Page 54 of My Fearless Fake Fling

“And Jake is one of those guys?” I asked. Not that I needed an answer. His gut punch pretty well clued me in.

Like at the airplane jump, they had lockers for us to lock our valuables inside. Unlike at the air jump, we didn’t need a jumpsuit. One of Jake’s assistants helped Len in to a harness while the man—Jake himself—helped me into mine, his hands often getting a little closer to friendly than I was comfortable with.

“Watch your hand now, or watch it dangling broken in a minute,” I warned him.

“Feisty,” he said. “No wonder Len likes you.”

“Len loves me. Would you like him to prove it to you?” I turned my head and called, “Hey, Le—”

Jake’s hand wrapped around my mouth to muffle my words. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Oh, but I think I do,” I said. Though with his hand over my mouth it sounded more like, “Owe, mut I hink I to.” And then I bit him.

Jake howled, shaking his hand out. “Listen, you can’t jump if I’m bleeding.”

“Fair enough. Hands to yourself, yeah?”

“You’re all his,” he said as his consent.

From that point on, Jake treated me like any other customer. Harnessed and with helmets on, we walked up to the unfinished bridge, which Jake had turned into his platform for jumping off of.

One end of the thick bungee he hooked to a metal railing with a hook as big as my hand. Then, per his directions, I climbed over the railing to stand on a ledge.

“Right, Kami. Now I want you to bend your knees, spring up and back, understand? You’ll be fine. The bungee will stretch and snap you back up a couple of times before you dangle. The second bungee will be used to pull you over to the platform lower down. They’ll help you out of your harness.”

“Got it.”

“You can do this, baby.” Len kissed me. “I’ll be videoing you the whole way down.”

On the count of three (I bent my knees), two (I sprang up and back), one. The air rushed over my face, so loud in my ears. Vaguely, I became aware that I screamed like a gleeful maniac. And I wasn’t scared. Not this time. I looked at the river below growing closer as I fell until the bungee couldn’t stretch anymore and snapped me back up. I dropped a second time. The bungee snapped me back up a second time, not as high, and I dropped a third and final time.

“Woo!” Len screeched. “Good job, Kams.Woo!”

I looked up and waved to him and his phone, knowing full well I looked like an idiot in the video. Did I care? Not one single, solitary bit.

Crazy Kami just bungee jumped off an unfinished bridge over a river. “I want to go again,” I called back up to him.

“Wait for me. We’ll go again together,” Len called down.

The assistants pulled me over to the lower platform and I watched Len fall from below him.

I clapped and screamed and clapped some more. When they pulled him in, I didn’t even give him the chance to unlatch the hook from the harness before I launched myself at him. Those strong arms wrapped to hold me tight.

“This was amazing,” I said. “You’re amazing.” You couldn’t pry the smile off my face with a crowbar.

We climbed the wooden steps back up the side of the cliff to reach the platform again.

“Going again, Jake,” Len informed him.

Still smiling, or should I say smiling again, Jake nodded. “So I heard.”

This time Len and I jumped off while holding hands.

What a rush. I thought ziplining and rock wall climbing were fun. This just became my new favorite pastime.

After our second jump, new people had shown up, so we let the assistants help us from the harnesses.

“Still feeling good?” Len asked.

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