Page 22 of Just Can't Fall for the Enemy

“No. Why would you do that?”

She looked perfectly innocent as I stammered, trying to find a response that wouldn’t sound overprotective and creepy. Then she smiled. “I’m just kidding. Thank you for worrying about me.”

“Yeah, well, please don’t do that again.”

“I don’t need to. It’s your turn.”

“What?”

“It’s . . . your . . .turn,” she repeated slowly. “Do you need me to come with you?”

I gave an incredulous chuckle. Falling was a weird fear of mine. I wouldn’t even cliff jump, something my subscribers constantly teased me about. “Funny. I’m not going up there. And if I do, I’m definitely not coming down like that.”

Her lips scrunched into a cute pout. “But what about your viewers? It’s your duty to experience everything, is it not? You really think they want to see footage of me leaping down a waterfall and not you?”

I would watch that footage all day long, but that was beside the point. “This isn’t my thing. I came to see the waterfall, not die in it.”

“Don’t be silly. Nobody’s ever died.” She paused. “Well, in this decade, anyway.”

“Very funny.”

She watched me expectantly, clearly not willing to move on and let this go. I refused to be seen as a coward in front of my own viewers. If Sophie jumped, they would expect me to jump too. She was right. But it looked pretty high from here, which meant it lookedreallyhigh from up there.

“I’ll film you,” she said unhelpfully. “Do you want ropes? There are hooks if you need them.”

“If I need them,” I muttered under my breath. “No, I’m fine.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” She grinned wolfishly.

In that instant, I saw exactly what this was. She’d waged battle on that poor fool the first night. The next night, she’d tricked me into ordering the hottest possible dish. Yesterday she’d tried to keep me from the wedding—to stop me from getting to know the people she cared about, perhaps? And now she’d discovered my fear of heights, and I knew exactly how: episode 46, one she’d obviously seen, where my friend tried to push me off a cliff into the water and I fought tooth and nail, throwing him in instead.

This was no tour. This was a war. And at this moment, she thought she’d won yet another battle.

I returned her grin with one of my own. Tanner Carmichael didn’t lose battles. Especially battles that involved cameras and beautiful women in wet suits.

I showed her how the camera worked, fastened my head camera and ran a quick test, then set to climbing. The rocks had plenty of handholds, but their being wet made the climb ten times harder. I scrambled up boulders twice my height near the top. It made me wonder how she’d done it when she was at least six inches shorter.

It seemed ages before I reached the point she’d leaped from. I turned to see her grinning from below—farbelow—and felt an impishness of my own. She’d practically dared me to match her jump. I would do better than that. I would beat it. I grabbed hold of the next boulder and pulled myself up, then up the next.

The grin on her face slipped a bit, then turned into a frown. She cupped her hands around her mouth, but I couldn’t hear what she shouted. Her face looked genuinely worried. At least she cared enough for that. She could give the eulogy at my funeral. I could see the headline now: “Headstrong YouTuber dies on camera to win a silent battle against a woman he barely knows to preserve his manly pride.”

Finally, the rocks were too smooth to climb any farther. I turned, gave her a salute, and stepped off the cliff.

The force of the falling water grabbed hold of me andthrewme toward the pool. It felt like it was trying to rip my skin right off and flay me for the world to see. Despite its power, I felt suspended in midair for far too long, frozen by the frigid temperature and a very real sense that this was the stupidest thing I’d ever done—and I’d done a lot of stupid things.

I plunged under the water. Now I understood why it had taken Sophie so long to reach the surface—the combined power of the waterfall and gravity forced me down, down, and downuntil I wasn’t sure I had breath enough to escape. Finally, I kicked outward and managed to get free long enough to swim upward toward the light.

She looked relieved when I broke the surface. In fact, she stared as I shook the water from my hair and approached, removing my head camera to toss it ashore.

When I stopped in front of her, I could tell she knew that I knew. There was a mixture of something I couldn’t read in her eyes—relief, guilt, a hint of wariness.

I smirked and swept her into my arms.

“Hey!” she protested, but she giggled as I carried her toward the water. I’d intended to toss her gingerly, but she fought the instant I arrived at the water so I accidentally dumped her. She landed with a splash, sputtering and laughing. Then she kicked the back of my knee, forcing it to collapse, and wrapped her arms around my neck to pull me in too. I threw myself sideways so I wouldn’t land on her. Then we were both sitting in the bitter-cold water, shivering and laughing at the impossible nature of this moment.

Before long, our laughter died and we sat there in silence despite the roaring of the waterfall. The world around us was quiet yet somehow not. Geese flew in formation overhead, their honking reaching us even over the noise of the waterfall.

“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” I confessed. “I’m glad no tourists have found this place.”

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