Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
But hearing her say those phenomenal things about how I made her feel … knowing that this was real between us … it was shit that Maia didn’t get to choose how our wedding would go down. Mum clearly thought so too.
And this was it.
Me and Maia … it would take an apocalyptic event to end us, and maybe not even then. Which meant our wedding was going to happen and we would be legally married. And it wouldn’t even feel like us.
I could practically hear my mum telling me to fix it.
I just didn’t know how.
Yet.
CHAPTER THIRTY
MAIA
Iwas at war with myself.
The river rushed below us, wild after last night’s rainstorm.
The control freak in me, the person who planned her life to the exact letter to limit the number of bad things that could happen, wanted to run back off the platform, through the trail in the woods, and straight back to Baird’s car.
But that other person, the girl who bravely hunted down her real father and swung her arse out there to be hurt in the hopes of changing her life, she still existed in me. For better or worse, the chaos of this campaign being forced upon me had brought her to life again. Falling for someone like Baird who was a red flag on paper but a row of green flags with smiley face emojis in real life … it had proved to that girl that she deserved more of a say.
That girl wanted to throw herself off a platform to experience the thrill of free fall.
“Maia.”
I looked at Baird as the instructor did his final safety checks on the harness strapped around my waist, under my bottom, and around my thighs.
“You don’t have to do this. Or I could go first.”
I’d won (or lost, depending on your perspective) the coin toss to go first on our bungee jumping date.
Did I mention I had a camera strapped to my helmet? There were camera people on either side of the river and one right behind us on the platform, filming everything for the campaign.
Who was it going to be?
I stared up into Baird’s soulful dark eyes, feeling humbled and honored that I knew him better than most people ever could hope to.
Was the Maia who needed to be in control of everything going to take the reins and bail? Or did the girl who used to crave adventure get another chance to prove that the most terrifying things in life often provided the most rewards?
I leaned up on my tiptoes to press a quick kiss to Baird’s lips. When I pulled back, I whispered, “I really wish Tom Petty’s ‘Free Fallin’’ was playing right now.”
He grinned. “A girl who knows Tom Petty is a girl after my own heart.”
Laughing, I pulled back and nodded at the instructor.
We’d spent the morning here for Pennington’s, and the instructors had gone over all the safety talks with us. The air was crisp, and my senses were filled with the battling scents of the woodlands. Flora and fauna attempted to overpower the petrichor—that heightened, earthy smell after the rain. It was enervating.
It was time.
To just … let go.
My belly was alive with a million butterflies, but at the instructor’s go-ahead, I dove! I dove like I was diving into a pool. I was vaguely aware over the sound of the wind in my ears of Baird’s whooping shouts of support from above.
It felt like everything inside me was forced toward my throat with gravity. I didn’t scream, though. Upon the rapid descent, the wind whipped against my face and the river with its foamy rapids tunneled toward me.
Suddenly, I was halted and hauled upward, my stomach swooping, my heart lurching, with the abrupt jerk on the harness. I accelerated downward again and then back up several times until the motion caused this weird surge of laughter I couldn’t explain.
Finally, I was hanging above the river, all the blood rushing to my head in this pressure that wasn’t entirely comfortable. Yet as I looked around at the woodlands as I swayed back and forth over the river, I couldn’t help but let out a whoop of joy.
I did it!
I heard Baird’s shouts and applause from above and laughed until tears of relief burned my eyes.
It had been a free fall in bigger ways than physical.
Baird was like an impatient puppy as they winched me back up to the platform. He was practically popping up and down on his heels, desperate to get to me, grinning so hard it was a wonder his face didn’t break.
Utter joy filled me as I grinned back at him, unbuckling my helmet with the camera and handing it off to Gail, my crew assistant. As soon as I was free from the harness, I squealed with excitement and threw myself at Baird like a monkey. He laughed, catching me as I wound my arms and legs around him. I cut off his amusement with a kiss that was probably a wee bit too risqué for Pennington’s, but at that point, I’d totally forgotten about the cameras.