Page 78 of The Falcon and the Foe

A small pit formed in my stomach. My past had taught me that sex could create fake intimacy. It brought people closer physically, not emotionally, and landmines formed when a person mixed up the two. Whatever feelings swirled inside me at the moment were merely a side-effect of amazing sex.

Zipline Bro directed us to a cargo wagon hitched to a truck to take us to our doom.

I pulled Russ close. “If I fall and break all my bones, I’m going to make sure they fix my leg first so I can kick your ass.”

* * *

Russand I had gone from sharing a tiny tent to sharing a tiny platform way, way up in the trees. Sure, there was a lush canopy of leaves in front of me, but my line of sight kept trending down, down, all the way down to the ground.

“I told you not to look down,” Russ said.

I grasped the rope and carabiner keeping me hooked to the tree. I watched all of the other zipliners jump and glide to safety. Russ was right. Nobody had died. But wasn’t there a first for everything? Zipline Bro said himself that I had a large head. What if it dragged me down?

“Dude, I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Zipline Bro said in a lazy drawl that inspired little confidence. He demonstrated the strength of the rope by leaning backward over the platform.

Russ rubbed my neck, which made my muscles melt at a time when they should be poised.

“Which one of you is it going to be?” Zipline Bro pointed an eenie meenie minie mo finger between us, the final two.

“It’s going to be great.” Russ tapped his helmet against mine, as close as our foreheads could touch.

“It’s going to be terrifying.”

“That’s the best part.”

“God, you sound like you’re going to take my virginity or something.”

Zipline Bro’s eyebrows jumped, and he took a tiny “no homo” scooch back.

“Well, in a way...you are a zipline virgin. Want me to go first, to show you there’s nothing to be worried about?”

“I wouldn’t say nothing, but sure. Okay.” I heaved out a nervous breath watching Russ get strapped onto the zipline hook.

“Do you want to go sitting or Superman?” Zipline Bro asked.

“Superman.” Russ looked back at me and puffed out his chest in a Superman pose. It was so dorky that I forgot where I was for a second.

Right, I’m dangling from a rope dozens of feet in the air.

“What if I don’t want to do this?”

“There’s only one way you’re leaving this platform, and it’s that way.” Russ pointed at the thin black cable stretching into the expanse.

He squeezed my hand tight as if attempting to transfer a scoach of his confidence into my soul.

Russ got strapped into position, carabiners hooked into his harness. Zipline Bro tugged on the cable. He waited for the scratch of his radio to come back with a clear.

“I’ll see you on the other side.” Russ gave me a wink before he jumped, his body disappearing into the trees. The cable made an actual zipping sound.

And then there was one.

“You ready, Dude?”

My fingers dug into the rope. I tried to summon my younger self, the guy who did crazy, risky things with abandon, who didn’t worry about death or dismemberment.

“Sitting or Superman?” Zipline Bro asked.

“Sitting.”

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