Chapter 9
Clementine
Alec’s Toyota Tacoma smells like a worn denim jacket left in the sun after a long day on the trail.
I’m giddy the entire thirty-minute drive to the Euspuko trailhead. Windows down, hair whipping around my face, air sharp enough to make my lungs feel brand new. The sun’s out. The pines flash by. It’s the kind of crisp green nostalgia that hits you like a creek splash.
Then we pull up to the start of the trail, and my nerves punch me in the gut. I’ve hiked before, with my grandpa, but it’s been nearly nine years since I was on a trail that wasn’t in Central Park.
“We’ll start here today as a warm-up,” Alec says, shifting the truck into park and getting out.
Am I supposed to follow him?
He walks around the hood to my door and opens it. Not in a gentlemanly way, more in a you’re slow, let’s go way. He disappears to the bed of the truck, hauling out two massive slate-gray packs that hit the ground with a heavy thunk.
I jump out, and my boots immediately sink into a muddy puddle. Water seeps into my sock. Guess these boots are no longer waterproof. I want to grimace, but Alec is staring at me, so I just flash a forced smile.
“You’re about five nine, so this pack should fit you,” he says. I wish for once I could read his mind.
“Have you been checking me out or what?”
He doesn’t smile or scowl, just stares like he’s attempting to classify me as either a mildly feral forest creature or, more likely, an annoying human female. “It’s important for you to have the correct gear.”
Uh-huh. Sure. Then he definitely wouldn’t want to know I’m tromping around in hiking shoes a size too small and one of Grandpa’s jackets, complete with moth-hole ventilation.
“What are you, five-eleven?” I shoot back.
“Spot on.” He doesn’t even blink. “This pack will be yours for the next eight weeks. In my line of work, sponsors send gear.” He kneels to retie his shoelaces, movements quick and sure.
I crouch too, pretending to mirror him but mostly watching the precise crisscross of his knots before double-knotting mine like a kid trying to keep from tripping over her own shoelaces.
“So you’re basically…an influencer,” I say, grasping at small talk.
“Do I look like I post haul videos?”
I grin. “Depends. Are we talking Unboxing: Climbing Ropes Edition? Or Top Ten Harnesses That Won’t Give You Rope Burn?”
“If that’s your pitch, you’re not getting a cut.”
“Rude,” I say, patting the pack. “At least tag me when you post your hashtag sponsored waterfall selfie.”
His glare could peel paint. “I’m a climber. Finn and my agent handle the social media crap.”
“Oh, right, I should mention that I looked you up. Two Men On Top. With a name like that, I kinda assumed you and Finn were…” I swirl my hand in the air. “You know a thing.”
His jaw tightens. “Finn’s my best friend,” he says, bluntly. “And yeah, the name’s dumb. We were teenagers. Give us a break.”
“I think it’s cute.” I ease off, hearing the strain under his words. The accident hovers in my mind, the one every article twisted into a different story. I want to ask, but the instant I move closer, Alec would probably bolt like I’m wildfire.
So, I grab the pack instead and nearly tip over. “Holy hell. What is in this thing, a boulder collection?”
“It’s only ten pounds. You’ll be carrying thirty for the race.” He swings his own pack over one shoulder like it’s made of air. “The training packet explains it.”
I unzip mine. “The training packet didn’t say I’d be carrying literal bricks, Alec.”
“Weight is weight.” He’s annoyingly smug about it. “Now, put the straps on your shoulders, clip the chest buckle, then tighten the hip belt. Most of it should sit on your hips.”
I look down. There are straps everywhere, buckles multiplying like rabbits. I yank one and tug another like I’m in a wrestling match with a backpack.
“Not like that,” he says flatly.
“The strap’s stuck,” I lie, still flailing.
“Let me?” He stares, unblinking.
I hold his gaze a beat longer than I should, then shrug like it’s no big deal. “Fine, go ahead. Just don’t make it weird.”
He steps behind me, shadowing me. His fingers brush my shoulders as he tugs the straps into place, and my skin pebbles.
The last man to touch me was a dance partner with soft and practiced hands. Alec’s are nothing like that.
But it’s not just his touch. It’s the smell of him. Nothing like the familiar stench of cologne and avaricious ambition.
Alec smells like sweat, Bengay, and something quietly unshakable.
“Arms up,” he says. Not please. Not when you’re ready. Just a command, clipped and final.
I do it on instinct, muscle memory from years of wardrobe fittings and barked orders from ballet masters.
