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  THIS IS 35

  by

  STACEY WIEDOWER

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  Copyright © 2017 by Stacey Wiedower

  Cover design by Estrella Designs

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Falling Up

  April 12, fourteen months to thirty-five

  Erin Crawford knew better than to look down.

  After five years of living outside the lines, paving new paths, scaring herself every day, living her dreams, and every other self-improvement cliché in her vast writer's repertoire, she knew damn well better than to look down.

  But Leo Messick—field producer-slash-Evel Knievel wannabe—seemed determined to shake the very foundation of her courage, if not her sanity. "Watch how I'm doing it."

  "I'm trying," Erin said between gritted teeth. "Hang on." The cord she gripped like a literal lifeline was cutting into the outer edge of her wrist. She clenched it tighter, anchoring her cheek against the gritty face of the boulder and searching for a new foothold with the toe of her climbing shoe before daring to shift her gaze south.

  The split-second glimpse of evergreen treetops far below, their spindly tips glinting in a brilliant, sunlit haze, was enough to send a spasm of panic through her stomach and make her head feel as if it were spinning away from her body. She sucked in a sharp breath, closed her eyes. Do not…look…down.

  "I…can't," she said after a long moment, her voice an exasperated exhale. She rested her face against the side of the mountain, the coarse surface of the rock grating like sandpaper against her skin.

  "There's no 'I can't,' only 'I can try.'"

  The catch phrase Erin had written and heard uttered dozens of times through the lips of her show's host—who was safely back in L.A., presumably shooting studio footage in front of a green screen while she performed this death-defying act of insanity—stung like a slap across the cheek, and her eyes popped open.

  "That. Is. So. Unfair." She huffed, each word its own gasping breath. "You know I hate heights."

  "C'mon. This is, like, a baby climb. It's not even that steep right here." Leo chuckled, and the sound of his voice was closer than it had been moments earlier.

  Erin risked another glance at him, her gaze skimming over the rough stone surface and landing on the vivid blue of Leo's Spandex shirt. He gestured with his head to the right, where Erin visualized menacing points of rock blended with snowy embankments and cedar trees protruding from seemingly inhospitable swaths of earth far below them.

  Far, far below them.

  Leo looked as if he was barely hanging on, and in fact, his right hand gripped not the cliff face but the tiny camera she'd thought was attached to his hat. Her breathing began to even out as she realized that beyond his mocking, he didn't exhibit an ounce of fear. For him, a seasoned daredevil, this towering wall of granite above Lake Tahoe was a bunny slope.

  His nonchalance, coupled with the close-up shots he was capturing of her panicked idiocy, was enough to help Erin regain her control. She gritted her teeth, scanned the cliff for a new foothold, and heaved her body a few inches higher on the rock. If Leo could do this one-handed, she could certainly do it. It wasn't as if she was a first-timer to extreme sports.

  A video reel of her past five years started playing behind Erin's eyes, replacing the panorama of panic that stretched out below her. First was the dive—Erin's first (and last) skydive, which was the grand finale of her first bucket list challenge. She could still feel the hitch of terror when the instructor opened the hatch. The mix of panic and exhilaration on the faces around her. The unbelievable freedom of letting go—letting go of security, of insecurity, of rationality, of fear. It had been the single best and single worst moment of her life.

  Well, maybe second best. A small smile twitched at her lips as she called up what happened later that night, when Ben Bertram showed up on her doorstep with that single red rose.

  Ben. Erin's heart fluttered, and a new jolt of exhilaration and fear trembled in her stomach. In exactly…she counted down the hours in her head while she scanned the rock for her next foothold…twenty-eight and a half hours she'd be taking another risk, ticking off another box on the running checklist that comprised her life. Participating in another extreme sport—albeit one on level ground with no rappelling ropes, parachutes, or climbing shoes involved.

  Just a minister, a white dress, and one daunting pair of three-inch, glittery silver heels.

  Erin drew in a shuddering, raspy breath, and her foot slipped from the granite ledge. "Whoa." She clutched at the ropes again, tightening her grasp and pulling her body closer to the rock. She breathed carefully in and out to quell her panic, and then began skimming the cliff again, searching for the next logical spot to take a vertical step.

  "Good girl," Leo called out from beside her. "Keep your head. You've got this."

  Erin's chin jutted up half an inch. She looked to her right, straight into the camera. Her eyes narrowed. "You're right. I do."

  A soft breeze wafted across the damp skin of her back. It felt like gentle fingers supporting her, urging her to keep moving. And that was the moment she knew she'd clinched it.

  I do have this.

  She'd conquer this rock the same way she'd conquered forty-one other goals in the last five and a half years. One step at a time. She didn't look up, didn't look down. She just straightened her back, steeled her nerves, and took the next step up the mountain.

  The next step toward Ben.

