“Do I have to do it?” I look at each of them.
“A rule is a rule,” Oliver says. “Let’s see this naked roof-yodeling.”
I sigh. “I think there’s a reason you can’t find these games anywhere. This was never meant for the public to see.”
I get up off the floor. “Is there even a way to climb onto the roof?”
“There’s a trellis on the back that you can climb,” Ryan offers.
“Is that safe?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Oliver and I used to go up there all the time.”
Oliver and Tina stand up and follow me to the back door. Ryan stays seated on the rug. “I’ll wait right here,” he says.
I find the trellis at the back of the cabin. It looks sturdy enough that I can probably make it up. I grab onto a bar and then the next and I start climbing.
“I can’t believe she’s doing this,” Tina says below me.
“It’s in the rules,” I remind her.
“How much have you had to drink?” she asks.
“Only one glass of wine,” I remind her. “You saw me drink it.”
“This actually seems a little dangerous,” Oliver says. “Maybe you should come back down.”
“I have to do it. It’s my punishment.”
“You can draw a different card,” he says. “You’re not too far up yet. Just come back down.”
I continue climbing. Oliver and Tina’s protests only serve to make me feel more determined to do this. “You and Ryan used to do this all the time.”
“We were seventeen,” he says. “We weren’t thinking about safety, and we got lucky.”
“I should have known better than to play this game with her,” Tina says to Oliver. “Give Priscilla a ridiculous challenge and she’ll take it and run.”
“You’re right,” he agrees. “She is a little…”
His voice is too quiet, so I can’t hear the rest of what he says, but my mind fills in the blank with “obsessive.” I frown. My heart starts hammering as I climb. Did he really just say that about me? I tell myself that he didn’t. He must have said something else, because why on earth would he bring that up now?
I decide to ignore them and pretend I didn’t hear anything. I keep climbing until I reach the top. I grab onto the roof and pull myself up over the edge. Once I’m there, I turn around and raise my hands. “I did it!”
I look down, and it finally registers just how high up I am. I start to sweat a little.
“Okay, you’re up there,” Tina says. “Let’s hear the yodeling.”
“Naked yodeling,” Oliver reminds me.
“It’s a little cold,” I complain.
“Seriously?” Tina says. “You climbed up a trellis onto a two-story roof and you draw the line at taking your clothes off? It’s not like this is anything either of us haven’t seen before.”
She has a point. She and I have gotten dressed in locker rooms together since we were kids. Earlier today, I might have blushed at the idea of undressing up here with Oliver watching, but just a couple hours ago, he had me naked in the shower with his face between my legs. The only other person around has wisely chosen to stay inside.
“We’ll light a fire when we get back inside,” Oliver says. “Think about how nice that will be.”
I would rather think about climbing into bed and being wrapped up in Oliver’s nice warm arms.
