Chapter 38 Trust
Trust
Gemiah
When we get to the tent, the doubts start creeping in, lapping up and over the satisfaction of making it through a night at Dick’s without giving in to my baser temptations.
Josha throws on a few of the lights, while Echo hops up on the stage to circle the Chinese pole.
I haven’t touched the apparatus since returning to Mendo.
Partly because I don’t want to step on Ellis’s toes—although the thing’s still technically mine—and partly because my relationship with it has changed drastically in the last year.
Pole dancing uses a lot of the same skills, but I can’t pretend there’s not a difference between shaking my ass for horny drunks and honoring my family legacy.
Not that there was much honoring happening the last time I was around.
And neither of those lives fit me anymore. I hope.
I’ve been spending my days in the tent helping Josha and my dad with the tech, talking storylines and symbolism with Oscar and my mom, and offering feedback to the performers when anyone asks for my opinion. If I’m honest, I’ve enjoyed being on the other side more than I ever imagined I would.
When I agreed to this little late-night adventure, I thought we’d rig up one of the ropes, and I’d watch Echo show me where he’s at with the trick and offer a few pointers.
I wasn’t expecting him to want to tackle a completely new apparatus or ask me to demo how it’s done and open the door to a whole slew of memories I’ve been avoiding.
I should have known better.
But before I tanked my budding career so pathetically, and before I started subconsciously using my failures to get back at my mom, I was a boy who loved to climb.
Who thrilled at the challenge of pitting my body against the rough grip and unyielding solidarity of the pole while discovering all the ways I could bend and flip and fall.
A boy who felt like a hero in the eyes of his best friend.
Besides, who am I to pass up the chance to lord my skills over the guy everyone talks about like he’s some sort of aerialist second coming.
My calluses are crap, and I send the soles of my feet a quick apology as I shed my socks and boots. Josha’s gaze heats my back as I step up to the pole and swallow the butterflies past the sudden lump in my throat.
The first meeting of hand and stubbled rubber sends a muted shock running up my arm to kick-start my adrenaline, followed by the strong temptation to show off—to race to the top and stretch my wings.
But Echo is hovering expectantly at my elbow, running his mouth in an unfortunately endearing monologue:
“…only lowered into it from an inversion, but it looks so much more badass when you lift into it—can you do it in a pencil? I think I better try a straddle first because my wrist still goes crappy under too much pressure sometimes, and…”
I flip my grip and anchor my other hand at hip height, both thumbs pointing down, and don’t bother to interrupt him.
Shifting my weight back, I rotate my shoulders toward the roof and brace, then kick lightly off the ground into the inversion.
Because he asked, I keep my legs tight and outstretched, even when my healing ribs twinge in protest. I hold the flag for a few seconds, then pike into a straddle and use the momentum to flip back to my feet.
“Nice,” Echo crows, but it’s Josha’s rushed intake of breath that has me preening.
“Your turn.”
“I’m not used to something this thick.” He flexes his hands around the rubber-wrapped post and then shakes his head. “I can’t believe I said that.”
“I won’t tell Byrd,” I assure him, biting back a smirk. “But yeah, it’s more about leverage than grip when you can’t close your fingers all the way around.”
Echo dissolves into giggles while I leer at Josha, who pretends not to be amused. He can’t hide the way he sucks his lower lip between his teeth, though, or the burnished glow in his gaze as he drags it over my frame.
“Okay, fucker. I guess I gotta show you how I handle a pole.” Without waiting for instruction, Echo mimics my hand placement and throws me a smirk.
It takes him three tries. Fucking three, when I trained the move for months as a young teen. Bastard.
But his elation is contagious—and stronger than my prickling pride—so I don’t protest when he asks me to show him a few ways into the trick from higher up the pole.
Once he’s satisfied with his progress, he insists on switching to the rope. Josha rigs it up while we catch our breath and talk about the best positions to base each other from.
“Byrd and I have been moving away from the involved wraps,” he tells me. “Seatbelt is the classic that everybody starts with, but it takes half a song to get into. Hip keys are good, but you can’t base the tail without getting pulled out of it.”
“What about a catcher’s lock? It’s fast, and you can base both sides.”
“You can. It’s hell on the thigh pit with a flyer on the tail, though.”
“Afraid of a little pain?”
