Page 155 of Wild Like Us
But Team Apexcan’tdistract Sulli while she climbs. If she’d been free-soloing today, she could’ve fallen and been severely injured or died.
My muscles tighten. “Next time they come back to watch her, we threaten them,” I tell Banks like an order.
He nods, “Don’t have to tell me twice.” He’s all-in.
Intimidation is literally our best bet.
* * *
Sulli safely on the ground,we all start packing up to leave.
I help Sulli coil her rope, and Banks hands her a water bottle. Close by, Jack is on his knees packing up the tripod in a case.
He catches my eyes. “Same old, same old, right?” he asks in a staple-Jack-Highland-smile. Bright and charismatic—the kind that made me not trust him. Now, I know that smile as purely genuine.
But being real, constant positivity is off-putting to me after a while. I wouldn’t hang out with the sunshine Care Bear every day of the week, so I take Jack in small doses. It’s one of many ways we’ve maintained a good friendship after a rocky start.
Same old, same old.
He’s trying to be casual and friendly while production is intermingling with security. I like Jack, but Ihateproduction.
Cameras impede security. Their presence is a bullseye on all clients. Passersby will see the camera crew before the famous person and immediately run over to playspot that celebrity.
Luckily, we’re not in the city right now. And there aren’t many threats around.
I smile back. “The same old shit never really gets old for me.” I could watch Sulli climb and swim every day for the next hundred years.
He nods, snapping buckles on a black case. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, there’s a new crew member onWe Are Callowaywho’s single. She’s super cute. I talked you up for a solid ten and gave her your number.”
My stomach pole-vaults in the ground. “You what?”
Sulli definitely overhears. She turns her back to Jack and me.
Shit.
Banks looks between us like pain is rushing in, a hole in a boat that I can’t plug fast enough.
He wants to comfort her. I know he does.
Jealousy gnaws harder at me, but a part of me wishes one of us could hug her right now without drawing suspicion.
“I gave her your number.” Jack frowns at my distraught reaction. “Is that okay?”
I’m barely breathing.
Jack thinks I’m single.
But I’m actually taken.
Mentally, physically, emotionally closed off to anyone but Sulli right now, and the thought of uttering the words,I’m singleto Jack is going to kill me.
It’ll be like casting that into the universe. Breathing reality into it. And then I’ll wake up in Philly without her.
Single.
And I can’t lie again. Not like last time. It eviscerated me, and it’ll eviscerate her.
I try to deflect. “You’re still wingman-ing for me as a married man?”
