They still hadn’t figured it out when they arrived in town.
They found themselves throwing out ideas as they paced the gazebo. Outdoors—better for thinking.
“Trust. All I can think of are those team-building exercises where colleagues fall from tables and are caught by their reluctant deskmates.”
Jonathan grimaced.
Sapphire continued, “What if it was like that, but bigger?”
David paused, hands clutched behind his back. He shook his head and continued pacing.
“Yeah, hear me out,” Sapphire said. “What if you, like, jumped off a bridge together? Bungee jumped, you know. Trust in the rope. Trust each other to take the leap?”
Jonathan throttled the lip of the bench where he sat. David stepped between him and Sapphire. “No bridges. No heights. Definitely no falling.”
“Why not? It’s the perfect—”
David continued resolutely. “No.”
“Yes.”
David spun around, confusion pinching his brow, tightening his lips.
Jonathan pushed off the bench and took his hands. “That’s exactly what we should do.”
A cool wind swirled around them, flicked at David’s hair. His eyes searched Jonathan’s intently. Low, snagged on a breath, “Jonathan . . .”
He looked over at Sapphire. “Let’s do it.”
Sapphire grinned and got to searching on his phone. David snagged his wrist and pulled him down the gazebo steps, toward Courtship Crossover. He stopped between the two, the weeping willows behind him flicking their curtains in the breeze.
Something glimmered under the concern in David’s eyes.
Hope.
He blinked it away. “I can’t let you do this.”
Jonathan hooked a finger under David’s smooth chin. “Support five homeless teens. Become an influencer to fund them. Win the Social Challenge to keep their home. You set yourself impossible goals, and it’s about time someone showed you you’re worth the impossible too.”
Sapphire’s voice cut between them. “Booked a spot in twenty minutes. Ready?”
No. No, he wasn’t ready to throw himself off a bridge and into the void.
Feel the fear.
Do it anyway.
The bridge was an old railway bridge: maroon-coloured steel criss-crossing over a hundred-and-fifty-meter drop. Native bush shrouded the hills on either side of a deep, turquoise river. Beautiful. Terrifying.
An endless fall.
He inched across the bridge—slow, fraught with shudders—to the midpoint, where a crew was waiting.
Air swirled around them, whipping their hair and sneaking up his sleeves. He tensed.
“You’re safe,” David murmured, arm branded around his waist.
“Hm.”
Fingers drummed softly at his hip. “You can change your mind.”
Jonathan glanced at David’s flushed face, eyes greener than the dense foliage around them.
Bubbled clouds promised rain, later.
The air was still, like a pent breath.
Jonathan shivered. His insides swayed, and the idea of solid ground . . .
He shook his head.
The first step was his own. David followed closely, warmth hooked around him. The crew made their calculations, delivered their instructions. Jonathan’s gaze shot over the edge of the open platform they’d soon step off. An expanse of water waited.
Sapphire was waiting down there too, filming from the little boat that collected the jumpers.
Harness. Bungee cord.
David’s steady breaths met Jonathan’s uneven ones. Arms around David’s strong back, head tucked against his neck.
Tightening around his ankles.
It was so high up.
He inhaled deeply and lifted his head. Met David’s eyes. His limbs felt loose, liquid; David held him closer. “We can still go back.”
Jonathan shuffled an inch toward the void, his grip instinctively doubling on David.
“Pretend it’s a dance.”
Jonathan looked at him, everything else a blur.
David murmured, “Strauss. I’m leading—spin, approaching the finale. I’m about to dip you.”
A raised brow, a leaping heart as David shuffled them another inch. Gravity grabbed at him—at both of them.
“Every time I’ve ever looked at you” —another half inch. Nothing under his feet. David, smiling— “felt like this—”
Wind whipped at his ears and his insides scrambled up his torso, gravity playing chase in his balls, his stomach, at base of his throat.
The seconds stretched. Breath stolen. David, David, David.
In Turkey.
. . . It’s so ticklish, the air here, like I can feel the love. Like maybe one day I could be someone’s beating heart. And they could be mine.
Mount Olympus.
I feel so small. I feel like I could wish anything and it would be granted.
Between his thighs on a dinghy at sunrise.
This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The cord tightened and then jerked them upwards, a fierce zip of electricity. A rush of sky and water, and green.
David.
Laughter.
David’s sweet, carefree laughter.
His own, breaking free.
Dizzying.
Exhilarating.
Hanging in mid-air, hair wild and stretching towards the river, face flushed with the rush of blood, David looked at him. Raised an eyebrow.
Jonathan crushed him close. They spun. Another laugh.
“Ridiculous.”
It was four by the time they submitted their post, leaving two hours for agonising before the winner would be announced. Sapphire kept up an eyebrow-raising stream of chatter, but David couldn’t keep still. His laughter was stilted and forced and Jonathan’s attempt to rub his shoulders only made him worse: another reminder of daily comforts they stood to lose.
The wait was as excruciating as those moments before tipping off the bridge. David looked at his phone, checking the time. Set it down again, leg instantly hopping under the table. By five-thirty, Jonathan couldn’t bear it. He needed fresh air. He grabbed his phone and jotted down everyone’s fish ‘n chips wishes.