His hands—broad enough to span my rib cage—find the chest strap, and with a clean click, he snaps it shut. He pulls the webbing snug with each tug, like he’s tuning an instrument.
“This should be tight. Supportive, not restrictive.”
Not restrictive? Tell that to my lungs. Every nerve in my body is lighting up like a switchboard, hyperaware of his hands, his nearness, the faint heat rolling off his chest even though we’re not touching.
But then his hands drop to the hip belt. My skin, my stomach, the backs of my thighs, all of me jolts awake, and I take a step back.
“Hold still.” Another command, with no room for debate. He crouches, close enough that the hem of my jacket brushes his knuckles as he settles the pads against my hips.
Oh my god.
I force my eyes to a tree in the distance, anywhere but him.
No mixing work and play, Clementine. That’s been my rule ever since my first season of The Nutcracker, when I made the mistake of losing my virginity to the Cavalier after opening night.
A week later, he’d moved on to the Sugar Plum Fairy, and I was in a rat costume prancing across the stage.
I swore I’d never let a man make me feel like that again.
And if he abandons me as his partner, it would kill me to see Alec partnered with anyone else. For the competition, of course.
“There,” he says, but he doesn’t move back immediately. His golden, hawkish eyes travel upward, deliberate, like he’s checking out his work. Or me. “How does that feel?”
There are only two other times I’ve been speechless in my life.
The first was when a credit card was declined at a Prada boutique in Midtown after I was cut from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The second was when my gran called me after Grandpa passed.
This doesn’t feel like either of those times, because I am not the type of woman who gets all hot and bothered by a man doing basic things like fixing a strap.
It’s absurd, but I have to remind myself how to answer in English.
“I—uh—” Clementine, for the love of God, remember feminism. Dignity! “You’re not just good with your hands, huh? You’re good with size too.” Oh no. Abort! “That came out wrong. Forget I said that.”
“Too late.”
I groan. “Please don’t make this—”
“Weird? Because I’m sure that’s what you told me.”
And just like that, the air shifts.
“Well, thanks. It feels better.” As good as a backpack full of bricks can feel.
“You’re not the first person I’ve packed for.” He tips his head at me and readjusts his own pack. “We’re wasting daylight. Keep up.”
His boots scuff the ground as he starts toward a little wooden arrow. Strands of dark hair curl at the nape of his neck, and suddenly I’m noticing the way he occupies space.
I can handle hard training. I can handle directors kicking my foot into place and yanking up my chin, but Alec’s direction is different. It’s precise and commanding, but underneath it, there’s a softness, like I exist. My brain circles around the realization as he sets off.
The view on this hike is out of this world.
Mountains rise all around us, snowcapped in the distance.
Clouds as big and heavy as apartment buildings, skies stretching for miles with no sign of civilization.
We pass lakes where moose and other wildlife drink at the shore.
The trail winds over rocks, patches of moss, and through a spattering of trees.
The air is so clean it feels like I never really breathed in New York, like it’s scrubbing my lungs.
And yet, despite all of that, I spend far too much time staring at Alec.
He’s ahead of me, and even as the trail steepens, his stride is maddeningly steady, while mine feels like an uphill sprint through gravy.
I trudge ahead, careful not to wince at the blister burning into my heel. This isn’t one of Grandpa’s lazy lake loops with peanut-butter-banana sandwiches.
But I keep up. I don’t complain. I can’t give him a reason to regret partnering with me.
Twenty grand says I can handle this.
He groans softly as he steps onto a rock, then turns to offer me a hand.
His palm is warm, and I let him pull me up, suppressing the urge to keep holding on to it even after I’m safely on the ground.
I can be attracted to someone I’m training with, right?
People get crushes at work all the time. That’s all this is.
But then, when the trail flattens, Alec pulls a notebook from the thigh pocket of his army-green cargos and says, “I need to get to know you more intimately.”
I nearly trip over my own boots. The word intimately lands like a fist to my sternum. Images of his hands tightening my pack straps earlier flash through my brain.
“Need to what?”
His golden eyes flick to me, unreadable. “To prepare for Wild Trails. Your stamina. Endurance. History.”
Right. Of course. My cheeks burn hotter. He turns back to the notebook like nothing happened, while I’m still busy pretending I didn’t just imagine him whispering the word in a different context.
Over his shoulder, I watch as he flips open pages of clean, block-letter handwriting. The man writes like an architect.
And apparently I’m growing attracted to this level of organization.