Chapter 19: Level Two Garage

By the second Thursday in December, the form was filed and Kip had gone strangely quiet.

I had a calendar with the eighteenth circled twice in red.

Eight days.

We stayed late that Thursday to finish the last slide, and we walked out together at nine.

We went through the empty lobby and down the stairs to the parking garage.

Level Two smells like cold concrete and old oil.

My car sat in the far corner, a green wagon with a Brewers sticker on the bumper, under a single dim light.

Drake walked me to it, and stopped with his hand on the roof.

"I have a proposal," he said.

"Is it in writing?"

"It's very short. Nobody comes until the Summit."

I looked at him.

"Neither of us," he said. "Eight days. Leave is the only thing that lets us. So nobody gives it."

"You're proposing we play the bet harder."

"I'm proposing we find out who breaks first."

"That's the original bet."

"This is the one with the real stakes."

"Whoever breaks does it on the main stage. I'll walk up gladly."

"You'd walk up if you won."

"I'd walk up if I lost. I'd walk up if I tied."

I laughed. It echoed off the pillars.

"Fine," I said. "Eight days. No leave. Nobody comes."

"We shake on it."

"We don't shake. We touch."

I put my hand on his belt buckle.

I felt him breathe in, and I said, "One more night before it starts. A last one. Where you can't stop me."

"Where?"

I opened the back door of the wagon.

He looked at the back seat, which had a blanket on it and a tent stake case and a cooler, and then at me.

"Szymanski."

"Get in, Hollister."

He folded himself into the back of the wagon, all six foot two of him.

His head tipped against the ceiling and his knees hit the front seat.

I climbed in after him and pulled the door shut.

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