Winning my Best Friend's Girl - Piper Rayne Page 0,48
the start of a smile forming. “You know the answer to that.”
“Yeah, I do.” I turn and put my hand on the doorknob of my room.
“Be careful, okay?”
I glance over my shoulder. “I’m always careful.”
I wink at her and she huffs. Once I’m in my room, I close my eyes and lean back against the door.
You got this. Friends and all that bullshit. We’ve been here before. Except I didn’t want to be there then and I sure as hell don’t want to be in the friend zone now.
“Holy shit!” Samantha yells when we reach the bottom of the hill.
Tank actually does scream, and our guide, Tim—whose name threw me at first because he’s roughly the age my father would be right now and shares the same name. He’s also tall and lean with the dark hair just like me—laughs at Tank.
“I don’t get reactions like that often,” Tim says, leading the way to where the helicopter is going to meet us to take us back up.
Samantha hooks her arm through mine. “I’m so happy we did this. I’ve been debating it for years. Tell me what I need to do to use a parachute.”
Tim glances back, obviously overhearing our conversation, but he doesn’t say anything.
“I’m not sure, but you need to learn how to use an actual parachute first,” I say.
One thing I’ve figured out with Samantha is that she’s all about the adrenaline rush, but safety isn’t a huge concern for her. Tank and I know how to use a parachute. We have to make sure we land where we’re marked when we’re smoke jumping. Otherwise we’d find ourselves landing in the middle of a forest fire.
Tank glances at me. “You wanna speed ride?”
I nod, and again Tim glances over but says nothing. He obviously has an opinion on the subject. I intended to find out from him how I can get a helicopter to take us so we can fly down. It’s not unheard of. I know other smoke jumpers who did it last season.
“I’m in.” Tank raises his hand, and I high five him. “And I’ll give you some lessons if you want, Sam.”
Sam?
“You would? That’d be awesome.”
“First thing you need to do is jump out of a plane with me strapped to your back.”
Her eyes light up. I think I’m off the hook if she did have any inkling to try to win me over after our conversation at the bar. “Thanks.”
“I’ll line it up when we get home,” he says.
The helicopter lands and Tim ushers us forward, all of us carrying our skis and loading them in. Once we’re seated and ready to take off again, Tank and Samantha are suddenly very coupley and I’m left with Tim. Good times.
We end up skiing down the mountain again, and the weather couldn’t have been better.
At the end of the day, we take off our gear in the office where we met Tim at the beginning of the day, and he approaches me.
“I heard you talking about speed riding,” he says. Now more than ever, I get that fatherly vibe from Tim. He’s dressed in a long-sleeve T-shirt with his company logo and a pair of jeans with boots.
“Yeah.”
“How experienced are you? I saw that you could ski, but that’s only a small part of it. I saw you almost lose your ski out from under you on the second run, but you recovered quickly. Thought on the fly. So you have the calmness for it, too.” He crosses his arms. The expression on his face doesn’t look like he’s giving me compliments.
“I’m a smoke jumper. I can parachute.” The idea of strapping a parachute to my back and skis on my feet and heading down the mountain makes my heart race. I grab my snow pants and wrap them in a ball, folding them into my bag.
“Okay. But it’s dangerous and I can tell you right now”—he glances over his shoulder—“Samantha isn’t skilled enough for it. You and Corey, yeah.” He uses Corey instead of Tank, which throws me for a second. “But if you’re serious, you have to go up with someone who’s going to take you somewhere safe.”
“Sure, do you know a place?”
“Here. It’s not something I offer, but I see it in you and your friend’s eyes, you’re going to do it no matter how dangerous I tell you it is. So we’ll use my ‘copters and set a date.”
“Seriously?” I look at Tank and Samantha flirting by the vending machines. “How