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She twists her head, catching me staring, and her smile blooms. I pull out my phone and take a quick photo because she’s never looked more beautiful than in the home I bought for her…or at leastbecauseof her.
“Are you ready to have some fun?” I ask, meeting her on the deck.
“You know me. I’m up for anything, if you can get it up, that is. I probably wore you out this morning.” She grins and lunges into my arms, cackling.
She thinks she’s funny. I may have to change our schedule around. “I’ve missed hearing you laugh. I thought I remembered how it sounded but it’s much sweeter and much louder in person.” Our lips overlap in ghostlike kisses. “Follow me.”
“I’ll follow you anywhere.” Except once when she didn’t follow me home, she stayed with Beckett to keep him from—I cut off that thought.
We take a small hike to the other side of the property, away from Maverick’s employees and to the aerial adventures.
When it comes into view, she claps and with pure excitement in her voice says, “This is going to be so fun.”
I don’t tell her that these are exercises in trust. Instead, I tell her these are games where we have to work together in order to complete the task.
“We have to get through the aerial obstacle course.”
“No fair, you already know how to do it.”
“And you say I’m competitive. Nessa, it’s not a competition. It’s about working together.”
We climb the wooden ladder onto the platform. “Dan set this up in a configuration that I’ve never done, but the point is, we’ll have to rely on each other.”
She pops her hip. “Zip me up, baby,” she says playfully, her tone laced with mischief.
Our harnesses are buckled in all the right places. “I’ll start. And then you’re going to hook yourself to the line as well. We’re going to slide across together.”
She pops a hip. “What if we’re too heavy together?
“You’ll have to trust that it will hold.”
She reaches up and links the Carabiner. We take two steps off the platform together and slice through the air, landing on the next one. We do this several times under the canopy of trees. Then we unhook and have to crawl over a rope netting that twists if you don’t stay balanced. Each placement of your hands and knees has to be carefully placed or it will flip over.
I follow behind her, and what a view it is…watching her hips pop from side to side with each movement. The ropes are leaning to one side as she says, “Come next to me so we can distribute the weight.”
Vanessa is a leader, recognizing the danger in me following her. As I carefully climb beside her the course balances. When we move again, Vanessa’s hand and knee stretches too far to the right and the ropes begin to turn.
“Trust me?”
“Yeah.”
I shift my body weight, and say, “Hold on.”
The wind tousles her hair, and when I advance on her, the rope course flips, and she screams, “Help!” We’re both upside down, and even though there is a catch net underneath us, this is the opportunity for us to lean on each other—something we should have done so many years ago.
“Trust me. I won’t let you fall.” I pull myself alongside her, balancing us out. “Unless you want to?”
She tilts her head, cautiously grabs my hand, and says, “I want to fall with you. Together?”
I should have known Vanessa would want the exhilaration of plummeting without being able to see. “On the count of three?” I ask, and she returns a quick smile and a nod. “One. Two. Three.”
It’s a twenty foot drop, but our fingers are laced together, releasing the straw colored ropes. Instead of staring into the cloudy gray sky, I watch the way her lips turn into an ear-splitting grin as her hair webs over her face.
She’s devastatingly gorgeous.
The fall seems to take forever, yet I relish every second that I get to see my girl enjoying herself again. Our backs finally hit the bouncy net, and we trampoline into the air. Her voice echoes into the wind until we come to a stop.
Vanessa climbs on top of me, her golden spirals hanging like curtains around her face, free and wild. “What else do you have planned?”
