And you may ask yourself, "Am I right, am I wrong?"

“Haah… that was delicious,” Kim said, leaning back in her seat and patting her belly. She’d eaten an entire rack of barbecue ribs, and had sauce smeared over her lips. She didn’t seem to mind, and Nick didn’t, either.

While he normally wasn’t a huge fan of sloppy behavior, it was different with Kim. She’d spent so much of her life being buttoned-up and responsible, feeling compelled to do the right thing, that he was happy to give her a chance to just let things go and behave a little laid-back for a change.

It only made her cuter.

“So? Was that enough for you?” Nick asked. She’d eaten quite a lot.

Kim sat up straight and shook her head, quickly grabbing a napkin to wipe her mouth. “Not even close,” she said adamantly. “There’s way more things I’d like to try!”

But then her determined expression took on a sheepish tone. “…But… I probably shouldn’t,” she admitted.

“Oh?” Nick asked curiously.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I could spend the rest of the day here,” Kim said, looking wistfully out over the sea of delicacies that stretched out before her. “But there’s time for that another day. I’d like to get back into… the proper tone, I guess?”

She felt a little guilty for making such a pig out of herself. As much as today was about relaxing and indulging, there was a limit. If she spent the rest of the date stuffing her face, it wouldn’t exactly be the most romantic thing in the world, would it?

Of course it wouldn’t.

So Kim, at great personal cost, decided that the correct course of action was to shift things back on track. She needed to focus on the date! Having fun, enjoying herself, those things were important, but it had to be in a romantic atmosphere too.

Nothing else mattered if Nick came out of this only viewing her as a close friend, after all!

“What did you have in mind?” Nick asked. While he wouldn’t have minded indulging her for a bit more fun, what Kim wanted was the most important thing. And if she had some other way she wanted to relax, then…

He saw her face flush.

“Well… I… I was thinking, maybe… we could go skydiving?”

That wasn’t what he had in mind.

“Wait, what?” He rubbed his eyes. “You want to try skydiving?”

“Just for a little!” Kim said, her eyes widening as she realized maybe she’d made a mistake. “Obviously I’ve never done that before, but it seems really fun… and I know I’d never get the chance for something like that, so…”

“Okay, let’s do it then!” Nick wasn’t 100% on this, but if Kim wanted to do it, they should do it.

But now it was Kim who was hesitant.

“I know what I said before,” she mumbled, “that I’d try and make sure we could do something fun and relaxing, and maybe skydiving isn’t the best activity for that… but I’d really like to go. I think it could be really freeing! To just jump off, and feel the wind rushing around you, in free fall… does that sound crazy? I must sound crazy…”

“I-I don’t think that sounds crazy,” Nick said, shaking his head. “If you want to go skydiving, this might be your only chance. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine! After all, we’re in Dream Alley, so it’s not like we’ll get hurt, right?”

“Yeah, totally!” Kim nodded, her positive attitude returning. “Let’s do it!”

And that was how the two of them found themselves loaded up with flight gear, flying in a plane thousands of miles over the ground.

“Oh man…” Kim held her pounding heart. “Maybe… maybe this wasn’t so relaxing after all…”

“Well, think about it this way!” Nick called over to her. “If you start panicking, just lie a whole bunch, and then you’ll get some airbags to slow your fall!”

Kim stuck out her tongue. Then she sucked it back into her mouth and took a deep breath to calm her nerves.

This was supposed to be relaxing… maybe this is the race track all over again. She looked cautiously at Nick to see if he was nervous.

“You’re sure about this?” She asked. “We can pull out if you’re feeling anxious.”

“If only you were here last night when I needed that advice,” Nick said under his breath.

“What?”

“I said, don’t worry, I’m all set!” Nick changed the subject to reassure her. “Seeing all the stuff we’ve got strapped on, I actually feel way safer!”

Plus, there was time to prepare. Unlike seeing Kim’s fiery crash, Nick was ready for the worst, and could keep in mind that they were in Dream Alley. Nothing bad would happen here!

The door to the plane opened, and they both made their way over to it, feeling the vacuum trying to suck them out.

The couple had time to give each other one last look of encouragement, before they leapt out into the open air.

All of sudden it was like the whole world had fallen away. But Kim was the one who was falling. She could feel the **** of the air pushing back against her as she plummeted towards the ground, and the first thing she tried doing with her newfound freedom was to tuck her arms and legs in, making a more streamlined form that descended even faster.

Nick would have said she was crazy, and maybe she was. Crazy excited!

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Her calls of glee echoed behind her as she fell, and she spread out her arms, doing cartwheels and tumbling through the air. Maybe that wasn’t how normal skydiving was supposed to go, but who cared? She was in Dream Alley! She could do whatever she wanted! She would keep the earth as far away as she liked until she was ready to land. Until then? The sky was her domain!

