Dream, Dive, Daley?

Chapter 8(b)

Sutton’s point of view

‘There you are! What took you so long?’ Tom shouted down at us. He, Chris and Tonia stood at least 100 feet from where Eric and I were.

‘She didn’t jump’

‘He wouldn’t let me’ I shot in before he got the time to say anything else.  Both of us panted like crazy. Even though we were divers, and Eric and I had good cardio training from day one, this was incredibly hard! This small hill was extremely steep, almost like some of the ones we climbed in Norway and Austria five years ago. Divers don’t need cardio training because we’re only climbing stairs. Yeah, most of the divers are tired after they’ve passed the 3 meters springboard. And cardio is important because of what you say?

Then Eric climbed the last little hill and immediately started flirting with Tonia. Great, even my brother leaves me behind… I placed my foot on the sturdiest rock and started pulling myself up, when Tom’s hand reached out for me and pulled me up. Once again he pulled too hard, too quickly; forcing me towards him then we both fell onto the sandy ground.

I was nearly lying on top of him supporting my weight on my arms, which were placed on each side of his head. His sweaty chest had traces of some acne charring and hair on it, which only meant that he had shaved or waxed earlier. Now that’s odd… I followed the trail of sweat upwards. His jawline was so defined, skin so tan and smile so white. Our eyes met in a glimpse of a second before my brother had to open his big mouth;

‘I guess we’ll see you guys at the top then.’ Obviously, he had got his breath back and was ready to go again. I quickly pushed my feet up into a handstand over Tom’s head, fell into a bridge position and pushed my upper body upwards into a standing position. Smooth!

‘Showoff’ My brother coughed in his hand, before he wrapped his arm around Tonia’s naked waist. We wore the same outfit I believe, but in different colors. Short shorts, sport bra and our running jacket tied around our waist. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was a brunette, and we looked totally different, people would think that we were related.

‘Jerk’ I coughed back and reached my hand out to pull Tom up, but he ignored my gesture. Or didn’t he notice at all? All three of them were shirtless. It was somewhat disturbing to see my brother with actual toned abs. Anyways, Tom was still the tannest. Wonders if he uses fake tan? If that’s so, they’ve done a good job. He doesn’t smell like fake tan though.  The few times I had smelled him, he smelled like a mixture of Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie. Maybe it was Adidas? Honestly, who would know except from him?

Ten minutes later, I was exhausted again. How much further can it be? It felt like Wildspitze, the second tallest mountain in Austria, all over again! But this time it wasn’t cold air that bothered me, but the heat. The sun was blazing hot and there were no clouds in the sky.  I sweated like a pig!

‘Kill me now’ I panted. My feet were numb and tired. ‘Anybody please!’ The silence was unacceptable from my side. I hated the awkward silence. All you could hear was heavy panting from five, half-naked, hot divers. Eventually, I decided to tell a joke to lighten the mood. ‘Why is it called chilly when it makes the food hot?’ Nobody got it and the silence got even more awkward if even possible. ‘Chilly, like in cold… But it’s actually hot? Anybody get that? No?’ I could feel my face turn redder for each word that spilled out of my mouth. I had mouth-diarrhea every time I was nervous. Then I laughed a nervous laugh.

We were walking the last mile up the mountain. I looked up to see drops of sweat slowly drip down from Tom’s hair. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him, but I couldn’t help but notice the little things by him. Such as his ears, when his hair was wet, they would look like elf-ears. Sometimes his laugh would just be blowing air through his lips and making a real strange sort of sound.

But then there was Chris. Let’s way the pros and cons, shall we? A pro; he’s SO FREAKING GOOD LOOKING. Cons; If we were to end up together, it wouldn’t work anyways. Long distance relationships usually never works. Even though we could drive for only three hours to see each other, it will be way more complicated than it needs to be. Another con would be that he has a girlfriend. He’ll be a waste of time, resources and condoms…. My thoughts were interrupted by my phone which suddenly started to ring.

‘I didn’t even know that we had reception here’ I glanced down at my phone. Four bars, not bad at all! I excused myself from the group and walked slowly behind them. They weren’t being social at all, just quiet.

‘Sutton Halls,’

‘Hi kiddo! You alone?’ My agent, Andre, was at the other end of the line. Every single time he would ask me if I was alone, was when he wanted to talk business.

‘I'm hiking with Tonia, Chris, Tom and Eric' And if I wasn't alone, we would have to talk in code. Or at least I had to do it, since everyone could hear me. I started pulling away from the group.

'Don't leave them that would seem superstitious' I caught up with them, but made sure that none of them could hear Andre. 'Has he asked you out yet?'

'No' I said quickly and monotony. 

'Have you even talked to him?' The situation was critical. I couldn’t directly tell him everything that had been happening, nor could I answer his questions properly.

'Of course' I sighed. Unbelievable.

'Sutton nearly jumped off from a cliff' Eric yelled into my phone and ear. A whistling, whooshing noise flowed through my ear canal. I stuck a finger in my ear to

'You did WHAT?!' I heard the anxiety in his voice. 

'I jumped and died’ I said sarcastically and slapped Eric on the back of his head.  'What did you want anyway?' 

 ‘This is what I want you to do; make him go out with you.’ There was a moment of total silence at the other end of the line. ‘Take care and make sure that you make an appearance in the media within the next week’ then he hung up. I stood there for a second and dwelled on the thought of seeing myself in Daily Star or Heat Magazine with Tom. I can’t wait to play the happy girlfriend-type for the next few months.  It was still horribly hot and I couldn’t wait to get to the top and then go back down again. Whose suggestion was it to climb a mountain in the heat in the first place?