Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

the strengthening sun as the clouds broke up. Alan found a sandwich made for me— roast beef and Swiss with light mayo that he called a "real" abomination— and ate much of the rest of the meal. He claimed that since the cookies were snickerdoodles, they were meant only for him and Lilia must think I didn't need any dessert. I might have argued if he hadn't kept making me laugh like when he finagled most of the funnel cake. Besides, Lilia had made me a PB&J with homemade strawberry jam she got off a neighbor.
    The food was good; the rest was welcome. The view was amazing and the company was excellent, since the Rat Bastard route took Janelle and Brad around the buttress at that point. And Alan— against the dark rock he shone, sparkled like a diamond on black velvet. The flash of his grin, the glint in his eyes, just the glow of joy in his face against the dark blue of his hair… he talked and ate and teased me more gently than usual, and when my sandwich tried to fall apart and I complained my food was problematic he laughed out loud. The real laugh that I only heard around corners usually.
    It gave me a thrill that made me think of another Firefly quote: I'll be in my bunk.
    Probably, I realized, I should stop looking at his face and listening to his laugh, but how was I going to do that? Stuck on a tiny ledge halfway up a cliff and alone with him…
    When he'd munched his way through an improbable amount of food, Alan put his back to the rock and looked out at the valley and so did I. For some lovely timeless while we sat watching the sun slanting down on forest and river, the only sound a light wind rustling the trees and wandering over the rocks. Finally Alan sighed.
    "Probably better get moving."
    "Probably." We packed up the food. Alan put what was left in his backpack, and I clipped the basket on my back. We walked up the ledge to have a look at the toughest pitch of the climb, a tricky bit of mantle where the only possible footholds were within inches of the only handholds. Alan whistled as he looked at it.
    "Nice. This time you go first. I want to see how you move."
    "All right." Quickly but carefully we got ourselves in order, and I stepped off the ledge and onto the rock.
    I was not as limber as I'd been the last time I climbed that pitch. I inched forward, I struggled, I swung by one hand more than once, but Alan kept the rope perfect and I kept my focus on the rock and I got up it, sweating and triumphant. I anchored to a formation called the Duck because it looked like one, and Alan climbed onto the pitch. He had his moments too, but soon he was pressed up next to me on the tiny shelf of flat rock.
    "That," he said, his eyes shining, "was fucking fantastic."
    "It fucking was," I breathed, feeling at one with him and the whole universe and I might have done some stupid thing like kissing him again but a shout from across the buttress yanked our heads around.
    "Rock! Fall— aah!"
    "Holding!" Janelle called.
    "Ready to lower!" Brad shouted, giving up on the pitch which meant he could be in real trouble. Janelle cursed in a stream of expletives I'd never heard from her. Near the top of the cliff our routes converged somewhat, but their climb was still around an outcrop from us. I couldn't see anything, above or below.
    "Ready to lower!" Brad shouted.
    "Give me your hand," Alan ordered. I did and with me to anchor him he leaned out, almost perpendicular to the cliff, and cursed. "He's swinging. Under a roof, can't reach rock. Lower him, Janelle!"
    "It won't move! The rope's bound!"
    New climbing gear. New gadgets, Brad loved his new gadgets— "How bad?" I asked Alan. He grabbed my wrist with his other hand, reeled himself back in.
    "One of his pros already popped," he said, clipping himself to the anchor on the Duck. He unknotted the rope from his harness, clipped on his belay plate. "I might get there, but I think you have a better shot."
    "Not like I have a choice." I knotted the rope through my harness, took the picnic basket off my back and clipped it to the Duck anchor. "Am I going up or down?"
    "Go up, there's decent holds. Get to his rope first, so he can't grab you if he panics." Alan threw a loop of rope around the Duck as a further belay. If I had to grab Brad, he'd need the help to hold us both.
    "You've done this before?" I asked him. Alan shook his head with a grin.
    "Nope! Bye, Lukas!"
    I stepped onto the rock with a chuckle that evaporated as I focused on finding a route to a goal I