Page 44 of Until We Fall

“Uh,yeah.” I grin. There’s really no hiding it. “You’re next to me. Of course I am.”

He licks his lips, silent for a moment, still looking up at me. His heart is pounding. I can feel it. His arms tremble as they lock around me. Thoughts spin in his eyes.

“I… like it,” he finally says. “Maybe later we can…”

He blushes.

Ohhh fuck. “I?—”

“Are you ready?” the guide asks.

I nod and lean close to Rory’s ear. “Areyouready?”

When I lean back, he opens his mouth. We’re tied so that my dick is digging into his stomach, twitching every time he moves.

“I think I’m scared,” he says quietly. I don’t know if he’s talking about jumping or everything else.

Scared.

Carter said that too.

Maybe that’s just the way it is when falling for someone this hard.

But it won’t stop me.

I wrap my arms tighter around him. “I am too. But I’m ready to do this with you.”

He nods. “Don’t let go.”

Fuck, Iwon’t. We’re an inch from the edge, and it feels like if we jump off, it will be the moment that changes everything.

A jump into the unknown.

I’m so fucking ready.

We grip onto each other, and together we fall.

13

In the patioarea outside our room, the palm fronds and ferns hang in the breezeless night. A tree frog chirps to my right, and another answers to my left.

I smile, listening to another round of chirps before they fall silent.

Rory is heading back here with Theo and Carter. I’d needed a moment and said something about taking a shit, totally inelegantly, but they didn’t question it. I just need some time to think after that jump.

We kissed at the bottom. Rory initiated it, still swinging on the end of the tether. The kiss was rather sloppy with us moving, but it didn’t matter. He’d kissed me right there.

I take a swig from a water bottle, the condensation cooling my palm.

Tomorrow, we get back on a plane. Then finals and graduation. It’s coming to an end.

I recap the bottle.

What am I going to do?

About a million thoughts race through my head, but they all stop when the room light clicks on. I watch through the slidingglass as Rory steps in, sweeping his hair out of his eyes and glancing around.

He’s looking for me.

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