Page 56 of Sizzle Reel

I glance at Romy, hard at work. Something tells me this isn’t a rash decision she’d approve of. I’ve yet to fully figure out what I’m doing that’s bothering Romy with the Valeria thing (Wyatt’s been on board so far), but at this point, I don’t need her constant advice. It’s probably better this way anyway. I can focus my attention on her art and whatever our personal problems are and deal with Valeria on my own time. Maybe I’m graduating from baby gay to, like…regular stupid twentysomething gay? An independent gay.

I make my plan with Valeria. I don’t say anything to Romy. When she finishes her list, I read it over and give notes. Everything is calm.

I can juggle this, easy.

Sunday evening, the world’s a miraculous seventy-five degrees, sun out, and I can’t find a second backpack to stuff my lighting and camera equipment into. My phone goes off by the front door, and Romy glances over at it.

“Honey, you’ve got a text,” Romy says, completely deadpan as she types at her laptop on the kitchen table.

My chest tightens as I look her way. Romy never reads my texts unless I ask her to while I’m driving, but I still run through the scenario of what would happen if she knew I was sort of seeing Valeria behind her back. It shouldn’t feel so wrong, but I can’t shake my unease.

I still don’t have my backpack, but I slide over and look at my phone.

Valeria says she’s pulling up.

“Hey, Rom, do you have an extra backpack?” I ask.

“Yeah, hold on.”

Romy lumbers into her bedroom, rustles around a little, and emerges with a novelty backpack I bought her for her twenty-first. It has this absolutely ridiculous design: a tree with a face and branches that look like a human hand with the words Palm Tree.

I peer through the front windows, watching as a red Porsche pulls onto our street and my phone goes off again.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry anyway?” Romy asks.

I stuff my equipment into the palm tree backpack. “Just hanging with someone from S.C.A.”

Romy chuckles. “Sounds more like you’re getting kidnapped, but okay. Should I remember this Porsche?”

“No, it’s not Pete Welsh, don’t worry,” I say as I step out the door. “Thank you for the backpack.”

I shut the door behind me, and my muscles tense as I jog to Valeria’s car. I refuse to look up at the fucking window of our apartment.

Valeria’s car is all leather and lacquered wood. There’s a Madonna song playing through the speaker system, and an amused grin is already smacked onto her face. “Ready?”

I force a glance at the window. I can’t believe I lied to Romy about this. “Absolutely.”

And we head out.

There’s no one in the parking lot closest to Sunken City, which is a sort of dilapidated piece of the San Pedro ocean cliffside. The city built a fence that’s meant to be unclimbable around the walkable path that leads down to the cliff, but I’ve been using an even more dangerous entrance for years now.

“So Sunken City used to be a land development—like houses and roads and everything. But in 1929, the land eroded so quickly that the whole thing just slipped into the ocean,” I say as we jump the maybe three-foot concrete wall that leads to the back entrance.

Valeria’s eyes widen as she sees what we’ve still got to go around.

“At this point, the only things left are broken foundations for houses, abandoned streetcar tracks, buckled sidewalks, and empty streets.”

We’re on a slab, maybe two feet maximum, that skirts an uneven drop down the cliffside. A sort of V leads down to a fence with a giant hole in the middle, and then the land becomes uneven ground that you can follow back into the Sunken City remains. There’s also a several-hundred-foot drop into the glimmering ocean, and certain death, below. No rails, no guarantee that this little “trail” won’t erode under our feet.

“This is the worst spot,” I say.

“As long as it’s not more death wings,” she says.

I take the downward trail first and wait near the bottom, one hand on the hole in the rusting fence as she steps down. Her steps are confident enough, even with half my equipment on her back. And when she lands, her hand lands in mine. I’m not scared—I’ve never been scared of this area—but her touch gets my heart going. We duck through the hole in the fence one at a time, separating again to climb back up to the solid hiking path. When everything is said and done, we’re back on the other side of the fence—and we have several dozen yards of solid cliff to cross before reaching Sunken City itself. Chunks of glistening teal beer bottles are scattered throughout the dirt, and the edges of graffiti start to pop up as we get closer.

“So this area is mostly just a local hiking spot and party area now,” I say. “It’s technically illegal and dangerous—there’s usually an old lady warning everyone that they could fall off the cliffs—but most people consider it a hidden gem. Also a really cool guerrilla art spot.”

“Has anyone ever died on the cliffs?”

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