Chapter 8
Randi
Randi led them to the water slide that she had heard so much about in her research. It was the most popular ride in the park, and from the looks of it, it had been enjoyed thoroughly.
“Talk about being rode hard and put up wet,” she commented.
Chance murmured his agreement. “At least in this case, it’s supposed to be wet.”
Unlike most slides with their winding staircases, this one offered a lift, which looked more like a cheap version of an elevator, that went straight up to the top of the slide.
While Randi wasn’t afraid of heights, elevators were a totally different story.
She blamed action movies for the thoughts that always haunted her mind whenever she stepped into the suffocating box of doom.
Even at TimeOff with its multi-stories she used the stairs every chance she got.
She groaned inwardly when Chance walked right up to the lift. “Shall we?”
She wasn’t about to lose face with him, so she stepped inside and he pulled the door closed behind them. She held her breath for that first moment of swooop in the pit of her stomach that always started an elevator ride.
In her opinion, the lift had outlived its functionality as it squeaked and squealed while they rose.
Halfway up the tower, where the wind came sharp and insistent off the gulf, the narrow metal platform beneath her feet gave a slow, queasy sway that made her stomach feel as though it had unhooked itself from the rest of her body and drifted somewhere just behind her ribs.
She had been talking a moment before, about what exactly she couldn’t remember, but her voice thinned and disappeared as the horizon tilted ever so slightly, and she found herself gripping the side rail harder than she meant to.
Her knuckles turned white and her breaths became shallow and uneven as the lift creaked upward with a stubborn, mechanical patience that suddenly felt cruel.
“Don’t look down.”
His voice came from just behind her shoulder, low and even, as though they were standing on solid ground instead of suspended in open air with nothing but a thin railing and a questionable engineering decision keeping them from a long, humiliating fall.
“I wasn’t…” she started, and then stopped. The almost-shriek she had let out gave her away and because the lift gave another subtle sway that made her suck in her breath very loudly made the lie feel pointless.
The silence stretched just long enough for her to become aware of everything at once.
The wind tugged strands of her hair loose and then his hand was there, firm and steady at the small of her back.
It wasn’t intrusive but unmistakably grounding, a quiet anchor that seemed to say I’ve got you without making a show of it.
It should have been enough, and it almost was.
But when the platform shifted again, slight though it was, it sent a sharp spike of panic straight through her.
Before she could think better of it and before she could remember who he was or how he kept himself carefully removed, she reacted and caught hold of him.
Her arms wrapped around his torso with a desperation she would absolutely deny later if given the chance.
In her panic, she was afraid he would push her away, maybe even out of the lift. Instead, he held her.
Not loosely or awkwardly, but solidly, with one arm coming around her shoulders as if it belonged there and the other still steady at her back.
His presence was unshaken by the wind or her sudden loss of composure, and he didn’t say anything as the lift carried them upward and her pulse slowly, reluctantly began to settle.
It took longer than she would have liked.
Long enough for awareness to creep back in, bringing with it a flush of embarrassment that burned hotter than the Florida sun ever could, and when she finally pulled away, it was abrupt. Her hands retreated as though they’d touched something they shouldn’t have.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, even though Chance hadn’t asked.
“Clearly,” he replied.
And just like that, it was gone. The steadiness and quiet reassurance were replaced by that familiar edge and the distance between them snapped back into place so cleanly it almost made her wonder if she had imagined the rest.
By the time the lift reached the top platform, they stepped off without speaking.
Randi had never been so happy to step onto a solid structure in her life.
The wide expanse of the slide stretched out before them and Randi forced herself back into the role she understood, the one that didn’t involve clinging to people or wishing they’d stay softer than they were meant to be.
“Needless to say, the lift needs a major upgrade, or just taken down.” She turned to the slide.
“The incline’s too aggressive at the drop,” she said and moved toward the edge to peer down the curve.
Her clipboard was already at the ready in her hands.
“You’re going to lose control of speed by the second turn unless you—”
“I know how it works.”
The interruption was sharp and clipped in a way that made her straighten. The remnants of her earlier embarrassment sparked into something far more familiar and far less forgiving.
“Then why are we here assessing it?” she shot back and turned to face him fully. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you skipped a few basic classes in tact.”
“I didn’t skip anything,” he snapped and stepped closer. His expression tightened in a way that suggested her input was not only unnecessary but actively unwelcome. “You’re overthinking it.”
“I’m doing my job.” She wanted to tell him how ridiculous he looked in a suit on a water slide, but she bit her tongue.
“You’re complicating it.”
“And you’re rude!”
The words tangled with the frustration that had been building since the parking lot, sharpened now by the memory of his arms around her and the way he had so easily stepped back out of that moment.
Before she could stop herself, or remember that she was supposed to be the professional one, she shoved him.
It wasn’t hard or even particularly forceful. But the platform was slick and his footing was just uncertain enough that the combination was disastrous.
His shoe caught the edge of the slide and he slipped. In the half-second where surprise replaced irritation on his face as his balance went, he fell backward straight toward the open mouth of the slide.
“What the hell…”
He caught the edge with one hand, but momentum had already claimed him. As he dropped onto the slick surface and water rushed over his suit, his other hand shot out on instinct and closed around the nearest solid thing.
Which happened to be her ankle.
There was a brief, surreal moment where she considered the sequence of events that had led her here, where she thought, this is not how this was supposed to go. Her clipboard went flying as she was yanked forward with a startled yelp. Her own footing vanished as quickly as his hand.
The slide took them both.
Cold water surged around them as gravity did what gravity does best and pulled them down the steep curve with a force that stole her breath and replaced it with something wild and electric.
Her initial scream broke free before she could stop it, and it echoed off the enclosed walls as they twisted through the turns.
And then, about halfway down, she laughed. She couldn’t help it.
The sheer absurdity of it, the rush of speed, the way the world narrowed to water and motion and the unexpected thrill of it all, burst out of her in bright, breathless laughter that tangled with the remnants of her scream until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
They shot out into the catch pool in a splash that took them under. The impact knocked the air from her lungs for a second before she surfaced and pushed wet hair from her face. She gasped and grinned despite herself.
For a moment, she forgot everything else because across from her, chest-deep in water and dripping from head to toe wearing what was probably an expensive suit, Chance was laughing.
Not the restrained, almost reluctant amusement she had seen in rare flashes before, but something open and unguarded. The sound of it was rich and genuine in a way that caught her completely off guard. It transformed his entire face into something warmer, something dangerous, in its own way.
The chemistry between them hit her then, sudden and undeniable. The kind that didn’t ask permission and made her chest tighten now, even as she tried to ignore it.
An employee hurried over at the edge of the pool and awkwardly held out her clipboard with a look that hovered somewhere between concern and poorly concealed amusement. Randi swam toward the side.
“Thank you,” she managed. “Can you just set it over there until I’m less, umm, drippy?”
When she turned back, Chance had already started to pull himself out of the water. The laughter faded and the familiar wall of distance settled back over him like it had never left.
Of course that’s how it would go.
How long is that version of him going to stick around?
And more importantly,
What happens if it doesn’t?