CHAPTER ONE

“We better not see anyone I know while we’re here,” I said when I walked out of the women’s restroom at Basset’s House of Jump wearing a hideous pair of orange gym shorts that who knows how many people had worn previously.

For some reason, when I told my best friend Emma that I’d meet her here after closing my floral shop for the day, I hadn’t even considered that the facility wouldn’t allow me to jump in my jeans.

“You don’t look so bad.” Emma eyed me as she stood there looking amazing in the black yoga pants and tank top from her new fitness clothing line.

I looked down at the bright orange shorts that I was practically drowning in since they were made for a man several inches taller than a five-foot-three-inch woman like myself. “Let’s just hope we don’t run into anyone we recognize while we’re here.”

It had to be possible, right? We might be in our hometown of Maplebridge but there couldn’t be that many people our age jumping at this place on a Friday evening.

“Are you excited to jump?” Piper, Emma’s six-year-old daughter, asked me from beside her mother.

And I couldn’t help but smile at the little cutie in her pink tank and leggings that matched her mom’s, because she was adorable.

“I am excited to jump, Miss Piper,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “But are you excited?”

Piper nodded and smiled a big toothy grin that showed the gap where her two front teeth had been this winter. “It’s going to be the funnest day ever.”

“Yes, it will!” I said, loving her enthusiasm.

I may be about eight years behind Emma in the getting-married-and-having-babies department, but I did love her kids. She and her husband Arie had been together since we graduated high school ten years ago, and they really did make the cutest babies together what with their dark hair, striking blue eyes, and olive complected skin.

Piper turned to her mom, tugging on her hand. “Can we go inside now? We’re going to miss it.”

Emma smiled patiently at Piper. “We’ll go in as soon as your daddy and Blair get back from the bathroom, okay?”

Blair was their four-year-old who had been doing the potty dance while we were standing in line for our wristbands.

Piper looked like she was about to complain about her sister taking too long in the bathroom when Arie and Blair appeared on the other side of the room. And a minute later, we were entering the gym area and stowing our shoes in the shoe bins the facility kept near the entrance.

“Where should we go first?” Emma asked me after Arie took the girls to the kids’ area.

“I’m not sure,” I said, surveying the room full of trampolines. “I’ve never been to a place like this before.”

There were a few trampolines with basketball hoops along the back wall. An obstacle course was on the right. The kids’ area was to the left. 

But right in front of us was the trapeze swing where kids and teens were swinging into a pit full of green and black foam squares. 

I’d always wondered what it would feel like to land in a huge pile of foam cubes. I imagined it was probably a lot like landing on a big cloud.

“Do you want to try that?” I pointed at the trapeze, deciding it looked the most fun.

“Sure.” Emma shrugged. “It’s your birthday weekend. I’ll go anywhere you want.”

So we got in line, and I tried not to feel completely out of place in my baggy shorts among all the kids. 

Despite feeling like the odd woman out, as I watched the kids swing and drop into the pit ahead, my anticipation grew. I may be a childless, single woman about to turn twenty-eight tomorrow—which by Utah standards basically meant I was an ancient old maid—but standing there and waiting for my turn with my best friend since kindergarten made me feel like a kid again.

A girl at the front of the line, who had to be about ten, grabbed the trapeze and swung herself into the foam pit, landing gracefully before climbing out.

“Do you want to go first? Or should I?” Emma turned to me, her blue eyes bright like she was just as excited as I was to try this thing out.

“You go first,” I said. “Show off those backflips you used to do on your trampoline back in the day.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be attempting that quite yet.”

A teenage guy went next, swinging high and then landing on his back several feet ahead of where the girl had landed before him.

More kids followed and the line inched forward. After another few minutes, Emma and I made it to the front.

Emma grabbed hold of the trapeze, the muscles in her arms flexing as she put her weight on them. She and Arie had a vigorous workout regimen to go along with their athletic clothing line. Seeing how amazingly in shape she was after two kids had always made me wish I was more motivated to exercise.

Sure, I was naturally on the thin side—thanks to my mom’s genetics—but I envied people who pushed their bodies to be better every day.

Emma gracefully landed in the foam pit and looked back at me with a smile of exhilaration on her face as she moved along the top of the foam cubes to exit the pit. 

Once she had climbed out, she stood with her hands on her slender waist and yelled, “Let’s see what you’ve got, Maya!”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly not so sure of myself. But I took a deep breath anyway, stood on my tiptoes so I could reach the trapeze without the stool, and with only a few seconds of hesitation, I let myself swing as far as I could over the foam cubes. 

My heartbeat skyrocketed as I flew through the air. And then, just when the swing was on its backward dip, I released my grip and dropped, my landing soft as green and black cubes enveloped me.

