Page 60 of Nitro

“I’m trying to understand why you need to do this. I promise I am, but you could get hurt. There are fates worse than death. You could be paralyzed or suffer a brain injury. Any number of things could go wrong.”

“That’s why I research this stuff first. Look before I leap.” I smile down at her.

“Maybe we should call them back and move our appointment to a different day. This is a lot to take in.”

“The longer you think about it, the more time you’ll have to talk yourself out of it. I’ve been dying to do this—well, not dying, poor choice of words—wantingto do this since I first heard about it. I watched dozens of videos online of other people’s jumps. It’s going to be fucking awesome!”

“I can’t stop you, can I?”

“No.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to push you into doing this just to make me happy.”

“Maybe it will help me feel less scared.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Jeff. The divorce. My future.”

“Jumping will take your mind off all that. It’s another reason I do this stuff. It gives my brain downtime. You can’t obsess about your problems when you’re falling back to Earth at a hundred and twenty mph.”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah! I can’t wait!” I jump out of bed and pull on my pants. “Get dressed, kitten. We’ll eat lunch on the way.”

“How far is it from the clubhouse?”

“An hour and a half. Remember that barbecue place near the river?”

“The one we went to last week? Those ribs were amazing.”

“We’ll stop there and have a picnic by the river.”

“It’s half-romantic.” She slides out of bed and begins getting dressed.

“Only half?”

“The other part of this date involves potential death and dismemberment.” She smirks before pulling a long-sleeved shirt over her head. “But I’ll go along with it because you’re super excited and I don’t want to mess that up.”

“If you’re completely against it, we don’t have to go.” I take her hands in mine so she knows I’m being serious. “I’m not Jeff. I’m not going to force you to do anything. If you want to stay on the ground and wait for me, that’s perfectly fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” I brush my lips across hers. “However, I do have one condition.”

“Which is?”

“If you don’t jump, I get the longest, slurpiest, nastiest blowjob ever later.”

“Baby, I’d give you that anyway.”

“Well then, it’s a win-win for me.” I laugh as I grab her by the waist and spin her around. She inadvertently kicks over a pile of clothes in the process.

“We really need to clean this place up.”

“Probably.” I shrug. “Later.”