Chapter 14
XAVIER
Noah was avoiding me, and it was starting to get on my fucking nerves. After his totally unhinged blowup about Peaches—which was none of his goddamn business—he’d noticeably gone out of his way to dodge spending time with me.
When I mentioned it to Ace, though, my best friend just shrugged it off.
Made some comment about Noah focusing on the challenge, which in itself told me he was full of crap.
Me and Ace were the two responsible for guiding the group through the challenges, so we spent the most time on our training course.
Yet Noah still managed to avoid the crap out of me.
I didn’t get it. Why was he so fucking offended on behalf of an anonymous porn star?
Well, he was going to have to get over it because our filming day had officially arrived and we were on our way to inspect the high-wire course rigged up between the triangle towers. It should, theoretically, be the exact same as our training course. Just a hell of a lot higher.
“If you fall from up here, there’s no chance of survival,” Torin was repeating again. “It’s not worth the risk, Short Stack. Not even for the Games.”
“Why would I fall?” the littlest team member replied with an overconfident smirk, his eyes already sparkling with excitement. “Did you see me fall even once during our practice?”
Torin scowled, glancing over at me for some kind of backup.
I just shrugged because it was a pointless discussion with Noah.
Everyone had expressed their concerns over the last few weeks, Skye included, which said a lot.
But nothing would talk Noah out of his stubborn refusal to wear a safety harness during the challenge.
So Ace and I had taken precautions without telling the team, and there should have been a safety net rigged up.
High enough that it could prevent anyone hitting the ground, but low enough that it would still be a huge drop from the wires.
If all things went to plan, it wouldn’t be used, and it’d basically be invisible to the cameras. But if it was needed…well, then we wouldn’t be losing any team members today.
“Fine,” Torin huffed, crossing his arms over his chest with a stubborn set to his jaw. “Then I won’t wear a harness either.”
“Same,” Skye added as we climbed out of the minivan.
I blew out a long breath, not bothering to argue with the fucking idiots because they were full of crap. Torin had awful balance and really struggled on the rolling logs obstacle. He was just bluffing to see if that would sway Noah’s decision.
It was a wasted effort because Noah also seemed to get that he was only bluffing and completely ignored him.
“Hey.” I grabbed our resident daredevil’s arm to get his attention while our camera crew piled out of more cars in the underground parking lot we’d arrived in.
Noah frowned and shook his arm out of my grip. “Don’t you start, too,” he muttered with a scowl. “I’ve had enough guilt trips to last a lifetime.”
My brows rose at his surly attitude when just a minute ago he was basically vibrating with excitement.
Was this attitude just reserved for me? That kind of hurt, I had to admit.
I liked the guy, but it seemed he’d decided I was the worst kind of human for engaging in a perfectly legal transactional relationship on AO.
I swallowed, squashing down that bitter feeling of rejection and disappointment, tucking it away with all the other nasty emotions in a dark cave of trauma within my mind.
“I wasn’t going to,” I replied with a shake of my head.
“Only wanted to ask if you’re okay with the change of teams. Trust is such a big factor here… ”
A couple of days ago, Ace and I had swapped positions in our groupings.
As the two without any sensory handicaps, it was our responsibility to guide the others through the course and ensure they didn’t fall.
After a lot of practice, Ace asked to switch with me because I was more confident completing the course backward, allowing me to keep my eyes on my disadvantaged team.
Mainly Noah. I wasn’t worried about Torin or Skye; they would both be on safety lines and could see full well where to place their feet.
Noah shrugged, dodging eye contact with me again. It was fucking infuriating. “Makes no difference to me. You all seem to think the height will have some increased fear factor, but you’re forgetting two things, Xavier.”
My brow creased, I shook my head with confusion. “What am I forgetting?”
Noah’s full lips curled in a smug grin, his eyes finally meeting mine. “I’m blindfolded, dumbass. Twelve feet or two hundred, it makes no difference when you can’t see.”
Huh. That had never even occurred to me in all the weeks we’d spent practicing.
Yes, the degree of danger was a lot higher because a mistake would cost a lot more than falling onto grass.
But he’d never fallen on the practice course, so why would this be any different, when he literally couldn’t see the drop?
“What’s the other thing?” I asked, studying him with interest. Little Dude was fascinating, even if he didn’t like me much.
He shrugged, smirking. “NoFear isn’t my ClikByte name for no reason. Fear quite legitimately isn’t a hurdle for me.” With a small, somewhat feral laugh, he jogged to catch up with the rest of the team and left me to think about our interaction.
It was a curious way that he’d phrased that. Not that he didn’t feel fear…just that it wasn’t a hurdle. I liked that. Even so, his being blindfolded worked in both our favors because it meant he would have no idea that Ace had arranged for a safety net.
“We good?” Ace asked as I joined the rest of them near the elevators. A few of the film crew had gone ahead to set up already, leaving just two cameramen with us to film our progress. Ace would cut it all together into our entry clip later tonight, so the more footage, the better.
I jerked a nod, forcing a reassuring smile to my lips. “Yep. You?”