“Said no aerialist ever.” Punching me lightly on the shoulder, he unwinds from his cross-legged position and pushes to his feet. “You want to go first?”
“Sure,” I say, feigning confidence. If I can’t pull it off in under three tries, I’m gonna really wish I had a beer to blame it on.
The move is definitely different on the rope.
For one, it’s awkward to stand on Echo’s hooked knee, no matter how solid he claims to be, so I wedge the stiff rope between my toes and embrace the pain.
Like an aerialist. The thinner circumference is easier on my grip—similar to a dance pole—but even with the other man’s weight creating tension, the wobbly give is unfamiliar, and my bottom arm isn’t as useful.
My top shoulder strains when I lift off, and my ribs flare in warning, but fuck if I’m gonna bail on the first try with both of them watching.
It’s not my most graceful trick ever, and I pike into the straddle almost immediately, but I make the invert, and once I’m through the transition, I’m pretty solid.
Lowering back down is easier—thank you, gravity—and I risk extending my legs into the full flag.
Josha wolf whistles when I hit the pose, and Echo must shift to see, because the rope vibrates, and I drop back to hanging before he shakes me loose.
My pulse pounds in my ears, euphoria quickly swamping the short burst of fear as I hook a knee and move my hands to a more secure position. I’ve missed this—the thrill of testing myself against a new challenge and the satisfaction of success on the far side.
“Do it again,” Echo says, and something in his voice tells me he knows exactly how I’m feeling.
For the next half hour, we take turns pushing each other to try increasingly outrageous variations, while Josha sits in the folding chair he’s dragged to the back of the stage, offering encouragement through a fond smile.
Echo crashes out before I do, and for the first time all night, I’m not jealous of the three beers he drank at Dick’s.
“Rocket,” I call, spinning in a lazy circle, my right knee hooked above me, with the rope’s tail snugged around my hips and over the crook of my other thigh. “Come play with me.”
“Not a chance.”
“Aww, don’t be scared,” I tease. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“I’m not scared,” he says, eyeing my dangling form. “I’m too heavy for you.”
Okay, ouch. I flex a bicep at him. “Try me.”
“Usually, the bigger person is the base and the smaller person flies,” Echo chimes in.
“But if you’re strong enough, you can subvert expectations and mix it up.
I’ve based Byrd. And there was this husband-and-wife trapeze duo I knew in Tilburg who took turns basing.
They won a ton of awards. The wife weighed maybe a hundred and thirty pounds, and she was a fucking beast.”
“See? Are you saying I’m not a beast, Rocket? Let me subvert your expectations.”
“Seeing you succeed isn’t subverting my expectations.” Crossing the stage, Josha peers up at me, before catching my dangling hand to stop my rotation. “It’s proving I was right about you all along.”
“You can’t say things like that to me right now,” I murmur, my gaze stuck on his mouth.
“Why not?” His lips twitch, but his eyes are molten. “I mean it exactly the way you want me to.”
“Because you’re too far away for me to kiss you. Now you definitely need to climb up here.”
“Or you could come down.”
“Not yet.” I squeeze his fingers, trying to relay some unformed urgency through touch, entreating him to give it shape. “Aren’t you bored of watching Echo get all up in my shit? Don’t you want a turn?”
“I’d rather take my turn back at the house,” he says, gravel creeping into his voice as he backs away without taking his eyes from mine.
“It takes a lot of trust to be the flyer,” Echo comments. Josha glances over at him, brow furrowing.
“Do you trust me, Rocket?” The question comes out light and teasing, an invitation shaped by a lopsided grin, but as soon as it leaves my mouth, the weight of the word catches in the air.
Trust.
How many times has he said he doesn’t trust me? Even after we started sleeping together, it’s been a lot of try and want and fragile. I’m a leap of faith, with a major emphasis on the “leap,” and we both know it.
His trust is a tenuous thread between us—one I’ve been trying to strengthen and he’s been careful not to snap. How do I build that cautious start into a bedrock that no shifting tide can wash away? Tonight has put a lot of strain on it already, and I’m intensely grateful I didn’t let him down.
But what he does next means more to me than him dropping his guard to drink a beer at the bar. More than letting me take a piss on my own or drive us home on my bike. None of those things were small trusts, but something about this one has my blood pounding like surf on rocky shoals.