A rumble in the background.
“Hear that?” said the Conrad on the TV, grinning at the camera from behind mirrored sunglasses. “Avalanche.”
A plume of snow rose from the unclimbed east face.
“Don’t worry,” Bruce called from above. “I won’t let the scary snow hurt you.”
Drunk Conrad on the floor chuckled. “Kiss my ass.”
A knock at the door.
That reporter. He’d probably come back.
Well, fuck him.
Conrad fought his way to his feet, stumbled to the door, jerked it open. “What the fuck are …Kenzie?”
She stared up at him through wide blue eyes, Gizmo beside her. She broke eye contact only to catch Gabby, who shot out the door past his feet to greet her big brother. “Hey, there, squirrely girl.”
She scooped Gabby into her arms. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah.” He stepped back to let her and the dogs enter, almost tripping on his own feet, then closed the door behind them.
She set the puppy down. “How long has it been since she went out?”
“Not too long.” He couldn’t remember when exactly, his attention on Gizmo and Gabby, who seemed to be getting along just fine now.
She glanced over at the TV, where he and Bruce were boiling water for coffee in their tent at Camp II, her gaze landing on the whiskey bottle that sat on the coffee table. “You’re drunk.”
“Well … I … yeah. I think I’m shitfaced.”
“Did something happen?”
“When I got home, a reporter was waitin’ for me.” Conrad’s words sounded slurred even to his ears. “He didn’t say he was a reporter. Oh, no, no, no, no. He just started throwin’ questions in my face like he had a fuckin’ right to know. ‘What really happened up there?’ He called me a pussy.”
“What?” Kenzie gaped at Conrad.
“It’s all online. My mom saw it. She called.” He didn’t want to talk about that.
While she searched for the video on her smartphone, he decided it was a good time to take a leak. After managing that and fighting a bit with his zipper, he washed his hands and splashed water on his face. When he returned to the living room, he found her sitting on the sofa looking pissed off.
Her gaze softened when she saw him. “I’m sorry, Harrison. That reporter was way out of line. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He had no right to be on your property or to say those things.”
Conrad plonked down on the sofa beside her. “What an asshole.”
“Bastard.” Kenzie stood, picked up the half-empty whiskey bottle. “I’m going to take the dogs out for a quick potty break and get you a glass of water.”
“Where are you taking that? That’s the bottle Bruce and I were gonna split when we got home.”
Kenzie glanced at it. “It looks like you drank your half.”
She disappeared with whiskey and canines.
Conrad stared at the TV screen, where he and Bruce were listening to radio reports from another climbing team of a collapsed serac on The Bottleneck, the narrow and perilous couloir that led to the summit. The two of them debated whether to take that route or to rock climb the adjacent cliffs instead.
Kenzie returned, Gabby and Gizmo at her heels, two big glasses of water in her hands. She handed one to him. “Drink.”
She sat down beside him just as he and Bruce left camp and set off for Camp III. He expected her to chew him out, but she didn’t. “When’s the last time you had something to eat?”
