It brings me back into the moment. Grinning, I release her and cup her cheek. “I’d rather show you how my day was. If you’re brave enough.”
“What’s that mean?” she asks, furrowing her brow. Realization dawns a second later, as her mouth opens to form an O. “Skydiving?” she croaks.
My stomach flips as I remember the first time I jumped out of an airplane. It was after BUD/s training. You have to go tandem, attached to an instructor until you get enough jumps and training under your belt. I loved skydiving so much that I went on to be Jump Master. Now I am able to jump with people, dogs, equipment strapped to my chest. Aidan and I are the two jumpmasters at our current command. “With me,” I say, palming my chest. “I have the pilot waiting for us.” “I’m going to puke,” Malena says, eyes wide. “This is something I’ve always wanted to do, but I’m not sure I’m made for it. I’m a scaredy-cat!” Her words don’t match up with the excitement in her eyes. They’re glowing with adventure, the chance to take life by the horns. Literally and figuratively. Technically, I’ll be in charge of her life.
Swallowing hard, I say, “Do it now. It will splash in my face if you do it when we’re in the air.”
“Has that happened?” she wrinkles her nose. “I’ll go with you? Strapped to you?”
“Yes. That okay?”
“Totally.” Her tone is gleeful. “Let’s go.”
There’s a black glittery helmet in the basket of my moped for her. She puts it on and slings her leg over the back. “What I’m wearing is okay?” she asks, on a second thought. Small jean shorts and a backless top that makes my mouth water are perfect I think, and make me recall just how sweet her ass looked in the reflection of my mirror this morning while she was riding my cock.
“Perfect,” I say. Starting up the moped and turning onto the road. I hear her laugh anytime I turn, and it sends a pang to my heart. That organ that has been dormant but for keeping me alive until now. Until Malena. The sun sets completely leaving us in dark but for my headlight guiding the way. I make the turn onto the dirt road that leads to the airport.
“I wonder if Caroline will be out,” Malena says once we’ve parked near the hangar that houses our gear and small aircraft. I tuck the moped inside. Not because I don’t want anyone to know I’m here, but because I’m not quite ready to share Malena with the guys yet. “I bet Tahoe is here. She’s been talking about him non-stop.”
“Tahoe is far gone in Caroline land, too,” I say. “I didn’t tell you that, though.”
The pilot rounds the corner and halts when he sees Malena—his eyes darting up and down her body. “Hey man. Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be in the plane double checking everything and getting online to comms.”
Meeting his gaze, I make sure he sees my irritation. “Good deal,” I reply.
Malena bounds over and offers her hand. “I’m Malena. I’m so excited. Thank you so much for this,” she says to him, then turns to me, “This has to be some after-hours stuff he doesn’t have to do.”
The pilot shakes her hand and backs away. “Don’t mention it,” he replies, ignoring my heated stare. “See you on the other side.” He disappears into the black night.
“I thought you were scared,” I say to Malena while gathering the harness and parachutes we’ll need. When I jump by myself, I can use a chute with a smaller diameter. When jumping tandem, a larger chute is required to balance our weight. “There’s nothing to be scared of, though. I’ve done this hundreds of times. Thousands by myself.”
She blows out a long breath. “I am scared. I can’t let him know that though,” she explains. “I’m trying to be brave through falsification.”
I laugh out loud, my voice a booming echo in the hangar. “Is that even a thing?”
“Easy for you to ask. You’re not scared of anything. You were born without fear or the ability to be scared.”
Shaking my head, I say, “I’m scared all the fucking time, Malena. I use it differently than most people though. Some let it cripple them. I harness fear as power and make myself better for it.”
“Okay, well the only harness I’m interested in is the one you have in your hand. Give me the lowdown.” Shaking my head, grinning, I give her the basics of skydiving, the harness she’ll wear that attaches to my chest, and what I’ll expect of her when we’re in the air. I tell her what I will do and how everything will happen. It’s a step-by-step process that makes her more comfortable the more I speak, so I continue on, giving her details that are meaningless unless you do this on a regular basis. I keep talking as we walk toward the plane, a small flashlight lighting the pavement in front of us. She nods her head and asks questions every so often. A little v forms between her eyes when she’s deep in thought. Though I can’t see it through the black night, I know it’s there. The fact scares me, but I’m not harnessing it as power. I lied. It’s something completely different when it comes to her. Love. Love. Love. Love. That’s what my subconscious screams at me anytime I try to make sense of my feelings. When I agreed to not fall in love with her last night, it was easy. What I didn’t tell her was that I already was there, I love her.
The pilot has the engines running. He saw us approach from the hangar. It’s a smaller plane, not the bigger ones we use when we’re flying anywhere a long distance away. It will be harder for her to hear me when we are closer to the engine so before we board, I halt her, both my hands on her shoulders. The smaller lights on the plane illuminate her face. Grinning, I say, “You’re ready.” She nods, her face a mask of horror.
“I’m ready!” she shouts out. “If you were a serial killer this would be the perfect time to kill me!”
Tipping my head back I chuckle. “Serial killers are narcissistic. I’d never kill myself to kill a victim. That doesn’t make any sense. Come on!” I cup her face, lean down, and kiss her. My stomach tilts as my eyes meet hers. Her arms lock around my waist, under my harness. “Don’t fuck with my harness, Black Widow.” My joke quells her nerves, her smile more genuine as each second passes.
