“Maybe, but I suddenly have a very strong desire not to place my life in the hands of what’s basically a giant rubber band,” I reply.

“Come here.” Colton leads me over to a picnic table, the smell of cheap pizza and churros wafting like perfume from the garbage can full of greasy paper plates and leftovers nearby. Sitting me down, he straddles the bench, turning me to face him, his knees outside mine.

Colton leans forward, kissing me firmly. His confidence is heady and addictive, his lips soft and seeking. We certainly have kissed before. I mean, I’ve pretty much tasted most of his body by now, but this kiss somehow feels more intimate than what we did this afternoon. Like he’s silently and generously lending me strength in my moment of doubt and nerves.

When he pulls back, he’s smiling, satisfaction written in the set of his mouth as he traces the pulse in my neck with his thumb. He tilts his head, and I think he’s coming back for more. Instead, he asks me a question.

“Have you ever heard of flipism?”

I’m already mentally kissing him, so it takes me a heartbeat, maybe two, to register what he said. “Is that where you flip people off? Or when someone’s flippant?”

His lips do that twitching thing, but this time it feels like he’s full-out laughing at me so I push at his chest. “Shut up and just tell me. Don’t make it like some high school vocabulary pop-quiz I didn’t study for. Asshole.”

He laughs for real at that, holding up both hands to show he meant no disrespect. I huff and dramatically cross my arms anyway, not letting him off the hook that easily.

But he knows I’m playing and runs his palms down my arms. I relax automatically, letting him have my hands back, and he intertwines our fingers.

“Flipism is the art of the coin toss. You know how you assign one option to heads and one to tails, but there's that moment when the coin is in the air, and deep inside, you know what you want it to land on. Or sometimes, it takes the coin actually landing and you feel that seed of disappointment or relief in the result. That moment of intuition about what you really want, the revelation of your true preference . . . that’s the foundation of flipism.”

“That sounds like a lot of really fancy talk for a coin toss.” I laugh at the absurdity, but there’s that tiny little bit of me that likes the ease and lack of responsibility in the decision-making process. Though I don’t think Dad would take ‘I flipped a coin’ as an adult decision-making process. “So you want me to flip a coin about going to London?”

His eyes cut to the right, toward the big crane of death. “Not exactly. I was thinking you could be the coin. Stand at the top and I think you’ll know. Do you want to stay, not go to London, and keep your life the way it is? Do you want to jump and go to London? See what happens.”

His eyes come back to mine, deeper thoughts there than I think either of us expected with this whole mess, and certainly some heavy talk for an amusement park where some kid just hurled loudly in the trash can. Not the one by us, thankfully, but the one by the go-karts. Too many circles, I guess.

I blink, trying to ignore the retches because I’m a sympathy puker, and focus on Colton’s words. “I think if you stand there, if you jump, in that moment in the wind, you will know your preference. And then you just have to follow through, brave girl. Fly, or if you are fluttering away like a hummingbird, choose to be an eagle and soar. Rather American, yeah?”

He looks pleased at himself for making his pep talk end on a Go-America note. I mean, how are you supposed to be all ‘nah, think I’ll skip’ on that? It’d be downright unpatriotic.

“This isn’t even about all that.” I gesture, his face encompassing all the stuff he just dropped on me. “I’m just scared because it’s so damn high. Fear of heights is a perfectly reasonable mode of self-preservation.”

“How about if I go first? I’m going to London. I’m all-in here . . . in more ways than one. I’ll jump as a show of good faith and wait for you right there.” He points at the ground below the crane.

“You would do that?” I ask, shocked that anyone would be that nice . . . or that suicidal. Even Tiffany wouldn’t do that, not even on a dare. Well, maybe then, but the stakes would have to be major. Something like Louboutins if she jumped.

Colton waits patiently, giving me the space to decide for myself. I realize this isn’t even the hard decision. I’m just figuring out if I want to stand up on the crane and see what the coin in my belly tells me. At a minimum, I can do that. Jumping? I’ll have to wait and see on that.

“Okay,” I say, taking the mental plunge. “Let’s do this.”

Colton grins and runs off to get the tickets before I can change my mind, coming back and taking me by the hand.

“Okay, I’ll go first, and then you can go.”

He doesn’t add the ‘if you want to’, but I hear it loud and clear, anyway.

The elevator’s slow, and I can’t even look out the wire mesh of the cage as we rise higher into the air. It’s ridiculous. I didn’t have a problem with Colton’s great glass elevator to his penthouse, but the feeling of the breeze lifting the little wisps of hair at the back of my neck has me trembling like an autumn leaf.

“Hey,” Colton says, pulling me in front of him and wrapping his arms around me. “You’ve got this.” I won’t admit, not to him and not even to myself, that the cocoon of his arms soothes me, making the itchy, twitchy feelings along my spine calm.

The walkway sways with our footsteps, and I’m gripping the dual metal rails with both hands as the attendant outfits me with my harness. “Hey,” he says, his breath stinking with cheap cigarettes that he probably smokes in between jumps, “It’ll be great. Time of your life.”

His utterly monotone voice and dry delivery makes it sound like he’s being sarcastic, but I think he just doesn’t care that I’m about to jump out of my skin again. He must do this dozens of times per day. I’m just another body to him. Which makes me think of something else . . .

“Where’s the safety certificate for this thing? How many days since the last incident?” I picture a dry-erase board with a big, fat zero on it because they’ve probably already lost at least two people today. I’ll be the third, barely an afterthought on the news tonight when they report the Faulty Bungee Massacre at Fun Land story.

“Are you like, with the feds or something?” the attendant asks, suddenly interested. That feels like an even worse sign.

“It’ll be fine,” Colton assures both me and the attendant. The guy shrugs and turns to us, the question of who’s up in his eyes. “I’ll go first. Elle, I’ll wait for you on the ground, okay?”

I nod, my lips dry and my tongue unable to work up any spit to moisten them. Finally, I grunt a sound that I think might mean ‘yes’, and Colton kisses me once more. It’s over too quickly, making it feel like a goodbye. Shit, maybe he’s gonna be victim number three.

The attendant finishes getting us both into harnesses, cinching us up tight before clicking me onto a round pole. “You’ll wait here. But I’ll keep an eye on you, make sure you’re good.” To Colton, he says, “Let’s fly, man.” Colton’s carabiner attaches to a safety line that runs down to the drop zone.