Summer Dreams by Cheryl Bradshaw

Author:Cheryl Bradshaw [Cheryl Bradshaw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pixie Publishing
Published: 2016-08-31T07:00:00+00:00

Two days later I was questioning my ability to make good decisions while finding myself strapped into a harness, standing next to Sean. We were on the rooftop of the Stratosphere on the Las Vegas strip waiting to SkyJump off the tower. No biggie, right? I was only eight hundred twenty-nine feet in the air, preparing for a forty-mile per hour freefall that held the Guinness World Record for the highest controlled descent. It had taken Sean a few tries to talk me into going, but when he said nothing in his life had ever made him feel so alive as doing the SkyJump had, part of me felt it was the perfect thing to add a bit more to my life. So there I was, locked and loaded and clinging onto Sean’s hand like a baby clutching the pacifier so hard that his mother couldn’t pry it away.

It was time. I had to let go of his hand, step onto the platform, and do it. He’d paid good money for me to have the experience. I released his hand and listened to the male employee giving me instructions on where to stand and where to place my hands. He kept saying, “It’s all right, ma’am. I got you. You can do it.”

I stood where he told me to stand, grabbed hold of what he told me to grab hold of, and closed my eyes.

“Good,” the employee said. “Now, I’m going to give you a countdown, and then I just need you to let go.”

“Okay.”

“Three, two, one ... go.”

Only I didn’t go. I froze. “I just don’t know. I don’t think I can do this.”

The employee did his best to offer support and reassurance, and then he did the countdown one more time. When I still didn’t go, he tried a third time. “You got this. If you don’t go, we’ll have to bring you back in. You can do this. I know you can.”

He counted down one last time, and this time I stepped off the ledge and embraced it. I thought I’d scream, see my life flash in front of me. Instead I felt invigorated. Sean was right. It was one of the most freeing things I’d ever done in my life.

Sean went next without hesitation, high-fiving me once he reached the ground. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into him. “I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it.”

Feeling the warmth of another man’s arms wrapped around me—someone I saw as potentially more than a friend—was interesting. I’d always assumed I’d feel like I was betraying Richard. Somehow I didn’t.

“You deserve a reward for that freefall,” he said. “How about we get some food somewhere?”

“Or we can skip the food and go straight for dessert.”

“I like it. Have you ever had frozen hot chocolate before?”

“I haven’t.”

He grinned and reached for my hand. “Let’s give you one more experience you’ll never forget.”

A couple hours later, after driving through a neighborhood of Mediterranean-style homes and showing him the dream house I could never afford, he pulled up to the curb in front of my home.

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