She closed her eyes and imagined that she was nowhere. It felt so strange, to be so completely isolated from everything around her. To just be falling and falling and falling for who knows how long, never knowing if she might be getting close to the ground (while knowing that in fact she was not).

Heck- she was so safe, she might not even open her parachute at all, and hit the ground at top speed, just because!

Yeah, no, better not. Nick would have another heart attack.

Kim had intended to choose a romantic destination for the next part of their date, and she’d thought skydiving would be it. But when she looked around, she saw Nick falling away from her. Maybe he was miles away, maybe only feet, but it didn’t really matter because he wasn’t there with her. This was a very isolated activity, she was only just now realizing.

And as relaxing as it was, that wasn’t what she wanted. So she closed her eyes, relishing in the blissful feeling of plummeting through the air and how liberating it was, then she fumbled for the cord on her parachute and pulled it.

The sudden tug that jerked her up and back felt like she was gonna pull a muscle. And with Dani’s intense workouts, she knew very much what that felt like. But that was just a momentary discomfort, and soon she was gently drifting towards the ground.

She touched down on both feet and tossed up her arms in triumph, throwing back her head and letting out a loud victory cheer. Beside her, Nick descended and landed on the ground as well, coming over to see how she was feeling.

Their parachutes disappeared, forgotten.

“That was amazing!” His eyes glowed with excitement. “I’ve never done something like that before, that was great!”

“I know!” Kim grabbed his hands and held them tightly, looking back into his eyes with a brilliant gaze of her own. “I had so much fun, I can’t believe it! I actually went skydiving!”

She couldn’t stop smiling. After eating all that food, she had been somewhat lethargic, but now she was reinvigorated and reenergized again.

Not even thinking, she leaned forward and planted a hot kiss on Nick’s lips. He was surprised at first, but he quickly kissed back, and soon they were making out right in the empty field of the landing zone.

They didn’t need to care about that. After all, this was their dream. Everything around them only existed for their sake, and no other reason.

After breaking the kiss, they looked into each other’s eyes again, and shared an unspoken question.

“What should we do next?”

Another kiss was what they decided on, and they held each other close as they waited for the adrenaline to wear off. And while they hoped it never did, Dream Alley still had their limits, and soon enough the rush had passed, and they were ready to get this date back on track.

While they both very much would have liked to call it quits here and just go to the bedroom, there was still plenty of time left in the day. And besides, the longer they waited, the sweeter it would taste for them both, right?

“So what now?” Nick finally put words to the question burning between them. “Because I’m ready for just about anything at this point.”

Kim stifled a giggle. “Yeah, me too,” she agreed. “We did exciting skydiving, and that’s what I wanted to do. What about you, Nick? What do you find relaxing?”

“Well, I like curling up with a good book, or watching a TV show,” Nick said. “But we already did that… the TV show, anyway.”

“So the library then?” Kim suggested. “That could be fun.”

“Well, only if you’re sure,” Nick said. “I wouldn’t want to drag you to the library if you wouldn’t even enjoy yourself.”

Kim bit her lip. Truth be told, she wasn’t 100% on the library. But then she gestured to her chest. “Nick, what does this tell you?” She asked coyly.

The fact that her breasts hadn’t grown signified that, yes, she was willing to give the library a chance. So without any hesitation, Nick took her to one of his favorite libraries growing up.

“Ever been to the county library before?” He asked as the world stopped spinning and they arrived at the long stack of bookshelves.

“Once or twice,” she nodded. “I used to come here after school.”

“Oh really?” Nick turned back to her, surprised. “The high school is right across the street from this place. I had no idea you went to the same school I did!”

Kim gave him a lopsided smile. “It’s not the best school in the district,” she said. “I got in on a voucher program… never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does!” Nick couldn’t believe it. “If you’d been a few years older, we could have gone to school together!”

“Yeah, try seven years,” Kim laughed. “You’re forgetting I’m only 20. Pretty far away from each other in graduating classes.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” Nick agreed. “I’m still surprised. I mean…”

“What, did you think I really went to a school with one of those fancy uniforms?” Kim snickered. She snapped her fingers, and suddenly she was back in one of her schoolgirl costumes. “Walking around like a good Christian schoolgirl? I bet Mary would have liked that… until she didn’t.”

Nick blushed. Kim dressing as a sexy schoolgirl somehow was a lot more stimulating when he considered that they’d both gone to the same high school.

He quickly changed the subject. “I used to love coming to this place after class,” he said, looking around. “I could just sit back and relax, and not have anybody talk to me. I could be perfectly isolated from the rest of the world…”

Kim nodded. “Yeah, I think I get it,” she agreed. “…Then again, when I came here after class, it was because I had an internship stocking books on the shelves, so… not exactly the same thing, you know what I mean?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, I think I get it,” he admitted. They definitely had different experiences here. But he still wanted to show her a good time. “Let’s forget that, though! You’re not working today, after all! Time to kick back and relax!”

