"Okay, seriously, where are we going?" Michael prodded. The path was wide enough for them to walk next to each other, and Michael had to speed up his gate to keep up with Ari's fast walk.
"Jesus, Michael," She laughed. "You are not good with suspense. You'll find out in less than five minutes."
True to Ari's word, it couldn't have been more than three minutes later when they arrived at a small clearing. A few more steps forward made it apparent that the clearing ended abruptly to make way for a wide stream about ten feet below. That meant that this edge was...
"A cliff," Michael remarked somewhat nervously. "This cannot possibly end well."
He turned back to Ari to see her pulling off her tank top to reveal a light grey bra.
"Wait - what are you doing?" Michael's eyebrows shot up.
"Nice day for a swim, don't you think?" Ari smiled innocently, beginning to unzip her shorts.
"Wait..." Michael's jaw dropped. "You're not thinking of...jumping off this?"
"Why not?" Ari shrugged, now naked except for her bra and underwear and making her way towards the edge of the cliff.
"Because, um, it's like...a really far jump," Michael hurried towards Ari, prepared to grab her and pull her back if he had to. "Won't you like...splatter on the surface? Doesn't that happen?"
Ari just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, apparently not self conscious at all about the fact that she was almost completely naked. Not that she needed to be, because...let's just say Michael had to fight hard not to let his eyes drop.
"And is the water even deep enough?" Michael worried. "What if you break your legs at the bottom? Or your neck?"
"Do I need to stand here until you run out of things to worry about?" Ari asked, her blue eyes coming dangerously close to rolling again.
"You can stand here all day because I'm not letting you jump." Michael said firmly.
"Since when do you get to control what I do?" Ari asked haughtily.
Michael didn't have a response for this.
"I'll tell you what," Ari smiled sweetly. "You have two options: One, you let me jump and watch as I survive an am perfectly fine and you are proven wrong, or two, you jump first and if you die or "splatter" or whatever the hell you're worried about than I won't jump and you will have heroically saved my life."
"Um..." Michael bit his lip nervously. "Number three?"
"One or two, bud. What's it going to be?" Ari recrossed her arms.
Michael thought about it for a moment. If Ari was so confident that it was fine, then she had surely done it before and maybe it was fine. Maybe he should just let her jump?
He took a glance down at the dark water. It looked deep - really deep - so he probably wouldn't break his legs if he jumped.
Maybe he should jump.
YOLO, right?
Also, the second option was certainly the most heroic of the two, and because of Ari's current unclothed state, Michael was feeling a testosterone fuelled need to impress.
"Fine," Michael took a deep breath before committing. "I choose option two, or b) or whatever."
Ari's eyebrows raised a tiny bit, like she was surprised and trying to hide it. "Okay, go ahead. Jump."
Michael stood there for a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Are you going to do it or not?" Ari bit her lip, trying not to smile.
"Yeah." Michael muttered, turning slightly towards the cliff.
"Are you going to jump fully clothed, Michael?" The way she said it, it was like a dare for him to take off his clothes.
"No." He muttered even quieter, slowly reaching down towards the hem of his T-shirt. He pulled it off and tried not to meet Ari's eyes as he tossed it to the ground. It was hard to tell if she was watching out of the corner of his eye, but he wouldn't look. He couldn't look.
He reached towards the zipper of his pants and tugged at it, wondering how slow he could get away with taking them off.
"Okay, do you want me to turn around?" Ari asked, her voice full of laughter.
"No, it's fine." Michael promised. He was wearing skinny jeans which unfortunately required a fair amount of bending and tugging to get off, but soon enough he had slid them off his legs. He started to fold them, to buy some time.
"Seriously?" Ari scoffed, gesturing to the careful creases he was currently making. "You're folding your pants? Dude, really?"
Michael gave her a look and she put her hands on her hips, which was unfortunately very sexy when she did it in her underwear. "You picked number two. Are you gonna jump, or do I need to push you?"
"Okay, fine." Michael tossed his jeans in the general direction of his shirt and made his way to the edge of the cliff in his underwear. He shouldn't have felt silly, because Ari was in hers too, but for some reason he did anyway.
