Page 74 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“Don’t you think you should have sprung this on me before we ate breakfast?” I ask with a nervous laugh, eyes wide, and not ashamed to stall any way possible.
“I’ll hold your hair for you if you puke.” He winks, grin widening as he just shakes his head back and forth. “What do you say, Socks?”
And how can I resist that?
“Okay,” I agree, followed by an unsteady breath. “No regrets.”
“There’s my girl,” he says with a flash of grin that lights up his face, and while I should be knocked on my ass by his sheer handsomeness, it’s the words he said that make my heart jump. My girl.
“All set?” Russell asks as he steps forward and breaks up the moment.
After we’ve been debriefed, signed our life away with waivers—which I’m not sure really matter because how can you sue when you’re dead?—we are strapped into our harnesses and helmets. They’ve explained the five-tiered zip line course to me: You go from one platform to another, five times, until you reach the bottom of the canyon.
“So,” Russell says as he slaps his hands together and rubs them back and forth, “Doug is on the other end waiting for you.”
Maybe it hasn’t all sunk in yet, but when he says those words, followed by his smug smirk, I can feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. I thought I was fine with it after the safety rundown. I really did. I listened to Zander laugh as he retold a few funny stories about some of his previous zip-lining experiences. They made me comfortable enough; I even opted to go first after much internal debate. I know myself well enough to know that if I was second, I probably wouldn’t step off the platform without Zander standing behind me.
The nerves kick in. My hands tremble, and my legs test my weight against the thick cable I’m tethered to, as I question my sanity. I refuse to shift my gaze from Zander to look forward at the forest valley above which I’m standing about one foot from the edge of the deck.
“C’mon, Socks. You know the first step is the always the hardest.”
My heartbeat is so loud in my ears. Goose bumps cover my skin, pinpricks of awareness that I’m alive. My knees feel like rubber. But it’s Zander’s reassuring smile and the belief in me that shines in his eyes that have me turning to face my fear.
The valley spreads out wide before me in a painted canvas of greens and browns. The cable runs from above my head all the way to a platform I can barely see in the distance. It’s breathtaking. It’s terrifying.
Don’t look directly down.
My slow, deliberate exhalation, like audible courage, fills the space around us as I talk myself into this, and take the final step forward, toes perched on the edge. I hear the clank of Zander’s harness a beat before his hands squeeze my shoulders.
“Let go, Getty. Just jump.”
Just jump. The words replay in my mind, their meaning encompassing everything about my new life as Getty Caster.
And about how I want to continue to live it.
I close my eyes, inhale a calming—if there is such a thing—breath, take the first step into empty air . . . and just jump.
Chapter 21
GETTY
Just jump.
I’ll never forget the sensations. The drop of my stomach. The wind on my face. The frozen silence when I tried to scream, followed by the exhilarated sound of my laughter. The feeling of flying. Then the obvious pride on Zander’s face when he came zipping along minutes later to see me standing there, grinning ear to ear, and shouting to him that I couldn’t wait to take the next line down.
My reflection in the mirror shows how alive I felt today. How after the incredible sex last night and the rocky start this morning, this day turned out to be one I’ll never forget.
And I hate that now it might be marred by the dinner with my father.
I have almost two hours yet, but I attempt to lose myself in the preparations, trying to think of this more as getting ready for Zander than to see my father. It makes the whole thing a little more tolerable.
The knock on my bedroom door startles me. It seems so weird to have doors shut and privacy like we’re roommates when we’ve already seen each other naked. But at the same time, we still need to figure out the whole context of whatever we are together and so the time to myself is appreciated.
“Come in.”
Zander opens the door and walks into the room, eyes doing a lazy walk up my bare legs where my robe has fallen open before he meets my gaze. That half-cocked smile is on his lips and damn if parts of me don’t react immediately.
He walks over to the vanity and sets his cell phone down. “You need to call your father and let him know his car won’t need to pick us up. We’ll meet him at Piedmont’s instead.” Our eyes meet and I question him silently. “You’re not her anymore. Obedient. Compliant. You’re Getty Caster. You set your own terms. Not your father.”
