You Have My Attention

“We’re going indoor skydiving?! That’s so cool!” I exclaimed, bouncing almost as much as Zacky was as we entered the room.

Now that I was inside, I didn’t know where to look first – the awesome sea of colours painted on the walls? The massive clear cylinder in the middle of the room that disappeared up into the ceiling (and appeared to keep going)? The massive fan inside the cylinder floor? The skateboards lined up against one wall?

When my roaming gaze landed on Zacky, though, it was clear what he was looking at. His eyes were trained on my body – something that Andy definitely noticed.

“I hope he knows that he’s staring at something that’s out of bounds. He may be looking but he certainly won’t be touching; if he even tries to touch, I’ll bite him” Andy grumbled, clearly annoyed at the employees interest in me.

“Don’t worry, babe, I wouldn’t want him touching. We would both bite him for it” I agreed, hastily ending the conversation as Zacky came over and praying that he didn’t hear Andy’s ‘cannibal couple’ remark.

Blissfully unaware, Zacky started babbling about how indoor skydiving worked and talked us through the stages we had to go through before we could actually go into the skydiving simulator.

“To make sure you know what position to lie in once in there, we get you to lie on a long skateboard first, so we can show you how to hold your body” he explained in a rush, all the while retrieving said skateboard from the rack at the side. “Right, now who’s going first? Let’s have you, blue eyes”.

Though he could have been talking to either of us since Andy and I both had blue eyes, Zacky reached out and grasped my wrist, gently pulling me forward and gesturing for me to lie on the skateboard.

I lowered myself down without fuss – I wasn’t used to boys other than Andy giving me attention, so it was a new experience, but I felt that I handled it pretty well.

Once I was lying on my chest, I felt a hand on my leg adjusting my position and pulling my leg out straight. Thankfully, he didn’t spend that much time touching me and got me into position fairly quickly.

“Now, when you’re in the cylinder, just lower yourself into this position and then I’ll lift you a bit so that the air can get under your body. From there on out, the fan’ll do the rest, I’ll just be there to guide you around. Stop you crashing into the walls” he chuckled as he helped Andy down onto the board and proceeded to position him in the same way he did me.

Once he was satisfied we knew how to lie, he called another colleague over – a woman with brown hair that was pulled into a ponytail. Since we wanted to go in together, we needed another employee there as each person needed an instructor.

“Hey, guys! I’m Julia” she greeted, much more chilled - but equally as welcoming - as Zacky. “So, who’s going with who?” she asked, looking between Andy, Zacky and I.

Ever protective, Andy immediately volunteered to go with Zacky, so I was with Julia; I didn’t even bother to look over at Zacky to see whether he looked disappointed or not. At the end of the day, I was here with Andy to spend the day with him, not to wonder whether some guy was going to try and make a move on me or not. He could look all he wanted, I wasn’t interested.

“Can we go in the tubey thing now?” I asked, eyeing up the machine excitedly and making the group chuckle.

“Yes, yes you can” Zacky answered and started leading us to the centre of the room. Another member of staff was stationed behind a control desk to the side of the tube, and when we walked up over, they started pressing buttons, obviously getting the machine ready to go.

Julia pulled open the clear door and held it open as we all stepped in, immediately feeling the force of the fans from underneath us.

Distracted by the weird sensation, I wasn’t aware of what I was supposed to be doing until Andy dropped to the floor and positioned himself in the way we were taught earlier. Once he did this, he started to rise slightly, the air starting to flow beneath him.

Eager to experience it myself, I did the same, grinning at Andy as Julia and Zacky crouched by our sides and gently gripped the arm and leg of our bodies that was nearest to them.

“Ready?” Zacky asked, loud enough to be heard above the fans.

From watching a video of two YouTubers doing this before, I knew what would happen as soon as the instructors pushed off from the ground; air would start flowing beneath us, propelling us all into the air and high up in the cylinder; high up, where the instructors would gently manoeuvre us by the grip on our arms and legs so that we would spin and fly around.

With confirming nods from Andy and I, both instructors kicked off from the ground.