  * * *

  Two years, four months earlier…

  Date: December 26

  Age: 31 and a half

  Time to 35: 3 years, 5 months, 2 weeks

  List Item: N/A…you'll see what I mean

  Happy day-after-Christmas, readers! I have exciting news…Ben & I are engaged!!! After 24 years of friendship followed by the best year and a half of my life, my brilliant, loving, handsome, funny, and thoughtful boyfriend asked me to be his wife.

  It happened on Christmas Eve. We were on our way to visit my parents, who still live in the neighborhood where Ben and I grew up. Instead of driving straight there, he pulls into the parking lot of our high school and drives around to the track. I have no idea what's coming. (OK, maybe I have a teensy bit of an idea.) When we get out of the car, Ben grabs a box out of the trunk and starts walking. As we approach the track I see a round table with a white tablecloth and two chairs near the finish line. (How did he set this up? I still don't know, but I imagine my family was involved.)

  Ben opens the box and sets the table with candles, napkins, plates, and silverware, even a va
se of red and white roses. Next he pulls out a bakery box containing two slices of white chocolate caramel cheesecake…potentially my favorite food item of all time. (I mean, why wouldn't it be?) He pulls out his iPod and starts playing our song, "No One's Gonna Love You" by Band of Horses. Then he takes a small box out of his pocket and kneels in front of me right as I start to cry. And now I'm not only in love with my best friend, but I'm going to marry my best friend…

  OK, pass the tissues because now I'm crying again. :)

  I have more news to share today! Because of the way our lives have changed, I've decided to incorporate our wedding and honeymoon into my 35 by 35 bucket list, and so as of today, the list is slightly different. To recap in case you're new to This Is 35, I'm checking off a list of 35 things I want to do, see, or experience before I turn 35. I created the list after completing a similar bucket list before I turned 30. As an added challenge, this time I'm completing the items chronologically, in the order they appear on the list. And so, without further ado, here's my revised list* of 35 things I plan to do before I turn 35:

  1. Become a Big Sister

  2. Join a yoga class

  3. See inside a volcano

  4. Brew a craft beer

  5. Teach a college class

  6. Plant an herb garden

  7. Volunteer in a soup kitchen

  8. Take a painting class

  9. Go on a mission trip

  10. Learn to water-ski

  11. Do the Paleo diet

  12. Visit Singapore & Thailand

  13. Learn Krav Maga

  14. Go rock-climbing

  15. Get hitched*

  16. Rent a Tuscan villa*

  17. Learn to cook

  18. Complete a triathlon

  19. Take ballroom dancing lessons

  20. Start a screenplay

  21. Go to Disney

  22. Finish Shattered series

  23. Throw an '80s party

  24. Start a compost bin

  25. Visit Stonehenge

  26. Give away half my wardrobe

  27. Go commando

  28. Make a gourmet meal

  29. Finally buy new living room furniture

  30. Donate my hair

  31. Dance on a bar top

  32. See the Grand Canyon

  33. Play table games in Vegas

  34. Join the mile-high club

  35. Get pregnant*

  I had to cut out a few items to fit in the newbs (I'll be saving "Land a syndication deal," "Start a nonprofit," and "Island hop in Greece" for the 40 by 40 list…those are ambitious, and the current list is challenging enough as it is.), but I'm even more excited about the list now. A wedding! An Italian honeymoon! Trying for a baby! Big things to come for This Is 35, guys. I'm super excited to share our adventures with all of you.

  * * *

  Back to present…

  Erin checked her phone screen for the twenty-second time in the last half hour. Damn it, where is he? Why hasn't he texted yet?

  "Still no Ben?"

  Erin jumped. She hadn't heard Sherri, her best friend, former roommate, and matron of honor, come up beside her. She glanced up from her phone.

  "No, he still hasn't texted. He's got to be at the airport by now." Erin's normally chirpy voice was strained.

  "Well, no worries," Sherri said. "This is Ben we're talking about. He's the most reliable person I've ever known. There's no way he's going to miss the flight to his own wedding."

  Erin shuddered. Hearing Sherri voice her biggest fear out loud made the possibility seem more real. She looked around to see who was in hearing distance—no one—and said in a low voice, "Do you think maybe he got cold feet?"

  Sherri scoffed. "Ben?" She gaped at Erin as if trying to gauge if she was serious. "He's been trying to get you down the aisle for, what, two years now? Three? You're the one I didn't think was ever going to go through with it."

  Erin shrugged. "You know I couldn't help it," she said. "I had to get through items one through fourteen on the list first. Get married is number fifteen."

  Sherri rolled her eyes. "Your life is not a reality show."

  The corner of Erin's lip turned up, and she gave Sherri a long look that said she was missing something obvious.

  "Well, actually, it is." She gestured at the people standing in clusters around the room. Scattered among her relatives and friends were crew members from YOLO, the TV show for which Erin was a co-executive producer. And this season, actor.

