Marcus
I DON’T THINK a girl has ever wanted to surprise me before, but that’s exactly what Lydia is doing. As I wait impatiently in the passenger seat, she drives us to some undisclosed location where we’ll do God knows what.
“How about a hint?” I ask her.
“For the hundredth time, no,” she replies. A small smirk appears on her face and I know she enjoys keeping me in the dark.
“You might not know this about me, but I hate surprises.” I look over at her gorgeous profile, but I know she’s not going to budge before she even responds.
“Really? I would’ve never guessed.”
“Your sarcasm is not lost on me, babe.”
“You are very observant, Mr. Police Officer.” I bite my lip to resist taking that smart mouth of hers and making us wreck.
In my line of work, I try to avoid the unexpected at all costs. It’s never a good situation when you’re unprepared and surprises catch you off guard. While this isn’t the exact same, it’s still hard to sit back and relax and not having a clue what’s going on.
As I take a look at Lydia though, I see that for whatever reason, surprising me is making her happy. She has this energy about her that’s mostly excitement with a hint of nerves. The ghost of a smile hasn’t left her face since she picked me up and we got on the road. That alone is enough to make me stretch my legs out and enjoy the scenery as it passes by.
The rest of the ride is spent in silence. It’s been three months now since she finally gave in and became mine, and we’re at a good place. I enjoy spending time with her and I’m pretty sure she likes hanging out with my sorry ass. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted. She’s smart and classy, fun and sexy as hell. I’m just hoping I’ll be able to climb the last few feet to get over her wall. I’m close, I feel it, but she’s holding back a little and I’ll bet it has to do with her ex. I just don’t know what.
It’s not long before I see a large sign and start to figure out what we’re doing. “Are you serious?” My head snaps in her direction.
“What?” She tries to hide her knowing smile, but fails miserably.
“Am I about to bungee jump?” I feel like a little kid on Christmas. I’m practically bouncing in my seat and am hoping I’m not getting my hopes up.
“Nope.” Before I have a chance to feel somewhat disappointed, she adds, “We’re about to bungee jump.”
My mouth parts in surprise. “I thought you never wanted to do this.”
She shrugs as she puts the car in park. “Time to break out of my shell again.”
Putting my hand on her knee, I give it a gentle squeeze. Her comment isn’t lost on me and I know it’s in reference to her ex. I just hope like hell that means she’s putting her trust in me to help her venture out of her comfort zone. She hasn’t gone into detail, but I know whatever happened between her and that guy really affected her. I could hear the residual sadness in her voice when she realized she was about to talk about him last month on the phone. I haven’t pressed the topic, but I want her to know I’ll never do anything to hurt her or betray her trust. This might be her first step to seeing that.
“You okay?” I ask once we’ve made it to the top of the platform. She nods, but when I put my hand on her arm, I feel her whole body vibrating. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I can go alone and you can watch.”
Swallowing hard, she shakes her head. “No, I’m fine. Nervous, but fine. I want to do this.” She looks me straight in the eye and while her nerves are at the forefront of her expression, there’s confidence and conviction in her tone.
I lean my forehead against hers. “It’s going to be fine, I promise.” She nods again.
It takes forever for them to help us into our harness and hook our ankles up to the bungee cord. At the same time, it’s not long enough. As we get closer to go time, I have to admit that I’m a little nervous too. I mean, who wouldn’t be? You’re jumping off a ledge way up in the air with only one cord to catch you from plummeting to your death. I make sure to keep those thoughts to myself. Lydia looks uneasy enough as it is. I’m actually afraid she’s going to be sick, but each time I check on her, she assures me she’s fine.
“Alright, you’re going to wrap your arms around each other in a bear hug. Hold on tight because you’ll be like magnets. If you let go, you’ll separate for a few seconds, but will come crashing back together, and that’s not going to feel too good. Got it?” we’re told by the guy who’s hooking us up.
“Yep,” I answer.
“Awesome. Now step up here.” He points to a yellow line on the very edge of the platform. This is a freestanding structure, not attached to another building, but it’s still really high up giving us a great view of the surrounding area. We’re a little bit outside the city, so it’s a nice change of scenery. Instead of tall buildings, there are green trees. It’s actually really nice and peaceful. For half a second, it calms my heart down. Until this guy starts talking again.
“On the count of three, I’m going to give you a little nudge with my body and you’re going to tip right over, okay?”
We both nod. He positions us before grabbing on to the railing on both sides of the opening. Lydia and I have our sides face out toward the ledge, holding on to each other tight. My heartbeat is in my ears and I can feel her chest rise and fall rapidly against mine. She clutches me so tight it’s a wonder I can breathe right now.
“One, two, three.”
Suddenly, we’re freefalling, completely weightless as we drop from the sky. If the rapid thumping of my heart didn’t overshadow my yells of excitement, Lydia’s high-pitched screams do. An amount of adrenaline I’ve never felt before floods my veins, which causes my body to tremble. My stomach sinks down to my toes as the wind rushes past us and I wait for the falling to stop. It’s the most thrilling experience of my life, and I wish I could feel this way forever. While we’re plummeting, nothing else exists. There’s peace in the chaos.
I’m jerked back to reality when we reach the bottom and snap up before falling again. Her grip on me tightens to super human strength, and I think she’s cut the blood flow off to the rest of my body. We bounce back up three more times before swaying by our feet.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe I did that,” Lydia says breathlessly, still not easing her grip on me.
“I know!. That was probably the most awesome thing I’ve ever done in my life.” She leans her head back and finally looks at me. I feel like we are two bats hanging in a cave, the blood rushing to our heads as they reel us in.
“I’m glad you had fun. I was nervous about springing this on you,” she says.
“You know what made it even better?” She raises her eyebrows for me to continue. “Doing it with you.”
She smiles but rolls her eyes too. “You and your lines,” she says, shaking her head.
“You don’t want me to bust out my awesome pick-up lines again, do you? Because I’ve got more.” I say it as a playful threat.
She giggles. “No, that’s okay. I’ve been subjected to enough of those from you.”
I kiss her, not able to resist a moment longer. “In all seriousness, thank you, Lydia,” I say once I remove my lips from hers. “You are truly amazing.”
With a shy smile, she says, “You’re welcome.”
“Want something to drink?” I ask her as I walk into my kitchen.
“I’ll take some water, please,” she replies. I grab two bottles of water and walk it back into the living room before having a seat next to her on the couch.
“It turned out really nice in here.” She looks around at her work, and I couldn’t agree more. Last week, she put the final touches with some plants I’m sure to kill. It’s my favorite room.
I readjust in my seat so that I’m facing her with my knee drawn up on the couch. She mimics my position. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, I finally ask her the question I’ve wanted to ask for a while now.
“Was Seth your last serious relationship?” I ask her gently. She stiffens momentarily before relaxing again.
“He was my only relationship. We met and started dating our sophomore year of high school. I followed him to college since he got in on a baseball scholarship, and we got engaged shortly after he got drafted.” Her face is void of emotion, like she’s repeating a grocery list.
“Drafted?” My brow furrows in confusion.
“Yeah. He’s Seth Lee, the highest-paid major league pitcher.”
“No shit.” It’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth. I didn’t see that coming.
“Well, he was still in the minor leagues when we were engaged, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time before he got called up.”
“What happened then?”
She gets a faraway look on her face like she’s reliving the moment, then she tells me and I think I finally made it over the last few inches of her wall.