Page 58 of Stalkers Anonymous

“I didn’t say I minded.”

A beat of silence. Then his grip on the handles tightens.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Hailey Brigham.”

“At least it’ll be a fun death.” His rumbly laugh vibrates through my back, right up until I push my hips back an inch and the sound turns to a garbled choke. “Told you it’d be fun,” I say, and I’m rewarded by his fingers tightening on my waist.

We drift lower, the ground coming up to meet us. I can see our landing zone now—a clearing in a valley that looked perfectly dry from thousands of feet high. But as we get closer, I notice the grass has a certain…shine to it.

“Is that—”

“Marsh,” Cole says grimly. “It wasn’t like that last week. Must’ve rained.”

“Cole.”

“Yeah?”

“It hasn’t rained in nine days. I checked the forecast obsessively.”

There’s a long stretch of silence from the man behind me.

“Jack,” Cole growls.

“Jack,” I confirm. “Can we…land somewhere else?”

“Not at this point. Brace yourself.”

We come in faster than I’d like, Cole flaring the chute at the last second to slow our descent. My feet hit the ground—or what should be ground—and immediately sink into three inches of cold, squelching mud. The momentum carries us forward, and Cole’s trying to stay upright, but it’s a losing battle.

We go down in a spectacular tangle of limbs and parachute silk, mud spraying everywhere. He tucks as we fall, angling us so I land on top of him, and he’s beneath me in an even muddier situation. The harness keeps us connected, so we’re basically one muddy, flailing creature.

“Oh my God,” I gasp, trying to push myself up and only succeeding in splattering more mud across both of us. “This is disgusting.”

Cole is laughing—actually laughing—beneath me, his whole body shaking with it. There’s mud in his hair, mud on his face, mud everywhere.

“Welcome to skydiving,” he manages through panted breaths.

“You said I’d love it!”

“You did love it. This is just the bonus content.”

“A swamp is bonus content?”

“He told us to aim for the center,” Cole groans, staring up at the sky. “I’m just now realizing he told us to aim for the center of the clearing—”

“Where it’s the wettest,” I finish. “Cole.”

“Yeah?”

“Your boss is a jackass.”

“I can’t say I disagree.” He lets out a happy half sigh, half laugh.

He unclips me in several places, and I try to roll off him, but a missed clip catches, and I fall back onto him, face down and directly into his muddy chest. We’re face to face now, both of us covered in Colorado swamp water, but he’s looking at me like I’m the most incredible thing he’s ever seen.

“You’ve got mud on your nose,” he says.

“You’ve got mud on your entire existence.”