  Sherri followed Erin's hands with her gaze. "Oh, yeah." She giggled and then looked back at Erin, narrowing her big blue eyes. "Well, you've been procrastinating, anyway. How long did it take you to get through those first fourteen items? Three years? Three and a half? No wonder he's been impatient." Sherri paused and then, noticing Erin's preoccupied frown, continued, "Ben will be here. He wouldn't miss marrying you for the entire world. He'd move this whole mountain first."

  Erin allowed herself a tiny smile. Sherri was right—about all of it. Ben wouldn't stand her up at the altar. And she hadn't meant to procrastinate so much on completing the list. It was just that one day she was turning thirty and felt like her life was starting. New relationship, new career, new apartment, and then finally, new engagement. And in the midst of all of it, she'd landed a new job…YOLO.

  Before Erin knew it a year had gone by, and she was thirty-one. And then another flew by, and she was thirty-two. Months felt like weeks. Weeks felt like days.

  Eventually she'd come to regret the "chronological order" stipulation of her list. She knew Ben would have preferred to get married sooner. She'd thought when she'd made the revised list that No. 15 was pretty high in the pecking order. At the time she'd already scratched off four items. She hadn't counted on the new job and all those other new things making it so difficult to complete numbers five through fourteen.

  And of course, she hadn't counted on YOLO throwing a hurdle onto her track by asking her to join the cast of the show. The last three years with YOLO had gone by in a blink. And then wedding planning had swallowed up the last twelve to fifteen months of it.

  Erin repeated Sherri's words in her head. Ben will be here. He wouldn't miss marrying you for the entire world. But then again, he wasn't here now, was he? He hadn't been on that cliff face with her this afternoon like he was supposed to be. What if his emergency at work wasn't actually an emergency? What if, now that the big moment was finally here, he was trying to find a way out?

  She was on the verge of hyperventilation when a soft hand on Erin's arm pulled her out of her spiral of panic. "Ack. Hi, Mom." Erin's mother, Joanne, plowed ahead in her no-nonsense way. From her quivering curls to the spark in her green eyes, Joanne was energy in a loosely capped bottle. One look at her, and it was clear where Erin had inherited her drive.

  "Hon, that camera guy, Leo? He wants to shoot the rehearsal dinner. He asked me because he said he figured I'd be more likely to talk you into it than he would." Erin's mom grinned. "Your crew obviously knows you pretty well."

  "But Mom," Erin said, unable to keep the stress out of her voice, "Ben isn't here yet. A wedding rehearsal scene will look weird without the groom." She gave her mom a pointed look. "There's a saying in my industry: 'If it didn't happen on camera, it didn't happen.' And trust me when I tell you Leo filming the rehearsal is not going to happen." A nagging voice in her head—her story producer's voice, not her nervous bride voice—told her she was making the wrong call. A rehearsal without Ben wouldn't look weird. It'd look like great TV. If this weren't her scene, if it weren't her own wedding, she'd be all about getting dramatic footage of the no-show groom, capturing every play of emotion on the frantic bride's face.

  Ugh. Who am I?

  "He's just flying out now, right? There's no way he'll make it in time for the rehearsal or the dinner." Erin's mom paused. "You're the one who signed up to do the show, remember? You made your bed. Go roll around in it."

  Erin scowled. She'd also inherited her mom's pragmatism. B
ut it still wasn't fun when Joanne used it against her. "Shouldn't I be the one who gets to be Bridezilla?" she complained. "Maybe that's a new reality show concept—Momzilla of the Bride."

  "Don't shoot the messenger." Her mother reached up and pushed a strand of hair from Erin's cheek. She stared at her daughter for a long moment. "He'll be here, honey. Don't worry. This is Ben we're talking about. He's always been there for you."

  "I know." Erin glanced away, avoiding her mom's eyes. She shifted from foot to foot, caught between separate urges to sink to the floor or bolt from the room. She settled for changing the subject.

  "I have to figure out a way to keep Leo and his guys out of the room," she said. "He is not filming my wedding rehearsal without Ben here, even if I have to use a stand-in bride and bar the door myself." Her roving gaze landed on her field producer, whose sturdy build, rugged demeanor, and ruddy complexion fit in well in California's most renowned outdoor playground. He was leaning against a square cedar column, watching them, and Erin's eyes narrowed.

  She was preparing to stomp over and have it out with him when Sherri put a hand on Erin's shoulder. Erin had almost forgotten she was standing there—she'd backed up a step or two, nursing a glass of white wine while Erin talked to her mom.

  "Look what the breeze just blew in."

  Erin followed Sherri's gaze to the set of sliding doors at the entrance to the lobby of the rustic ski lodge that was housing her wedding party. Her stomach dropped by a few centimeters. Of course. Of course Hilary would arrive just in time to witness Erin's discomfort.

  "I thought you weren't inviting her."

  "She almost didn't," Erin's mom said before excusing herself.

  Erin turned to Sherri and grimaced.