Page 99 of Valley Girls
“Yes, I want to climb The Nose!” Rilla roared from her gut, shaking the foundations of the redwoods with her desire.
Everyone laughed and lifted their bottles. “To The Nose.”
Thirty
Petra gave Rilla and Walker a ride back to the Valley, spending the whole time talking with Walker in the front seat about some trip they’d done together. They laughed and reminisced and Rilla found herself slinking farther into the dark backseat like a forgotten child. Finally, Petra dropped them off in the Camp 4 parking lot.
Rilla waved goodbye as Petra pulled off.
Walker pulled out a smoke. “Want to go look at El Cap?” he asked.
Her pulse jumped. “Sure. I’m not dressed for it though.” Her arms were chilly in the cool night air and she was still wearing shorts and sandals. At least her underwear was dry, thanks to the dryer at the Grove.
“You can borrow a sweatshirt. I just did laundry.”
“Oh, what, I won’t get the pheromones of greatness?”
He laughed. “I don’t need no pheromones.”
They turned off the path for his tent and he put his finger to his mouth.
Rilla took the smoke, waiting as Walker disappeared up the slope into his tent.
It was late—the entire camp was asleep, and fires were put out or burned down to embers. But she wasn’t a bit tired. Adrenaline hummed; and when she closed her eyes she saw his long, lean body stretching out in the sunshine.
He was back in only a minute and handed her a worn hoodie. She slipped it over her head and it came down over her thighs and off her hands, warm and soft and smelling like clean laundry soap and dusty canvas.
“I brought you a headlamp, if you need it,” he said, tucking something into her front pocket. “How’s training?”
“Training for what?” She asked.
“The Nose. I mean, tonight wasn’t the moment you realized you wanted to climb it, right?”
She laughed and slipped her hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “I didn’t realize it was obvious.”
He laughed. “Rilla, if you looked at a man with half as much lust in your eyes as you looked at that granite, you’d put him to his knees.”
She frowned. “That makes me sound—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I mean you want it. You can tell.”
“Well, that’s awkward.” She laughed. But if he could tell what she wanted, how come he couldn’t tell she wanted him? She followed him off the asphalt and into the darkened trees. They lost the moon in the wood, and she blindly reached for him and found his back.
“Can you see all right?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“You can turn on the headlamp if you need to.”
“If I just follow you, I’ll be fine.” She stumbled over a root and crashed into him. “I think.”
He reached behind and took her by the hand, this time letting his warm fingers twine with hers.
“I never realized how big your hands are,” she said. “How do you get these paws into those little cracks?”
He laughed. “Only in climbing iswow, big hands,not a good thing.”
“I’m just saying ... those tiny crimps.” She ran her thumb across the top of his fingertips, smiling at the way his pulse fluttered in his wrist. “And your drawings. They’re so intricate.” She hadn’t seen them since the time she’d accidentally picked up his journal, but she wondered about it. She wondered what he drew and what he wrote. But it felt too personal to ask.
