Chapter 22 The G.O.A.T
THE G.O.A.T
“Canyoning!” Exandra exclaimed. “Of all the activities on offer, you signed up for canyoning.”
“Yes. Yes I did.”
“In a gorge.”
“That’s generally where activities like canyoning take place.”
“Bayard.” She turned to face him fully, and he could see the fear in her eyes. “You can’t. Not with your leg. Not in water. Not in a gorge, of all places—”
“My leg is fine, Exandra. It hasn’t given me any trouble in years.”
“It’s not fine! You have a limp, you use a cane, and you’re talking about rappelling down waterfalls and climbing over rocks and—” Her voice broke. “You might get hurt.”
“Or, I might surprise you,” Bayard countered. “I’m very fit for my age and a great deal more capable than you think. Just because I use a cane and walk with a limp doesn’t mean I’m not able to do those sorts of things. I just might do them a little more slowly.”
“I know you’re capable of doing all kinds of things. You certainly demonstrated that yesterday. But this seems reckless. This is—” She stopped, pressing her hands to her face. “Have you even been canyoning since the accident?”
“I have not,” Bayard confessed.
“Then why? Why would you do this now?”
“Because I need to,” he said simply. “Because ninety years ago, I had an accident in a gorge, and I’ve been afraid of them ever since. And I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of letting that one moment dictate everything I can and can’t do.”
“Bayard—”
“And maybe,” he continued, his voice hardening, “I’m tired of you thinking I need to be protected. That I’m so fragile. That I can’t handle myself.”
“That’s not what I think!”
“Isn’t it?” He stood up, gripping his cane. “You’ve spent ninety years treating me like I’m made of glass. And I let you, because I thought that’s what you needed. To feel like you were protecting me. Making up for—” He stopped himself.
“Making up for destroying your career?” Exandra’s voice was sharp. “For crippling you? For taking away everything you should have been?”
“For something that wasn’t even your fault!” The words burst out of him. “For an accident that I caused by ME being reckless and stupid and trying to impress you!”
They stared at each other, breathing hard.
“I’m going canyoning.” Bayard’s left eye twitched. His jaw was set. “I’m facing this. And you can either come with me, or you can stay here. But I’m done playing it safe and hiding from things that scare me.”
He walked away, his cane smacking the floor with frustrated self-loathing thwacks. Technically, he’d just told another lie. If he was really done hiding, he would have stayed planted in his seat and told her that even after all these years, he was still in love with her.
Exandra sat alone at the table for several minutes, her hands shaking.
Then she stood and marched herself into the activities office. She was going to speak with Geraldo and get herself added to the canyoning group.
The canyoning group was small. There were only six people total including Bayard and Exandra, plus their guide, a weathered Andalusian man named Carlos who’d been running groups through these gorges for forty years.
“The water is a little higher than normal today,” Carlos explained as they geared up. “Recent rain in the mountains. Nothing dangerous, but you’ll feel the current more than usual. Everyone comfortable with that?”
Everyone nodded. Exandra caught Bayard’s eye, and he stared back, defiant.
The first challenge was a twenty-foot rappel down a waterfall. The water crashed over rocks, sending up spray that caught the morning sunlight in rainbow patterns.
“Who wants to go first?” Carlos asked.
“I will,” Bayard volunteered.
Exandra’s hands clenched, but she said nothing.
Carlos checked Bayard’s harness and gave him instructions, and then Bayard positioned himself at the edge of the cliff.
For a moment, he just stood there, looking down at the churning water below.
Exandra watched as he tested his grip, his hands firm and sure on the thick ropes.
His eyes were sparkling in a way they hadn’t sparkled for years and Bayard was grinning like a silly fool.
As he stood in the mist, with Carlos performing one last check on the gear, the mist from the waterfall formed a halo around his head.
Then that halo came alive. Exandra could have sworn she saw arrows shooting at love hearts all around him.
He wagged his voluminous brows at her. She noticed his helmet was the exact same bright blue as his hiking shoes.
A sticker on the side read “I’m the G.O.A.T. ”
Exandra couldn’t stop herself. “Bayard, please be—”
“Sssh…. I will,” he interrupted.
Then, with a wink, he pushed himself backward and jumped over the edge.
Bayard descended smoothly, his movements sure and controlled despite the water streaming over him. At the bottom, he unclipped and looked up at the group and held two thumbs up, triumph written across his face.
Exandra went last, rappelling down with practiced ease. At the bottom, she found Bayard waiting, dripping wet but grinning.
“See?” he said. “I told you I could handle it.”
“I do see that now,” she admitted.
They waited as the rest of the group descended, and in that moment of relative privacy, Bayard said, “I need to come clean.”
“What?”
“The upstream incident. The one that started all this. The Culture Vulture’s supposed first incident?” He took a breath. “Zephyr was right. It was me. And I made it all up.”
Exandra stared at him. “I know. I mean, obviously I knew. What I didn’t know was why.”
“I guess I hoped that maybe if you caught wind of it, you might change your mind about joining us on the trip. I just...” He laughed in a self-deprecating way. “I just wanted an excuse to stay in touch with you. To have a reason for you to respond.”
Exandra was very quiet.
“I’m sorry,” Bayard said. “I know it was manipulative and wrong and—”
“I’m using vacation days,” Exandra interrupted.
He looked up. “What?”
“For this cruise. I’m not here in an official capacity.
I mean, I told them I was planning on doing some investigating, but they didn’t think it was serious enough to send an agent, so I used my stockpiled vacation time.
I haven’t taken a proper vacation in...” She shook her head.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever taken one.
Technically, I could take a few years off with pay at this point. ”
“You... you’re on vacation?” Bayard’s face was incredulous. He snorted back a laugh.
“And the Gruyère incident,” she continued, her voice barely audible. “The temperature disruption, the open doors, the space heater? There was never any real danger to the cheese. That was, in fact, all me. I staged the whole thing.”
They stared at each other as the truth settled between them.
“So there really is no Culture Vulture,” Bayard said slowly.
“There never was. Just two pathetic old people pretending to be criminals so they could stay near each other.”
“We’re idiots.”
“Complete fools.”
And suddenly, impossibly, Exandra started to laugh. Not quite a happy laugh—a slightly hysterical, exhausted laugh. “Oh, gods, the stress we caused poor cheesemakers. We’re terrible people! We don’t deserve to eat any fondue this Yule.”
Bayard found himself laughing, too, the absurdity of it all hitting him now. “Would it make you feel any better to know I made a generous donation to their charity?”
“Actually, it would,” Exandra wiped a tear from her eye. “What kind of charity was it?”
”The Cheesemakers Curse Foundation,” Bayard said. “They support artisan cheesemakers who’ve tragically developed lactose intolerance after years in the trade. Apparently it’s an occupational hazard and the flatulence can be debilitating.”
“Really?” Exandra pressed her lips together.
“Really.” Bayard nodded gravely. “They have to hold their meetings downwind from the nearby villages.”
“Oh, my Lords and Ladies… I’m going to be fired for cheesepionage,” Exandra ground.
“Well, if that’s the case, we’re both going to end up in magical prison.”
“Sharing a cell, probably.”
“With a bunch of lactose intolerant former cheesemakers.”
They laughed until tears ran down their faces, until they had to sit down on a rock because they couldn’t stand anymore.
“Okay, my brave goats! Who’s ready to continue?” Carlos called out.
They looked at each other, still giggling slightly, and nodded.