He looked down towards the dark water at the bottom of the cliff and watched as the rapidly-picking-up wind created ripples in its surface. A gust whipped past him and raised goosebumps on his naked skin.
"Won't it be really cold?" He stalled.
"Just jump!" Ari threw her arms up, laughing. "Oh, and if you don't want a giant purple bruise all over your body, make sure to keep your legs straight."
"Oh shit!" Michael cried. He then jumped, not giving himself any more time to think about it.
There was a few terrifying seconds where he was suspended in thin air and he felt like his stomach might fly out of his mouth and he had to struggle with all his might to keep his legs straight. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt the wind rushing past him and then suddenly, with a splash, he was underwater.
His eyes snapped open at the sudden contact, and due to his pointed toes, he didn't splatter on the surface of the water (he wasn't sure if that would have happened anyway), but instead he was just underwater, without any memory of getting there.
He could see the bubbles rushing up around him, and true to Ari's word, the water was so deep that he didn't even touch the bottom, although he could see it's stony surface through the murky water when he looked down.
He pushed himself up to the surface and took a gasping breath. He could still feel his heart racing and the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and he was surprised to come to the conclusion that the jump hadn't actually been that bad. It had, in fact, been almost...fun!
He looked up at Ari, not being able to conceal the wide smile across his face. The cliff didn't look that high from the bottom. He could see Ari's blue streaks clearly.
"See?" She grinned. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Michael bit his lip. "Um...no, I guess it wasn't." The water wasn't even that cold. It was pretty warm actually.
"It's a great rush, huh?" Ari took a hair elastic off of her wrist and pulled her hair into a ponytail.
"Yeah," Michael smiled, swimming away from where he had landed. "Now you have to jump. You promised you would, because I picked number two, so now it's your - "
He hadn't finished speaking when Ari put her hands at her sides and hopped off the cliff, landing in the water in a perfect pencil dive. He wondered if his had looked that good to her. He doubted it.
When she came up, pushing a few wet strands that had come free of her ponytail out of her eyes, a wide grin was spread across her face. "I used to do this all the time with Ash. We've been doing it since we were kids."
"Have you lived here your whole life?" Michael asked curiously.
Ari's blue eyes darkened, a sad look across her face, and she ducked under the water, ignoring his question.
When she came back up, the look was gone, but Michael wondered what had caused it.
"You know," Ari said, ignoring his question. "I've always wondered what it would be like to kiss someone underwater."
"Um...yeah," Michael gave a small laugh at the random comment. "Me too."
Ari shrugged, the water rippling as her shoulders moved. "Wanna try?"
Michael couldn't speak for a moment. Finally, he choked. "Y-you're saying you want to...you want me to...kiss you?"
"There would be no strings attached, of course," Ari said nonchalantly. "It would be purely for scientific study."
Michael wasn't sure if "scientific," was the word he would use.
"Um...I don't know...wouldn't that be weird? Because, you know, we're just friends?" Michael had to struggle to keep his head above water.
"No." Ari shrugged again.
"Okay...I guess..." Who was he to say no to a beautiful girl in her underwear asking him to kiss her?
"Okay, ready?" Ari asked, smiling. "One...Two...Three!" She took a deep breath and ducked under the water, and Michael quickly did the same.
He opened his eyes, and Ari's skin looked like it was glowing under the water. She moved towards him, and Michael felt his heart speed up, despite the "no strings attached" thing.
He reached out his hands and placed them on her cheeks, guiding her lips towards his. He closed his eyes, and suddenly her lips were on his. It was a curious kiss, and it only lasted about five seconds, but Michael still felt his skin tingle where she had touched him. They surfaced, and Michael felt his cheeks heat up.
"That was..." Ari giggled. "Strange."
"Yeah." Michael nodded, though he didn't really mean it.
The kiss had been amazing.
*wolf whistles*
That chapter was written differently than the chapters I usually write, I don't know why. I was just in a different mood while I was writing it, IDK. I was also really tired and I managed to spell "Michael" with an x and a q a few times, so...
And I've never had an underwater kiss before so I'm not sure how that actually...like...works, so I didn't go into too much detail, but rest assured that all the kissing scenes won't be like that.
Oh yes, there will be more. ;)
Loser_Luke
