I snorted. “Who?”
“I’m not completely past the idea of pushing you in to get this over quicker.”
“Fine. I’ll jump. At this point, the water can’t be any colder than I am right now.”
“That’s optimistic.”
We counted down from three. When we got to one, Miles grabbed my hand and shouted, “Hold on tight!”
The snow-covered dock was a blur beneath us, and then we were falling.
FOURTEEN
"I knew you would do me good in some way, at some time--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you."
- Charlotte Bront? - Jane Eyre
It felt like a thousand needles jabbing every inch of my skin. When I came up for air, my mouth opened and closed like a gaping fish, but I couldn’t seem to catch a breath. The shock was too great upon my soft book-reading, coffee-drinking, movie-watching body. Miles grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the dock. I wasn’t sure how he was moving, because I had become a frozen statue.
His movements did seem slower, but he was able to lift himself out of the water before he turned back to me.
“Come here.”
“Is this what hypothermia feels like?” I asked through chattering lips. I attempted to heave my body out of the water—the keyword being attempted.
“Not yet, but you’ve got to move faster.” He leaned down further, hooked his hands underneath my armpits, and hauled me up and out of the water like I weighed nothing more than a sack of flour. Another point for his secret muscles. I hadn’t been aware that he had grabbed our towels and brought them with us, but suddenly, he was wrapping me in fluffy blue cotton and herding me back toward the hot tub.
“I’m…going to…kill you,” I sputtered. The fierce-sounding words in my brain came out as an incoherent gurgle of short breaths.
“What?” Miles asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as we hobbled up the snow-covered pathway together. “Did you just say you loved me? And after such a short time of dating, too. I’m surprised at you, Celery Stick.”
I couldn’t find the energy needed to push him away, so I allowed his body to press against my side as he propelled me forward.
Glenn was drying off with a towel next to the hot tub when our frozen limbs arrived.
“Well, I’m impressed you got her to jump,” he admitted, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. “You must be a better man than me.”
My teeth clattered almost violently as I brushed past Glenn to climb up the stairs. My body seemed to sizzle when I stepped into the heated tub and sank down with a deep sigh, allowing the hot water to cover my frozen limbs.
“She did it all on her own,” Miles stated generously as he climbed in after me, settling in across the hot tub from me.
Glenn snorted at that, not believing Miles any more than I did. He turned to go, giving us a halfhearted wave as he slunk out of sight.
Our chests were both heaving as our limbs began to thaw. My heartbeat ran rampant in my chest. I couldn’t believe I had done that. My mind was racing as fast as my heart. Glenn had been right when he said I wasn’t a daredevil, not even close, but—much to my surprise—I felt amazing right now.
The emotions and adrenaline zipping through my body at that exact moment needed an exit, somewhere to go, or else I would explode. I felt myself smile broadly. I had a hard time believing that the girl who jumped in the frozen pond (i.e., was basically held at gunpoint) was me. Now that it was over, and I had survived, and my ice-cube fingers and toes were beginning to regain feeling, a sense of wonder and pride overcame me. And then I did the last thing I ever expected to do in front of Miles. I tilted my head back, gazed up at the dark sky, and laughed.
And then I kept laughing. Like a certified maniac.
I felt like all the cool heroines in all the books I read who did daring things like it was no big deal. If there was a ladder, I’d walk across the ridge pole to show up Josie Pye. Give me a gun and a sleek car, and I think I could put up a good fight in a car chase. I imagined myself being an amazing, ultra-cool assassin who could make a sandwich at the same time I fended off an attack. Where the heck was Machu Picchu? As soon as I found out, I’d be on the first plane to climb it. I leaned my head back on the side of the hot tub and simply let myself live in the moment of pure, joyful, and unadulterated elation.
Soft chuckling broke through my amusement, and I slowly turned my head to see Miles watching me with a smile on his face.
“You’d better be careful,” he said softly. “Some people feel their first adrenaline rush and then spend the rest of their lives chasing it.”
Our eyes held for a long moment as we sat in a contemplative glow. A long sigh escaped both of our lips at the same time as we adjusted ourselves in the hot tub seats. My limbs were starting to feel heavier now as the rush of the moment began to dissipate.
“Is that what it’s like for you all the time? Doing all the crazy things you do?”
He contemplated my question. “It used to be like that. The first time I went skydiving, I almost peed my pants. But by the time I landed, I was ready to do it again. Same with rock climbing. The fear is usually only because you haven’t done something before.”
“What got you into all of that?”
“My family would do a river trip every summer growing up, but it was mostly just fishing. I rock climbed a bit in college, but I’d never done any white water or skydiving until about five years ago.”
“What made you want to?” I asked.
A shadow passed across his face before it was gone. He raised his eyebrows. “Who wouldn’t?”
I raised my hand.
“You don’t count. Let me guess, you were the kid all decked out in helmet and pads every time you rode your bike.”
My eyes narrowed. “Safety first.”
“I’ll bet you hated slip ‘n’ slides…”
My lips turned upward at a memory that came flying back to me. I wasn’t sure why I decided to share it with him, except for the fact that my body had relaxed by this point, and my mouth must have followed suit. “My mom has this video of me and my sister in the front yard when we were little. We had just gotten a new slip ‘n’ slide. I had backed up, like thirty feet, and did a huge running start toward it. Full-out run. When I got to the slide, I stopped, sat down, and then scooted myself with my hands all the way down.”
Miles grinned broadly, and I felt a hint of pride at having caused that reaction in him.
“I can see it all perfectly.”