Atlanta’s mild winter air hits me, but it does little to cool my body off. If Parker notices my hand burns in hers, she doesn’t say anything because she drops it, moving to a folding chair with an ashtray sitting on it. She removes the ashtray and climbs up. Immediately, I rush behind her, just in case.

“Some things never change.”

She doesn’t have to tell me that. Standing behind Parker as she attempts to climb something—a tree, the roof, a fence—is an instinct I didn’t know I still carried. “You broke your elbow climbing up the porch column to get the ball we kicked onto the roof.”

With her arms raised, Parker scowls down at me. “That was one time. And we were eight.”

“Seven,” I correct her.

Parker shimmies. Whatever she reaches for unlatches and she hops back, right into me. My hands slide down her body, the jersey bunching beneath my fingers. The pad of my thumb brushes soft, smooth skin.

“Sorry,” Parker mumbles, turning in my hold, straightening the strap of the bag she wears across her body.

“Can you grab that?” Parker points at the fire escape ladder above us. “Chicken,” she teases when I hesitate, giving me a gentle push to the shoulder.

As quickly as it happens, it’s over. But what Parker doesn’t realize is I still feel it, a phantom touch like the way I’ve carried the memory of her the entire time she’s been gone.

“I’ve been drinking. I don’t know if it’s a great idea to be on a roof.”

“You’ll hardly feel it when you fall then,” Parker jokes darkly. “Come on, Fitzy. For old times’ sake.”

Parker doesn’t really have to beg. I’d follow her anywhere now, even up this old, rusty ladder she hoists herself onto after I pull it down. I fold my lips together, eying her bare legs that meet the shredded bottoms of tiny shorts the front of my jersey is tucked into before Parker disappears out of sight, only to reappear when I blink. Parker beams an encouraging smile down at me from the edge of the roof.

Suddenly, I’m a kid who was once afraid of heights. I don’t think I ever told her that. She doesn’t know how brave she made me, brave enough to not care about how high a tree was.

“Only for you,” I mutter as I climb.

I now realize this must be the building next to the club. I pass a dark window of the top floor before I make it up to the roof, trying to hide how I was holding my breath.

Parker is already standing away from the edge, thankfully, well in the middle.

“We shouldn’t be up here, should we?” I move toward her.

“Has that ever stopped us?”