Page 21 of My Fearless Fake Fling

We opened the doors to both him and me screeching way off-key, “I’d rather wash my hair…”

Yeah, we weren’t alone in that parking lot. Several sets of eyes turned to us. Several brows furrowed. Len cut the engine, effectively ending the disruption. Though I was guessing not before we scared off several of the woodland creatures that made their homes nearby.

He climbed out. I climbed out. We both shut our doors and I met him around the front. The glares didn’t stop.

“What?” Len asked the crowd. “It’s Bon Jovi,” he finished, grabbing my hand to pull me faster.

I bit my lip to keep from cracking up.

Why couldn’t he be a real boyfriend? My screaming crush just got screaming-er. Never. Never had I ever had so much fun with a guy before. Or a girl for that matter. Most people, their hang-ups kept them from enjoying life. Not Len, the man had no hang-ups.

When we reached the glass door, he nudged my side with an elbow. We put on straight faces and walked in calmly.

The inside looked every bit what one would imagine a wilderness experience lobby to look like, i.e., log cabin walls, fake trees, and stuffed animals hanging from said trees. Available for sale, of course. There was a cooler to purchase soft drinks and water. Cookbooks, which I found odd. I wasn’t eating woodchuck stew or whatever they had going on between the pages. Snacks. Chips, nuts, granola. Plus artisan fudge and caramels. Then they even had consignments such as handmade soaps and patchwork fabric bags.

I could’ve stayed looking for a while longer, but Len had other ideas. He led me to the desk.

“Welcome,” the woman behind the counter said. “Have you been here before?”

“No,” Len replied.

I shook my head.

“Well, let me explain some of our features and you can decide which attractions you’d like to participate in.”

“No need.” Len pointed up to the board behind the woman. “We’ll take two of the extreme package.”

“That’s pretty lofty if you’ve nev—”

He cut her off. “We can handle it.”

“Okay, then…” She punched numbers into the cash register. “Your total comes to eighty-two seventy-three.”

I kind of, sort of reached for my wallet. And henotkind of swatted my hand away. But that was a lot of money to spend on a fake girlfriend and I felt bad.

“Reach for that wallet again and see what you get,” he warned.

I put my hands up in front of me, the universalokay, I’ll stop.Though since I knew he’d never physically hurt me, part of me wanted to reach for my wallet again just to see what he’d do.

After stuffing his credit card back in his wallet, he dropped his arm around my waist to usher me through the revolving door that led outside. Several trails branched off from the spot where we stood. The extreme package came with four attractions. We needed to present our tickets at each attraction of our choosing, and the attendant would use a hole-punch to prove we’d participated.

Len apparently knew which attraction he wanted first because he spent all of five seconds looking at the map before grabbing hold of my hand and dragging me towards one of the trails. As tends to happen, the temperature dropped the farther in the forest we walked. Crickets and my guess, toads, chirped. Birds sang. It smelled fresh and damp. The tip of my nose went numb from the chill.

Finally, we reached a clearing and our first challenge on this adventure. A—I used my finger to count—four-story rock wall.

“Len, I can’t do that. It’s too high.”

“You can do it,” he assured me. Well, tried to assure me.

“I can—”

“She’s first.” He was big on cutting people off today. Then before I could back out, he handed my ticket over to the attendant.

The attendant punched a hole in the top left corner of the thick paper, handed it back to Len and told him, “You have to wait here.”

Next thing I knew I was being trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey in a harness hooked to a bungee cord, which they’d attached to the top of the rock wall. And a helmet secured to my head.

“Try to find the biggest hand and footholds. It’ll take the strain off your arm muscles,” the attendant said.

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