Page 652 of End Game

I look at him.

He looks at me.

Cami snorts.

Drake sighs. “Good. Then load it.”

The room doesn't go silent, but my attention narrows anyway.

This is the part we've been working toward.

Not full suspension. Cami isn't about to end up hanging from the ceiling because we survived eight lessons and abused a stuffed dragon in the name of education.

Tonight is partial load—enough weight transferred into the rope that the shape we've built has to work differently than it did when she was standing comfortably inside it.

We've done smaller versions before. This one adds movement.

Ronan catches my eyes before either of us starts. “You take her left.”

I nod.

A few months ago, we would have talked through why. Tonight I see it as soon as he does. If I stay to one side and Ronan to the other, neither of us has to reach across Cami or interrupt the other's line. Our hands can work independently without the structure becoming a four-handed traffic accident.

Cami breathes in slowly.

“You good?” I ask.

“Yep.”

“That wasn't a color.”

“Green, bossy.”

“Thank you.”

Her smile flicks toward me, then Ronan.

We begin shifting her weight.

The first movement is small enough that someone watching from across the room might miss it, but I feel the change immediately in the rope beneath my hand. Cami's body settles into it differently, her hip drifting as gravity takes more of the decision away from her muscles.

Months ago, this was the point where Ronan and I irritated the shit out of each other.

He thinks in sequence. What has to happen first, what still needs to be reachable afterward, how one adjustment affects the next.

I don't see it that way.

I see the whole shape first.

The angle of a shoulder. The way the rope crosses a line of muscle. Where Cami's weight is trying to pull the structure away from what we intended. Sometimes something can be technically right and still look wrong enough that I know I need to find out why.

At first, we'd stop each other constantly.

Now I know when Ronan is halfway through a thought with his hands, and he knows when I'm not fussing with something because I want it prettier.

Usually.

I shift Cami slightly.