Page 51 of One Night in Paris

Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw Kylee’s eyes enlarge. “Really? That guy? I watched him swallow a corndog in two bites. While smearing mustard all over his face!”

“I didn’t say he was sophisticated,” Harper muttered.

Kylee laughed, but my attention was on Harper at the moment. Something was off. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but she was acting strangely. Turning to her, I asked, “You all right?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, giving me a half smile. “I’m fine.”

“She’s afraid of plummeting to her death,” Kylee piped in. “Much the way someone else we know was about to pee his pants over the bungee jumping.”

My eyes widened slightly at how boldly Kylee was teasing me considering we didn’t know each other that well, but I let it go. She was different, that was for sure. It was no wonder Trevor had asked about her about a hundred times since the visit to the amusement park. They were both odd ducks in their own way.

Concerned, I assessed the situation with Harper. She did look a bit pale. At a stoplight, I hazarded a glance at her hands and saw that they were trembling as well.

I wanted to reach out for her, to pull her close to me, and assure her that everything would be fine, just like she did when we went bungee jumping.

I couldn’t physically hold her and drive at the same time, but I could use what I knew about skydiving to make her feel better. “Don’t worry, Harper. I’ve done this dozens of times, and it’s so much fun. You’re going to love it. You’ll want to jump again and again, once you do it one time.”

“It’s not the jumping I’m worried about,” Harper replied. “It’s the landing. The idea that I could hit the ground going a bazillion miles per hour and smear all over the city like something falling out the business end of a pigeon.”

Her comment almost made me laugh, but I held back. “It’s not like that at all, Harper. I promise you. These guys are complete and total professionals. You’ll be strapped to someone who has jumped out of airplanes thousands of times and always lived to tell the tale. Their equipment is top notch, and they check it all the time. Seriously, don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.”

“But have those people ever lost someone?” Kylee asked, leaning around to the front seat. “Because I heard about a skydiving accident not far from here last year where some dude died and the instructor broke both of his legs off.”

“Not off,” I corrected without thinking.

“Wait—the rest of that is true?” Harper reached over and grabbed my arm. I could feel her hand shaking even more violently now, and her fingers were cold.

“No!” I insisted. “I mean, not exactly. It wasn’t at the place where we’re going. It was a different school, one that was shut down shortly thereafter. They didn’t do a good job of checkingequipment and that sort of thing. But these guys are total pros. Seriously, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Yeah, I bet the guy who died was probably told the same thing by whoever talked him into it,” Harper said under her breath, withdrawing her hand and folding her arms beneath her chest.

We were almost to Trevor’s house, and I was afraid he’d get in the car and start teasing them, making it worse. I needed to assure her somehow that this was safe.

Kylee wasn’t helping, that was for damn sure. “Actually, it was his granddaughter who asked him to go with her. It was supposed to be a trip for his eighty-first birthday. She felt so bad, she fell into a deep depression. She’s better now, thanks to treatment, but I can’t imagine being responsible for someone plummeting to their death.”

“The person who asked him to go isn’t responsible,” Harper clarified, making me feel only slightly better that she wouldn’t blame me if something went wrong. Not that I thought anything was going to go wrong. “The idiot who stepped out of the plane is responsible. If you’re dumb enough to try walking on air, you can’t blame anyone else when that doesn’t hold up—literally.”

Again, she almost made me laugh, but I bit it back. “It’ll be fine. I promise. They’ll go over all of the safety procedures and tell you why what they do is safe. You really will be safe.” Reaching for her hand, I said something similar to what she said to me on that bridge. “Harper, I’ll be with you the whole time. I’d never suggest that you do something you don’t feel safe about.”

Her eyes flickered to my face for a second, but then she looked away.

Pulling up to Trevor’s house, I punched in the gate code and waited for the barrier to open. Following the winding path up the road to his house, I prayed that he didn’t say anything stupid.

“Holy fuck!” Kylee exclaimed. “This is his house?”

I nodded. “He also has an apartment on Park Avenue, but this is where he is most of the time.”

“Shit. This is insane! Is your house like this, Mr. Moneybags?”

“No, I live in an apartment,” I assured her.

“It’s a super nice apartment, though.” Harper didn’t look at me, just kept her downcast eyes pointed toward the window where Trevor was bounding down his steps toward my vehicle.

“What up, bitches?” he exclaimed, opening the passenger side door. “Ah, man. You let your girlfriend take my seat!”

“Get in the back, jackass,” I replied.

“I’ll move.” Harper started to unbuckle her seatbelt, but I grabbed her arm.

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