Page 23 of The Spirit of Love
“That’s your mother’s name.”
“That’s my mother’s name.” He nods. “And about the last thing you asked me on the porch.”
“The afterlife,” I remember.Don’t fail this one, please.
Sam scratches his head. “I can’t say I’ve thought about it much before. My world is quiet by design. But since last night, I’ve been feeling…I don’t know. Like there’s more out there that I want to see. Like you. So. Do you want to spend the day with me now?”
I squeeze his hand and grin. “I do.”
Chapter Six
“If you go back toLA without screaming your face off on my homemade zip line,” Sam says to me later that morning as we enter a grove of cedar and eucalyptus trees, “were you even here?”
In preparation for the day ahead, Sam has instructed me to wear closed-toed shoes, a strong coat of sunscreen, and a bathing suit under my clothes. He’s decked out in fitted black swim trunks, a well-worn pair of gray New Balances, and a sleeveless gray tank that’s been washed so many times it’s practically translucent. Which makes it practically perfect. The sight of his tanned, bare shoulder flexing as he lifted the backpack he brought with us was something I feel I should have paid admission to see.
“Did you just sayzip line?” I ask.
“It’s more than a zip line,” Sam says. “It’s my masterpiece.”
“Your fireplace isn’t your masterpiece?” I ask, adding in my mind,Or your butt?
“My fireplace is good for warmth and contemplation. But this zip line, Fenny. This zip line lets you slip the bonds of Earth and dance in the skies. This zip line touches the face of God.” He glances at me. “Or whatever you believe is out there.”
“Out there or in here?” I ask, thumb to my heart.
I stop speaking when we reach the wooden platform that abruptly ends the trail. Beyond it lies an endless expanse of scary sky. The platform is nailed into a crook of branches in a stately cedar tree. A few feet above my head, two thick steel ropes have been tied around the trunk of the cedar. They run parallel to each other, stretching out into an unknown downward distance, ending somewhere unseen.
A silver pulley is attached to the ropes above my head.
“Oh, hell no,” I say and start back the way I came.
Sam laughs and puts his hands on my shoulders. There’s that soft, penetrating look in his eyes again, the one that signals to my brain,Trust him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ve ridden it a thousand times. Look at me.” Sam gestures at his fantastic body. “Not a scratch.”
It’s hard to refute that he’s anything less than physically perfect.
“These ropes are made from galvanized steel,” he says. “I could send a hundred Fennys down them at the same time, and these ropes wouldn’t flinch.”
As he unknots the pulley, I gaze down from the platform into the abyss. I cringe at the jagged boulders only twenty feet below, at the drought-parched cacti covering every visible piece of disappearing slope. Vertigo darts around my chest, scorching a path of fear. I’d rather not show up to set to direct my first episode wearing a full-body cast.
“Where exactly does this end?” I ask.
“Sooner than you’ll want it to,” Sam says. “The ride is less than two minutes, but about three seconds in, you enter an endorphin-flooded state you’ll crave for the rest of your life—”
“Ooh, another flood. Howfun.”
“This is the kind of flood we want,” Sam says. “Not that last night wasn’t.”
He smiles. I gulp.
“And right before the end, the pulley slows enough for you to put your feet down and walk.”
“And where will this slow walk occur?”
“It’s a surprise,” he says and hands me a helmet.
“Where’s your helmet?” I ask.
“I only have one helmet,” he says. “I’ve never done a…duet.”