Ace nodded. “Safety checks were all completed earlier this morning. Everything is good to go.” He shifted his eyes toward Noah, his expression tightening with concern.
I hated that our newest team member was causing Ace more reasons not to sleep.
As if he needed extra stress. Little Dude was probably going to give him a stomach ulcer if he didn’t compromise on some of these challenges, but I could also understand that they both seemed to have something to prove here.
Noah needed to prove that he was legit, and doubt from haters online was fueling his determination to one-up all the danger factors.
Ace needed to prove that he could pull this odd band of misfits together to create a team.
He needed to prove that he’d selected us for more than just our follower count.
“You guys see the leaked footage of Team Kraken’s challenge entry?
” August asked as we piled into the cargo elevator.
He brought it up on his phone and turned it around to show us.
They were a mixed team, most consisting of lifestyle vloggers, and their idea of a teamwork challenge was doing a human knot.
“Lame,” Z scoffed, shaking his head. “They’re not even trying.”
“I dunno, the sensory handicaps in that situation could be pretty funny.” August shrugged with a grin, putting his phone away. “No one ever said the challenges had to be successful, only entertaining.”
For the rest of the ride up to the tenth floor, everyone was pretty quiet.
Focused. Minho and August seemed the calmest, and that checked out with how quietly confident they both were on the obstacle course.
Minho had his arm around Noah’s waist while the smaller dude murmured quietly with Skye.
They were talking about the obstacle Skye was having the most trouble getting across—the X swing steps—as it was on a downward incline.
He was physically more than capable, but he kept messing up his foot placement and making it harder than it needed to be.
I was well aware that our management had encouraged the fan service closeness between Minho and Noah because the fans were frothing over the idea they might be romantically involved. But they weren’t limiting that closeness to only in front of cameras, and it was starting to become a concern.
Of course, right now there were two cameras on us, so I said nothing. It was ultimately Ace’s responsibility to manage, not mine, but I might need to point it out in case he hadn’t noticed.
Fan service was one thing. Actual relationships were against contract simply because if it went wrong, the team would fall to pieces.
“Okay!” one of our producers greeted us as we stepped out of the elevator on the tenth floor. “Boys, are you ready to do this? The high-wire specialists are here to get you geared up, and our tech team will ensure cameras and mics are all operational.”
They ushered us into action, and the staff went to work getting everyone ready to go.
Noah again insisted that he didn’t want or need the safety harness, so then he needed to sign what looked like the longest legal waiver known to man so he or his family couldn’t turn around and sue anyone involved for liability. Fair.
“This is new,” Little Dude muttered with a sigh as he was about halfway through the pages, initialing every corner.
“What is?” I asked with curiosity, fixing the strap on my chest-mounted camera while peering over his shoulder. “Liability waivers?”
Noah snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Legal paperwork and safety checks.”
I hummed my understanding, having done plenty of my own research before NoFear joined our team. Almost every Byte he’d uploaded since starting his platform was a break-and-enter on private land or property.
“I’m surprised you haven’t run into any repercussions for the trespassing,” I commented thoughtfully. “I bet you pissed off some big corporations along the way.”
Noah’s shoulders stiffened, and his grip on the pen tightened to the point his knuckles turned white.
“Yeah, well, hiding my identity was really working in my favor,” he mumbled, sounding irritated as fuck.
About what? It’s not like we forced him into taking off the mask; his participation on our team was his own choice.
Weird kid.
All too quickly, we were ready to begin, and one of our staff flew a drone camera out the window to capture all the angles for content.
Ace went first, clipping his safety line onto the cable running overhead and confidently stepping out across the first precariously swinging steps before ducking through the narrow gap of the hurdle.
He paused on the other side of that first obstacle and verbally coached August through exactly where to step, where to place his hands.
It was just as we’d practiced, with the added effect of gasps and screams from below us.
It wasn’t a quick course for all eight of us to get through, but that was okay.
We had so many cameras running that there would be dozens of perfect examples to show our teamwork as we worked through the network of challenges rigged up between the three towers, intersecting across a central, suspended platform.
Noah came last, with just me to guide him.
When he stepped out, blindfolded and looking like a strong gust of wind might knock him off the wires, the crowd below went crazy. We were ten stories up, but I’d bet anything there were hundreds of phones using their 20x zoom right now to get a clearer picture.
Ace was right—Noah was adding huge appeal to our team. Maybe because he was so small, so delicate. It made everyone want to protect him, despite how capable he was of protecting himself. He was a walking contradiction.
“Take it slow, Little Dude,” I coaxed him as he confidently progressed across the wobbly wooden steps and ducked through the obstacle like a fucking ballerina. “There’s no time limit on this, just—”
“Shut the fuck up, Xavier,” he growled. “I’m trying to concentrate, and you’re distracting me.”
Oh. Right. I resisted the urge to argue with him and clenched my jaw tight. He was right. He’d memorized the course inside out without me talking him through it, so why the hell would he need it now?
But shit. It hurt to keep quiet, watching every wobble and near-miss of his feet. I simply needed to trust. That’s what this challenge was really about, after all, wasn’t it? Trust. Except it was me who needed to trust him. Harder than I realized.