He led her through the maze of shelves, to a little cubbyhole in the back of the building. A nice little alcove with beanbag chairs and a table, where they could sit back and disappear from the rest of the world together.

“I’m not much of a reader,” Kim admitted. “Any recommendations?”

“I like mystery novels,” Nick said. “Among other things.”

“Mary would probably approve of that,” Kim agreed with a slight nod. “She was always trying to get me to read those… hey, why not? Could be fun. I did pretty well on that one challenge, remember, when everybody was trying to figure out who the killer was?”

“The killer was you, though,” Nick said.

“Exactly. Like I said, I did pretty well,” Kim said with a mischievous smile, her eyes twinkling with delight. She patted Nick on the shoulder and headed off towards the mysteries section.

It had been a while since she’d last been here, but nothing much had changed.

Nick selected a book of his own, and had just settled down when Kim came back.

“Picked out a few things I thought looked interesting,” she said, flopping down on the bean bag chair beside his.

“One thing I like to do while reading mysteries is try to figure out who the killer is before the end,” Nick suggested. “It’s a fun way to get involved with the mystery.”

“Totally,” Kim nodded. “In fact, I just figured it out.”

“Already?!” Nick sat up in surprise. She had just cracked the book open!

Kim looked up at him with a glittering smirk in her eyes, and lifted the book so Nick could read the title.

If I Did It

Nick rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Very funny.”

“It’s a real page turner,” she joked, setting the book down. Its purpose had been served. She went to go pick up another one, a real mystery this time.

As the two fell into their reading routine, things became very relaxed, very quickly. They were both enjoying themselves, but…

Something didn’t feel right.

Nick raised his head, peeking over the pages of his book, to see Kim looking at him. She quickly averted her eyes, but as he kept looking, she slowly raised her head again.

“Are you also… finding it a little… hard to read?” Nick asked reluctantly. He had thought this would be a great idea for the two of them to get together and have some fun, but as relaxing as this was, it was an isolating activity.

Kind of like skydiving.

Reading alone works great for Mary and I. But maybe with Kim, I should do something else. That was the thought that raced through his mind in the seconds it took Kim to formulate a response.

The look in her eye answered his question before her words could.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, closing the book, “I like reading. It’s fun. And it’s very relaxing. But maybe we could… do something together?”

Nick nodded. “I was just thinking that.”

He closed his book as well, and the two looked at each other, tensing. They both wanted this to work. And while they’d had a strong start, things were starting to fizzle out.

What could they do that was exciting, while also relaxing, and could help them spend more time together romantically?

There had to be something, right?

As they kept staring at each other, suddenly an idea popped into both of their minds at the same time, and their eyes widened.

“What about the spa?” Kim asked suddenly.

“I was just thinking of that!” Nick nodded. “Like, an actual relaxing spa. Not the one they have back at the Shopping District.”

Kim cringed. “Yeah, uh, definitely not that one,” she said, shaking her head. “The hot springs are nice, but… no. No thank you. Not the other parts.”

Nick couldn’t agree more. After what happened with Dani, he knew that he never wanted to set foot in that sauna again.

But maybe they could do something else enjoyable. Something together.

“What if I gave you a massage?” He suggested.

Kim smiled. “Well, that would be nice,” she said, recalling how nice his massages were. “But then it wouldn’t be for the both of us, would it? No, no, this needs to be a couples’ massage! Something where we’re both relaxing! And I think I know just the place!”

She snapped her fingers, and they soon found themselves outside a luxury resort spa.

Nick looked around, surprised. “Whoa, this place is amazing!” He gasped. “How do you know about a place like this?”

It wasn’t exactly the sort of place Kim would frequent, for obvious reasons.

She giggled and shook her head.

“Did you have a job as a masseuse, then?” He asked.

“Something like that,” she said. “But not at a place like this. No, this… let’s say I pulled this one out of my fantasies.”

That made sense. So this wasn’t a real place- it was just a spa that she’d imagined? Nick could see that actually.

“So that’s the plan then? Just a regular massage? I’m cool with that,” he agreed. “Nice pick, Kim!” He’d had a similar idea himself, but he wanted to give her the credit for this one. She’d pulled quite a rabbit out of her hat to make up for the less-than-exciting library date.

“Thanks,” Kim nodded. They turned and looked up at the spa. Then she glanced back at him. “Oh, and Nick… don’t feel bad, okay? I really liked the library. It was fun! And definitely relaxing. But I wanted to do something where we could spend time relaxing together, you know? Like a couple.”

Nick felt the same way. And yet, he couldn’t help but glance down at her chest when she said she had fun at the library. Just to make sure!

She blushed and covered her chest. But slow enough that Nick could see her breasts hadn’t grown any larger.

Kim meant what she said, and that made him feel a lot better.

The two of them headed into the spa, and Nick was excited to see what Kim’s vision of a perfect relaxing spa day looked like.