. She thinks he has empty-nest syndrome.”

  “Good thing you moved only a third of a mile away.”

  “Yeah, good thing,” I said, briefly wondering if Amy had any symptoms like that after they took her away. Doubtful. She hadn’t wanted me in the first place, so why would she have had remorse when we were separated?

  The silence slipped back between us. I swallowed and then reached bravely across the invisible crevasse. Luke did, too, our palms meeting in the middle. We matched our hands, then he twisted his ever so slightly so that when he closed his fingers, they were threaded through mine. My pulse jumped from sixty to a hundred.

  He brought his arm back to his body, which pulled me in to him. Our hands were still locked together, pinned between our chests with our faces close enough that I could smell his wintergreen breath. Inch by inch, we leaned closer together until our lips brushed, then pressed. The kiss was gentle, and our tongues intertwined naturally. All my senses melted into him. His headlamp slid off his head, thumping as it hit the tent floor.

  I unzipped my sleeping bag and spread it across us like a blanket. As we burrowed beneath it, I was sadly aware that he wouldn’t be able to stay for long. We would be starting up the icefall in less than seven hours. I already dreaded the moment when he’d have to go back to his own tent.

  Outside, a yak lowed, and the neck bells of its herd played a short melody on the wind.

  “So where’s that selfie stick of yours?” he asked in a peppy voice all wrong for the moment.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Let’s do a tent self-Circ.”

  He propped himself up on his elbow to feel around for his headlamp. I pushed him back down. “You said you’re not into that.”

  “For you, I’ll do it. And willingly.”

  “Not right now. It’s late.”

  “What better time than the present? Come on, let’s get that self-Circ stick.”

  He felt around for his headlamp again. I knew right where it had fallen. I snatched it up and held it tight against my chest. “No. I don’t want to.”

  “Okay, then, show it to me.”

  He attempted to swipe the headlamp from me. “Show me your self-Circ stick, Emily Winslowe.”

  “No way.”

  He gripped the headlamp, trying to pry my fingers loose. I locked my arms tight to my sides like chicken wings. I fought valiantly, but also silently, since there were client tents five feet from mine, but in the end, Luke was able to wrench his headlamp from my grip. He shined it around the full perimeter of my tent.

  “Where is it?”

  I shrugged.

  “Unless you produce a self-Circ stick in the next five seconds, you’re going to owe me big time. Five, four—”

  “Hey, wait—”

  “Three, two, one.” He shined the headlamp directly in my face. “Gotcha!” he said, clearly thrilled he’d sleuthed out my caper. “So now you have to do something for me.”

  “What?” I growled.

  “You have to answer a question.”

  “What?”

  “How’d you know that
I’d been in a co-self-Circ?”

  I scowled.

  “You weren’t Circ-snooping, were you?” he taunted.

  I scowled harder and crossed my arms.

  “Adorable. I would have never thought you had it in you.”

  I should have been ashamed about being caught, but how could I be when he was so pleased about it all? I reached over and clicked his headlamp off, and we cuddled back down beneath my sleeping bag. His body shook with muffled laughter.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I was thinking about you on the client hike, how you pretended to look through your backpack and everything.”

  I elbowed him hard. In response, he grabbed my arm, yanked me on top of him, and kissed me with an intensity that made me completely forget why I’d elbowed him in the first place. Then he pulled back slightly, leaving me breathless and yearning for more.

  “So,” he said. “Who would you say wins YCCM?”

  “We already settled that. I did.”

  “No,” he said. “For this YCCM.” His hand went to my face, tracing my jawline exactly as he had with the tsampa.

  The air between us transformed. Now, it was charged with electricity like a summer evening thunderstorm was approaching.

  “I was the one who came to find you at the UW camp last night,” I said.

  I reached up to his hand on my face, covering it with mine. It was his left hand, the one with the bracelet. I touched the smooth circle of aged cord and then slid my fingers beneath it.

  “Well,” he said, with a deep exhale, “I told you before that I came back here to check on Mom and Pasang, but that wasn’t the only reason. So I win because I was the one who traveled all the way from Seattle to Everest Base Camp with the hope that I would catch you. And I mean really catch you.”

  My stomach dropped, then rose again. His hands slid down my back, constricting around me until I was tight against his chest, and he didn’t relax his grip once I was there.

  Chapter Twenty