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“I asked if they’re willing to sell.”
“Oh,” I say with a heavy sigh. “No, it didn’t seem like it.”
“Too bad,” Travis says as he plucks his guitar strings. “Owning a bungee jump would be cool.”
“Is that a new song?” I ask. “It sounds pretty good.”
His face lights up. “Yeah, you like it? I can’t figure out the chorus.”
“You have to be more aggressive,” Kendall says, narrowing her eyes on me. “The bungee jump could be the first in a line of adventure companies. We can brand them all together. Kayak rental, rock climbing, whitewater rafting, zorbing.”
“What the fuck is zorbing?” Travis asks.
“You get into a big, transparent ball and they roll you down a hill,” Kendall says.
“Now that sounds stupid,” Travis says.
“So stupid,” she says, rolling her eyes, “but the profit margins are through the roof.”
I sigh as I look at my younger sister. Sometimes she reminds me of Dad. She has the same ruthless business instinct that he did.
We have to remember what we’re doing here. We can’t turn into our parents.
“Who did you talk to?” Kendall asks, typing away. “It says here the owners are a brother and sister duo. Julian and Ivy Long.”
I swallow hard when she turns the laptop around and shows me the Greene Mountain Bungee website. Taking up the whole screen is a gorgeous photo of Ivy and her brother. My eyes focus right on her beautiful smile and I’m right back there on the bridge, falling in love all over again.
It was going so well too. I was making her laugh. I was making her smile. And I nearly had a date with her until I brought up business and ruined it all.
“Did you talk to the brother or the sister?” she asks.
I get up and make some coffee. I’ve only been in this house for three weeks and the cupboards are still pretty bare. The view of the mountains is spectacular and it has more rooms than I know what to do with. Everything is pure luxury, but it feels like something is missing. A woman’s touch maybe… Ivy’s touch…
“Dane,” Kendall snaps. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I say defensively.
“You look like that bungee jump shook something loose in your brain.”
Travis looks up from his guitar. “Can you make me a cup?”
“Yeah,” I nod as I grab the coffee from the fridge. I feel like something did jar loose. This girl has got me all scattered. I can’t stop thinking about her and obsessing over where I went wrong.
“So, who did you talk to?” Kendall asks, pushing and pushing. I swear she doesn’t know when to stop. My sister is a force of nature, just like Dad was, relentless ambition to the point it’s scary.
“I talked to the sister,” I say as I grab the coffee filters and shove one into the machine.
“She’s cute,” Travis says.
I yank my head around, holding back a possessive growl. “Don’t even think about it.”
Kendall sees all this and rolls her eyes. “Seriously, Dane? You got a thing for her?”
“I don’t have a thing for her,” I say.
And it’s true. A ‘thing’ is reserved for light crushes. For tentative feelings. High school romances and puppy love. This is different. This girl is my soulmate. She’s my everything.
If I can’t have her I won’t be able to live. I’ll jump off that bridge again, but this time I’ll do it without the bungee cord.