Page 45 of Most Eligible
“You’ll have to climb down yourselves,” Norbert calls.
A muffled male voice comes over the bullhorn, “We usually go up and help people down—”
“No!” Now it’s Lainey. “Absolutely not. We can’t have you putting yourself in danger like that!”
“Ma’am, I’m a firefighter.”
“Nonsense,” she says. “Is this thing on?” Her voice booms up over the bullhorn. “Come on down, you three. It’s perfectly safe. Roland first. We only have the park rented for another hour and I want to get some individual shots before the rain starts.”
Roland stands shakily, holding out his arms for balance. He reaches out and grabs the ladder positioned next to the cart.
“Be careful,” Addison says. “Don’t hurt your knee.”
It’s so unlike her that I do a double-take, but the concerned expression on her face seems genuine.
“Don’t worry,” Roland says. “I’ll be fine.” He hoists himself over the edge, sending the cart rocking horrifically, and clambers onto the top of the ladder. “See? Nothing to it. And they’re setting up a crash mat just in case.”
He smiles like this should make us feel better. It doesn’t. All I can think about is that if I die in five seconds, his face will be the last thing I ever see.
He starts to climb down, and soon his head is out of sight.
“Of course he didn’t wait,” Addison mutters.
I look up at her in surprise.
“So are you going first, or should I?” she says.
What I really want to ask is if she thinks they’d let me wait up here until the Ferris wheel starts working again, but instead, I say, “You go first.” Olie warned me about waterborne-date danger, but I didn’t consider what Addison could do to me a hundred feet in the air. Thank goodness this date doesn’t involve wrestling—I could end up like that woman a few seasons ago who won the “Battle of the Boobs” but permanently damaged her left nipple.
Addison steps over the side of the cart and onto the ladder. “I’ll wait for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.” As terrifying as climbing down is, doing it with Addison right below me is scarier.
She shrugs and tugs her body mic loose, then drops the battery pack onto the floor of the cart. “Suit yourself.” Her head disappears too, and then it’s just me. Oh, and the cameras. I’m sure my own microphone is capturing every one of my shallow breaths, so I follow Addison’s lead and untangle myself from the wires, then place the microphone and battery pack on the seat. The producers don’t need to hear whatever embarrassing things I say to myself on the way down.
With shaking hands, I grip the edge of the ladder and hoist one leg over the edge, then the other, until they’re both firmly planted on the second-highest rung.
So far, so good.
“Nicely done, Miss Georgia,” Norbert calls. “Easy does it now.”
I take one step down the ladder, shimmying my hands down the edges. My chest squeezes with panic as I take another step down. Then another. Then another. Then—
My foot slips and I let out a shriek, clinging to the ladder for dear life.
I don’t want to die on reality TV. I don’t want to die on reality TV. I don’t want to die on reality TV.
It would be too humiliating to bear.
Something touches my ankle, and I shriek again, clinging harder to the metal rungs.
“Relax,” Addison says sharply. “It’s just me. You’re fine, you didn’t even lose your footing.”
I shake tears from my eyes and glance down—a mistake—but once I get over the sheer height, I focus on Addison’s face.
“Please don’t kill me,” I beg. “I’ll do anything you want—I’ll leave the show, I’ll lie and tell Roland I pushed you during tennis. Just don’t do this.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
