48. Proficiency Bonus #2
By the time we lower her completely, my hands are tired in a way I like—in a way that tells me they were used for art.
Cami rolls her shoulders while Ronan starts working the rope free.
“Scale of one to ten,” she asks, “how much better am I than Gerald?”
“Gerald doesn't complain,” Ronan says.
“Gerald also doesn't have circulation.”
“Technical advantage.”
“The dragon is better than you,” I tell her.
Cami gasps. “After everything we've been through?”
“You rotate your hip.”
“Once.”
“Every time.”
“Traitor.”
I lean in and kiss her forehead before I think too hard about doing it.
Her smile changes beneath me.
Ronan notices, because Ronan notices everything, but all he does is hand me the next length of rope to coil.
Across the room, Carter helps Alexis out of the last of hers, and a minute later she crosses over to Cami.
“How was yours?”
“Good.”
“Mine too.”
They smile at each other with the satisfied expression of people who have been uncomfortable in a very specific way and enjoyed it.
Cami lowers her voice. “I kind of want to do it again.”
Alexis laughs. “Same.”
“Not tonight,” Jeremiah says from behind them.
Alexis turns.
“I didn't ask you.”
“You were about to.”
“I might have been.”
Carter kisses her temple. “Hydrate first, annoy Jer later.”
She wrinkles her nose at him.
I glance at Ronan. “She's Cami in ten years.”
He considers that seriously enough that Cami looks offended before he even answers. “Alexis may have more impulse control.”
“Rude.”
“I think it’s probably accurate,” Alexis says.
Drake finally calls us back together once the rope is mostly coiled and everybody has water.
“Your fundamentals are solid enough that I don't need another month of watching you repeat the same material.”
Jeremiah straightens. Ronan does too, and I feel my own attention sharpen.
Carter grins. “Are we graduating?”
“No.”
His face falls theatrically.
“You are not advanced riggers,” the instructor continues. “You're competent with what I've taught you. Those aren't the same thing.”
Nobody argues.
That's probably evidence we've learned something.
“You've gotten better at reading your partners, recognizing when something changes under load, and correcting problems without waiting for me to point at them.”
His attention moves toward Ronan and me. “And you two finally stopped trying to approach rope the same way.”
Ronan folds his arms. “I wasn't trying to.”
I look at him.
He looks back.
Drake sighs. “I know.”
Carter laughs.
The instructor gestures toward us. “That's the point. You don't need the same brain. Ronan catches sequence and risk early. Micah sees balance and shape faster. Stop treating that like a disagreement, and it becomes useful.”
I glance at Ronan.
He gives me a small nod.
We already figured that out somewhere around lesson five, but hearing someone else name it makes something settle in my chest anyway.
“If you want to keep going,” the instructor says, “the next block starts introducing more suspension work.”
Cami lights up so visibly I don't even have to turn to know it.
I hear Alexis laugh.
The instructor points toward them both. “That expression is why I'm saying this now. Nobody goes home and hangs anybody from a ceiling because partial load went well tonight.”
Cami presses a hand dramatically to her chest. “I am offended you think so little of us.”
Ronan looks at her.
She lasts maybe two seconds. “Fine. Fair.”
“Full suspension changes the risk considerably,” the instructor says. “If that's where you want to go, come back for level two.”
Carter looks around. “We've been doing this for eight classes, and that was level one?”
“I've been calling it fundamentals.”
“That feels insulting.”
“It should.”
Alexis laughs while Jeremiah immediately starts asking about schedules.
Ronan joins him within seconds.
I stay with Cami while the two of them compare calendars, and she bumps her shoulder into mine. “You want to?”
I follow her gaze toward the overhead points.
Then I look back at her. “Yeah.”
“I want to fly.”
The way she says it makes my stomach tighten, but not because I think she shouldn't.
Because now I can see enough of what that actually means to understand why we aren't ready yet.
“Eventually.”
Cami nods.
No argument.
A different thought starts forming as I watch the lines above us, not a full design yet so much as one of those shapes that appears in my head before I know how to draw it.
Two bodies instead of one.
Different centers of gravity.
Movement from one changing the other.
I glance toward Drake. “Can you eventually tie two people into the same structure?”
Cami turns toward me so quickly I almost laugh.
Ronan stops talking to Jeremiah.
Carter says, “That sounds complicated.”
“Because it is,” the instructor replies. “Two people means two bodies to monitor, two balances, and one person's movement affects the other.”
I'm barely listening by the end because the idea has already taken hold.
Not enough to execute.
Enough to see the beginning of it.
Cami against Dex.
His body forced to account for hers.
Her movement changing his.
Dex probably managing to talk for the first thirty seconds before Ronan shuts him up.
Cami studies my face. “You're thinking something filthy.”
“I'm thinking geometry.”
She pauses. “Somehow worse.”
Ronan steps closer. “What geometry?”
I look at him, then at Cami. “Dex and Cami.”
His eyebrows rise.
For a second, his face goes completely still.
Then I see him understand what I mean.
Cami points between us. “Oh no.”
I smile. “You said you wanted to fly.”
“With Dex?”
“I didn't say suspended.”
“Yet,” Ronan adds.
She stares at both of us.
Then her mouth curves. “Okay.”
Behind us, Drake sighs. “No.”
We all turn.
He points toward the door. “Go home.”
Carter is laughing so hard he has to sit down.
By the time we actually leave, the room has mostly returned to normal.
Rope is packed. Water bottles collected. Alexis and Cami are comparing the temporary pressure marks on their skin like they bought matching souvenirs.
Jeremiah and Ronan are still discussing dates.
Carter is helping clean up while talking enough for all of us.
Months ago, these people still felt like Cami's new friend and the men attached to them.
Now I know where Jeremiah’s similarities to Ronan start and stop. I know Carter talks more when he is concentrating. I know Alexis gets quiet when rope starts pulling her deeper into her own head, while Cami usually gets mouthier first.
There are probably more conventional ways for two households to become friends.
This one works for us.
Ronan hands me the last coil and our fingers brush. “Dex and Cami,” he says quietly.
I glance toward him. “You see it too.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looks back toward the overhead points, attention narrowing the way it does when his brain starts building a system around an idea.
“Not yet.”
I smile. “No.”
A few months ago, that answer would have frustrated me.
Now I understand what he means.
Not yet doesn't mean we aren't capable of getting there.
It means we know enough now not to confuse imagination with readiness.
When we started, Shibari was something Ronan and I talked about because it sounded interesting. Then it became rope wrapped around a stuffed dragon in the basement and both of us checking the same knot three times because neither trusted himself enough not to.
Tonight, we moved Cami together without needing to explain every choice.
We caught each other's mistakes.
Used each other's strengths.
And when I asked about something harder, neither of us assumed wanting it meant we were ready to do it.
I tuck the rope into the bag and look across the room at Cami laughing with Alexis.
We're still learning.
The difference is, now I know enough to see how far there is left to go.
And that doesn't make me impatient.
It makes me want to keep going.