I grinned, and he led the way, ducking to get through the doorway as I followed. There was a corroded set of scaffolding stairs leading the way up past graffiti-covered walls, which spoiled the illusion. But a stone bench, just wide enough for the two of us to sit with our hips touching, provided a place to look out the tower’s window. The ocean sparkled below us, a perfect deep blue all the way to the horizon.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“Worth it?” Joe asked quietly.
I nodded, feeling the sudden heat of his thigh against mine, afraid to turn my head toward his. There was something about this place, this person, that was crushing my self-control.
Instead, I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon. “Do you think we could see a whale from up here?”
“You really want to see a whale, don’t you? You keep mentioning it.”
I started to say no, then I stopped myself. “You know what?” I looked at him. “I want to see a whale.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do tomorrow.”
“That’s not too touristy for you?”
He shrugged. “I’ll live.”
“When do we need to head back to not get stuck?”
His eyes flicked down to his watch. “Pretty soon.”
“I feel like the way back down is going to be harder than the way up.”
“Depends. How brave are you feeling?”
I looked at him sideways, the repetition of my grandmother’s words making me nervous. “Why?”
“Well, we can go back the way we came, but you’re right, it’s kind of treacherous. Or we take the stairs from the castle to that ledge down there.” He pointed to a rock that jutted out over the ocean like a natural diving board. “And then . . . jump.”
“What do you mean ‘jump’？” We were literally at the top of a small mountain in the ocean. He wasn’t serious. Was he?
“It’s about a fifty-foot drop into open ocean. Then you swim onto the beach around the side and walk back to the sandbar from there.”
“And people survive that?”
He laughed again. “Yes. No one has died doing it. At least not that I’ve ever heard of.”
“Has anyone ever actually tried it?”
Joe grinned. “Why do you think I brought the waterproof backpack?”
Apparently my grandmother’s comment about my bravery determining my outfit had nothing to do with my comfort level surrounding Joe seeing me in a bathing suit. Why was she like that?
He was still talking. “I won’t judge if you’re not up to it.”
I wasn’t remotely sure I would survive it, but I trusted him. “Let’s go.”
“You’re sure.”
“You’ve done it before?”
“Dozens of times.”
“And you’ll jump with me?”
He smiled again. “Unless you want to go first and I’ll get a picture?”
I shook my head. “Definitely not brave enough to do it alone.”
“Then we go together.”
We left the tower, then went down the stone stairs outside the castle, which stopped at a shelf about seven feet above the flat rock Joe had pointed out from the tower’s window. “Once we jump down this part, there’s no turning back,” he warned. “Decide now.”
“I can do it.” He sat, then hopped down and held his arms up to help me as I went down. “What now? We just jump?”
“You probably want to give me your phone and shoes first. And your sunglasses.”
I pulled off my sunglasses, then my sneakers and socks, and handed them to him one at a time, then my phone. He put the shoes back in plastic bags, packing them into the backpack, then pulled off his shirt and wrapped our phones and sunglasses carefully in it before putting them into another plastic bag. I tried not to stare. He had a hint of a farmer’s tan and muscles that told me he didn’t just go running with his dog on the beach to stay in shape.
“Wait,” I said, then stripped off my tank top and shorts and handed them to him as well. I didn’t want to walk back in wet jean shorts. And I felt a hint of satisfaction at the look on his face.
He secured everything in the bag and put it on. “Ready?”
“You promise I’m not going to die here?”
“I promise.” He held out his hand and I took it. “Running jump on the count of three?”
I felt like if he looked, he could have seen my heart pounding in my chest. Grandma’s pool had a high dive when I was little. My sisters and cousins all loved it. I never worked up the courage. I had never been skydiving. Never jumped off the rocks into a quarry like in the movies. I had never even leapt into the ocean from a boat.