And yet so incredibly, monumentally wrong.
Because I was scared of something.
Terrified, in truth.
And that was of the feeling I had in my chest when he looked at me like that, like I was the only thing in the world, like I was the only person he would ever want to have this adventure with.
Wanting to get away from those feelings, I took a deep breath, my fingers gripping his more tightly.
“On three,” I told him, leaning forward slightly. “One…”
“Three,” he declared, leaping, taking me with him.
When I looked back on this moment, I would find a sort of poetry in it.
The act of physically falling.
And the fact that, inside, my heart was doing something very similar, something just as frightening, but also as thrilling.
My scream echoed through the empty park right before we broke through the surface at the bottom of the waterfall, last-minute panic gripping me, realizing I had absolutely no idea if this water was deep enough to dive into, if we were going to survive the fall, if I was going to be some Jane Doe in a Bali morgue because no one here actually knew who I was.
But when my body propelled upward again, breaking the surface, allowing me to gasp for air, I decided it had been worth the risk.
I turned, finding Fenway who was reaching up with one hand to swipe his hair back, his grin as triumphant as mine must have been.
Have you ever been skinny-dipping in an Indonesian lake after leaping down a waterfall with a billionaire playboy?
Well, I have.
And let me tell you, it was the best moment of my life.
“You do realize that all of our clothes are sopping wet now,” I said, seeing my dress float by us, Fenway’s hand reaching out for it.
“I told you that you needed that dress at the market. But did you believe me? Nooo,” he teased, eyes dancing.
“Well, had I known that we would end up tossing our clothing into a lake, I might have reconsidered that stance. We are going to be freezing on the ride back to the house.”
“Well, then, I guess we will have to warm up in the hot tub together,” he suggested, shrugging. “But we can’t be too long,” he added, reaching for me, pulling me closer, using one arm to keep us afloat.
“Why? Do we have more plans tonight?”
“Not tonight. But we will need time to pack.”
Pack?
We were leaving?
And why was my heart sinking at the idea.
“I didn’t even get to see the beach yet!” I told him, trying for light and fun when I felt like something was crumbling inside.
“Well, I am taking you to a different beach,” he told me, pressing a silly kiss to the tip of my nose. “On the yacht,” he added, eyebrows wiggling.
“Well, I can’t exactly turn down a trip on a yacht, now, can I?”
“You certainly can not,” he affirmed.
I had thought he meant a different beach in Bali.
Really, I should have known better.
This was Fenway, after all.
King of the ridiculous.
Chaser of new adventures.
To Fenway, we had ‘done’ Bali.
And it was time for a new experience.
And a new country.
Me, I was an eager passenger.
Sometime between the marketplace and the cave, I had somehow completely stopped faking it.
And it wasn’t until a week later, my feet cozy in warm sand, when a ding on my phone reminded me of the truth.
That none of this was real.
That this was just a job.
And one that was nearly over.
NINE
Fenway
“Do you think we are going to see one of those giant crab things?” Wasp asked, eyes wide, smile bright.
Most people, when they heard of all the creepy crawlers in Australia, x’d out the entire country as a “nope.”
Wasp?
Wasp wanted me to uncover every freaky, ugly, venomous, dangerous creature.
When I’d gotten her on the yacht four days before, after listening to a short lecture about how ostentatious it was before she decided we needed to break in the hot tub, she had pulled out her phone, finding some articles about all the weird and wondrous creatures that inhabited the Land Down Under.
“There are one-hundred-and-seventy snakes native to Australia. Want to know how many are venomous?”
I didn’t actually, but her enthusiasm was infections. My hand moved out, tucking the hair behind her ear that had fallen in her face. “How many?”
“One-hundred! Oh my God. They have snakes that can eat crocodiles. Look at this kangaroo. He looks like he is ‘roided up and ready to fight,” she told me, turning her phone.
I’d brought hundreds of people to thousands of places in my life. Not one, not a single one, was half as excited about things as Wasp was.
She’d cooed over monkeys. She’d stopped at every single stand at the market, admiring goods. She’d stood for every photo op, claiming she needed the memories for when she got old and boring.