He’s a nutcase, Laurel, run!
Do the stunt anyway and drag him over with you.
What a jerk.
I quickly apologized that the show got ruined, assured my viewers that I was perfectly safe, and ended the live stream. Then I gave the hot nutcase jerk a dirty look.
He looked sheepish in return. “How do you have service out here?”
“That’s what you’re going with?” I asked. He shrugged. “I have a better plan than you do?” I wondered why he didn’t just leave. I gave him a very clear look, telling him to get lost.
Instead he stuck out his hand. “Ben Crenshaw.”
I shook my head. “Are you serious?”
“I’m not joking,” he replied.
“Well, goodbye, Ben Crenshaw.” I hobbled over to untie my line and roll it up. I didn’t mean to hobble, but my ankle really hurt.
Of course he noticed. “Let me help you back to your car, at least.”
He actually sounded annoyed that I was injured, when it was his fault. Before I could tell him to shove his help, he had his arm around my waist. He was really tall, at least six inches taller than me. And firm. And he smelled good, the jerk.
“I don’t need any help. I’m fine.” My mother always used to say I was good at cutting off my nose to spite my face, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when he dropped his arm and backed away. What did surprise me was the fact I was a little disappointed. “Go on, get out of here,” I said. “Try not to mess up my next stunt, if that’s at all possible.” All I wanted to do was get some ice on my ankle so there could be a next stunt.
He frowned. “Yeah, about that.”
“What about it?” I stopped rolling the line to watch him continue backing slowly toward the clearing. He needed to turn around and get going and not just because I wanted to check out his ass.
“This is private property, so if you’re going to kill yourself, accidentally or on purpose, you can’t do it here.”
Then he turned around and stormed away. I was so pissed off about losing the perfect cliff that I almost forgot to check out his backside. Just kidding. I did. It didn’t put me in a better mood, but it was pretty hot.
After he was out of sight, I realized how screwed I was if this outsider could actually keep me from doing my stunt. I called up the daughter of the old guy who owns most of this side of the mountain, since I knew she managed the B&B cabin and that was probably where Hot and Grumpy was staying.
“Hey, Laurel, it’s been ages,” she said.
“Well, your kids don’t need a babysitter anymore,” I answered. Not wanting to barrel right into complaining about her tenant, I listened to her talk about her sons who were about to graduate high school. It seemed like one of them was whining about not wanting to clean the B&B anymore and I jumped in.
“Oh, yeah, about the cabin. You know how I usually rappel off the west peak? I guess you’ve got a tenant now who says I can’t be up here?”
She sighed. “Sorry, I probably should have given you a head’s up. He’s paying an exorbitant amount of money and demanded absolute privacy. Did you see we put up a no trespassing sign just to keep him happy?”
Exorbitant, huh? So, a rich asshole. The worst kind. “I must have missed that. How long will he be staying?” I asked, rolling my ankle and wincing at the pain. I knew once I got it iced and bandaged I’d be ready to go in a day or two, and I needed to keep my viewers amped so they didn’t lose interest.
“He didn’t say. Sorry, Laurel. I guess you’ll have to do your climbs somewhere else for the foreseeable future.”
I assured her it was no problem and promised I’d drop by soon. It was a problem, though. I was going to lose my viewers’ interest if I didn’t put on the show I’d been promising, and with no viewers, I’d have no sponsors. I was out of luck.
Unless. What if Hot and Grumpy changed his mind? I limped my way back to my car, thinking of ways to butter him up and make him see things my way. I rubbed my sore fingers, remembering those rock hard abs. Hmm, It might even be fun.