It wasn’t exactly how I imagined landing on a cloud would be, but it was definitely the softest landing I’d ever had.

I probably would have laid there forever, but since I knew there was a whole line of kids waiting for their turn, I sat up, pushed my legs down into the foam cubes beneath me, and started my walk toward the edge of the pit where Emma was waiting for me.

Or, at least, I tried to walk toward the edge. Because when I stepped down on the cubes to exit the pit with ease like Emma and all the kids before her had done, my feet just sunk farther down, not having the resistance beneath them like I’d expected.

I took another step, but just like before, it made me sink even farther down so the foam cubes were now at my chest.

What the heck?

My heart raced as I tried to find some sort of purchase for my feet. But the more I pushed down on the cubes to have something under me to walk on, the more I sunk.

How deep was this thing exactly?

I tried to lift my legs for another step, but it felt like they each weighed a hundred pounds.

I looked at the landing behind me to the line of kids waiting for me to exit the pit and found annoyed expressions on a pack of twelve-year-old boys. 

Annoyed at the old lady who couldn’t get her butt out of their way.

I turned my gaze back to the edge of the pit where Emma was waiting, and though it was only about ten feet away, it felt like miles from how little I was progressing toward it.

How the heck had everyone made this look so easy? Because I was sweating like a very humiliated pig from the exertion, panic flooding over me.

“What am I doing wrong?” I yelled to Emma, my heart racing faster as I felt like I was just sinking farther and farther down with every step I took. “I can barely move.”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, seeming confused. “I just kind of swam out.”

Just swam out?

She had been more on top of the foam cubes. Had sticking my feet down and trying to walk out been the wrong way to go about this?

I continued to fight my way through the foam cubes that were now feeling more like quicksand beneath my feet than anything solid. But the more I tried, the more stuck I felt.

“Are you okay?” Emma asked, concern etched in her eyes. “Do you need me to get help?”

“Maybe.” I sighed, feeling the edges of a panic attack starting to come on as I was exhausting myself but getting nowhere. “I’m stuck.”

I looked around to see if there was an employee somewhere close with some sort of rescue device. But the only other adults in the vicinity were a middle-aged couple sitting on the bench behind Emma, watching me like I was a beached whale.

How was this happening to me?

Sure I couldn’t remember the last time I’d lifted weights, but I couldn’t be this far gone, could I?

My face and neck burned hotter, so I took a deep breath and hoped it would help me hold my panic attack at bay.

I can do this. 

Just one step at a time.

I’m not going to drown in a stupid foam pit!

But as I continued to exert myself, with very little progress, I started to feel hopeless that I’d never get out of here.

What a way to die—the day before my twenty-eighth birthday.

The night before I was set to see my all-time favorite rock star in concert.

Ever since I discovered Incognito—the masked singer whose true identity no one knew—I had dreamed of going to one of his concerts. But anytime he had one remotely close to my small town in Southern Utah, the tickets had sold out within minutes and I’d missed out because I couldn’t get through the servers fast enough.

But my amazing friend Emma had managed to pull some strings and got us front-row seats to the last concert of his summer tour in Las Vegas tomorrow night. In just over twenty-four hours, I would be singing along to that raspy baritone voice that literally took my breath away every time he belted out the chorus of his new song “Miles Away Next to You.”

At least, I would be doing that if I survived this foam pit of doom.

I looked up at Emma, deciding that desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Can you go get Arie? I don’t think I’m getting out of here on my own.” 

When Arie first moved to Maplebridge during Emma and my senior year of high school, his undercover bodyguard’s muscles had been front and center in several of my dreams. This was before I realized he was perfect for my best friend and not me. 

So if anyone in this trampoline place could save me from this predicament, it would be him.

“I’ll get him,” Emma said, and then turned to retrieve her husband from the kids’ area.

While Emma went to get my rescuer, I continued my slow walk through what felt like quicksand. Amazingly enough, after another thirty seconds, I made it to the side. But when I tried to lift myself out, my arm muscles were shaking so hard I barely budged an inch.

I looked to where Emma had disappeared to and saw her talking to Arie. Her tall, dark-haired husband glanced my way, and in the next second, he was in motion.

Thank goodness. I sighed, some of the tension leaving my body. This nightmare was almost over.

And that was when a deep voice sounded from above. “Maya? Is that you?”

I closed my eyes tight, hoping it was just my over-active imagination that had conjured up the voice that I’d been doing my best to not think about for the past two months.

But when I opened my eyes and tilted my head up to my left, I found myself staring into the eyes of none other than Landon Holloway—the guy I’d grown up next door to.

Also the guy who I hadn’t seen since the day I’d rebound made-out with him after calling off my wedding two months ago.

This night was just getting better and better.