“Damn it,” he mutters. He lets out a hearty laugh. “Subtlety and conversations aren’t really my strong points. But I do have some other strong points. Let me take you out some night and I’ll show you them.”
He looks confident as he quirks up an eyebrow and waits for a reply, but I’m not sure how to be as smooth as him. I’m not someone who gets asked out by guys a lot. The closest situation I can think of is the one time a guy from algebra class asked me if I would help him understand the basic foundation of quadratic equations back in freshman year. Even then I said no, because he was known for his excessive sneezing. His name was Scott. Behind his back, it was Snotty Scotty.
“Maybe,” is the cop-out answer I give Jake. Maybe I’d agree if we’d said more than a few sentences to each other, but right now he’s still a stranger to me. Maybe another time. Maybe later.
“I can deal with a maybe,” he says. “Hey, look, we’re almost there.”
My eyes move to the road ahead, and I notice how it winds to the left, where a tall wire fence begins. Tiffani skips ahead to the bend, grabbing Tyler’s hand and pulling him along behind her. “Eden, come see this!” she calls, and Jake nudges me forward.
Rachael reaches back for my elbow and hauls me up the final part of the route with her, half skipping, half jogging. We’ve made it to the sign in fifty minutes. The fence follows the path around, and when she pulls me around the corner, it hits me all at once that I am standing behind the Hollywood Sign above Los Angeles.
My breath catches in my throat, the silence around me allowing me to focus on the moment. I press my hands to the fence, my eyes wide, my pulse racing. From behind, the view is breathtaking. The letters are absolutely huge, standing above the city. They’re much bigger than you think they are.
“Worth the hike?” Dean asks beside me. It pulls me out of my trance. The only thing I can do is slowly nod, my eyes never leaving the view in front of me.
“It’s so beautiful,” I say quietly.
“We haven’t come up here in about a year,” Meghan muses as she runs her hands along the wires. “Feels longer.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Tyler reaching up to the top of the fence and gripping it firmly. I also notice the number of cameras around us. “What are you guys waiting for?” he asks, and then pulls himself up and over in one swift movement. He lands softly on the other side. “C’mon.”
I stare at the cameras for a while, and then the row of signs clearly stating that access to the sign is restricted, and then Tyler. He’s staring back at me, his smile lopsided and his eyes narrowed.
“We have, like, ten minutes before they send out the helicopter,” Tiffani says as she begins to climb. “Eden, touch the sign and then we’ll get out of here.”
I stare doubtfully at the two of them. Helicopter? “Really, it’s okay. I don’t need to touch the—”
“Just touch the fucking sign,” Tyler snaps, locking his eyes on me. Tiffani lands on the restricted side of the fence beside him. She places a hand on his chest and pushes him away from the rest of us.
“We won’t get caught,” Rachael reassures me quietly just before she climbs over with Meghan and Dean. “We do this all the time.”
“Don’t worry,” Jake adds. “If we get caught, we’ll all go down together.” He reaches for my hand and places it on the wire. “But we gotta be quick.”
Succumbing to the type of peer pressure that my fifth-grade teacher used to warn me about, I reach up to the top of the fence and somehow swing my body over it. I lose my balance slightly on the landing, and I only realize then just how steep the mountain truly is. The others have already started making their way down to the sign, but I wait for Jake and he shows me a way down that won’t break my neck.
“I love this place,” Dean says as he lingers by the first O. “I wonder how many people around the world would kill for the opportunity to do this. We’re lucky.”
“Dude, stop getting all sentimental. It’s just letters on a mountain,” Tyler mutters. “This city is stupid as hell and so is this sign.”
“You’re so negative,” Tiffani murmurs.
Ignoring them, I follow Jake up to the H. He steps back and nods, a warm smile on his lips. “You first.”
I feel nervous for some reason. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m about to do something that so many people dream of, or perhaps it’s because I could fall to my death any second. I take a deep breath and step forward, and then I touch the white-painted metal of the H of the famous Hollywood Sign.
And I feel the exact same way as I did two seconds ago. “Oh,” I say. It occurs to me then that we are all so infatuated by nothing more than pieces of metal on poles.
Jake places his hand next to mine. “How about that date then?”