Both of our nerves steeled, we board the plane. I connect her harness to mine. Her back to my front and sit on the bench along the wall. She sits on my lap, her rapid pulse evident in her stomach where my hands are placed. The flight up to jumping altitude is the worst part. The pilot gives me a thumbs up once we’re where we’re supposed to be altitude and landing zone wise. There’s a lit field to the left of the airport we use for night jumps so we know where to safely land. I lean into Malena’s ear and tell her we’re going to walk to the door. She nods once.
The pilot gives me another signal that we’re good to go. This is it. The adrenaline hits again but different this time. A life is in my hands that is not my own. I have to go into business mode because it’s my autopilot and that’s where I perform perfectly. There’s no room for error right now. The cabin is lit so I check everything I can see.
“Toes on the edge,” I command, calling it loud enough for her to hear over the air and engines. With both hands on the sides of the hatch door and Malena’s tiny frame in front of me, completely at my mercy, I start the countdown. To keep her calmer, I count three and two in my head. “One,” I shout and launch us out of the door. Her scream pierces the darkness of night. I bet she doesn’t even realize she’s screaming. Once I adjust my arms and legs after the initial tumble from the aircraft, we’re steady. “Open your eyes!” I yell, using a deep tone she’ll be able to hear. I already told her that when I was explaining everything, but it’s the one thing most forget when they’re terrified. The ocean is visible off to the side, the bioluminescence lighting the deep ocean a neon blue. The landing zone is lit with lights, forming a circle. You can see the town from up here, the lights shining like little ants.
I move my arm methodically to check the altimeter on my wrist. We’re almost to the proper height to pull the chute. I don’t hear anything from Malena and I wish I could see her face, wish I could see if she was loving this as much as I do. There’s a freedo
m up here. A recognition of how small we really are in this big, wide world. How impossible is it that one person actually finds the other one they are meant for? How impossible it seems. Except, at this moment, that one human, is strapped to my chest. A part of me.
I pull the chute and silence follows, the wind of falling changes to a soft whooshing as we begin our descent under the chute. Malena’s giggles cut through the quiet.
“I’m not dead!” she squeals out. “Do you see that?” She points to the ocean, and then the town, and the horizon where we can see the next city over.
My hands are busy holding the toggles to control where we glide. “It’s beautiful,” I call out. “Remember what I said about landing. It’s the toughest part of tandem. Feet straight out in front of you. Just let me do the landing.”
Her reply is another burst of laughter. I pull the left handle hard to spin us toward the lighted landing zone, the spotlights surrounding the grassy circle like an alien spacecraft imprint.
“Brace,” I tell her. Her body tenses, and we glide into the center of the circle far faster than anyone ever expects. I try to protect my knees by waiting until the last possible moment to place my feet on land. It’s smooth. Easy. The way every landing is supposed to be. I unhook her from my chest as quickly as I can. She turns to look at me. The lights lighting her smile like she’s some Hollywood star on stage—ready to give her acceptance speech.
“I can’t believe you get to do that for work. That is so unfair.” She bends down and hops up and down, as if she’s testing the earth’s solidarity.
I grin. “Safe to say you enjoyed yourself. I love doing it at night. You can see so much. The lights are always amazing.”
“That was surreal,” Malena says, shaking her head. “Nothing will ever compare to that feeling. I…I…It was the greatest, the freest I’ve ever felt in my life. That view. The rush—falling.”
Her lips are still calling to me—shining in the dim glow. “I need to kiss you right now.”
“Because I love what you do for work?” Her brown eyes turn an amber color with the way the light is reflecting on them. Her white smile the shade of I’ll-never-fucking-shake-this-woman-in-a-lifetime.
This isn’t adrenaline I’m feeling. My breaths push through my mouth fast—harried, irrational. “No.” I shake my head.
Malena tilts her head to the side. “No?”
“I need to kiss you right now because I’m so fucking in love with you that I need your kiss to breathe.”
Her mouth pops open, and I take that as my sign from God. Taking her face into my hands, running my hands into her wind-blown hair, I press my lips to hers, my tongue taking hers, my heart pounding against hers. Her hands wind up and around my neck. It’s comforting.
I imagine what we look like from where we just were high up in the sky. A bird’s eye view of us kissing in the middle of this lit circle. All signs pointing to what is so now blatantly obvious to me. I love Malena. And I’ll love her for as long as she’ll let me. The kissing turns into a frenzy of tossed clothing and our bodies colliding. I make love to her on top of the parachute that guided us safely from the sky.
Her skin against mine is the only feeling I’ve ever craved in such a perilous degree. Like I may die if I go too long without being inside her. When Malena comes this time, she doesn’t call out my name, she whispers three sweet words into my ear. Over and over.
Over and over.
Chapter Twelve
Malena
Months passed in an unbearably blissful pace with Leif at my side and involved in every facet of my world. He’s entwined himself into my group of friends and has been there for me in every single way a man in love is there for his woman. When I’m upset and missing my mother, he offers to drive me to Garden Breeze to visit her. When I’m stressing out over deadlines now that my event planning business is in full swing, he makes sure I have pints of ice cream waiting for me when I get home. Weddings are hopping, and I left the General Store as soon as humanly possible. I am the most fulfilled as I’ve ever been in my entire life—surrounded by love from all angles.
We went to N.Y.C for Tahoe and Caroline’s joint bachelor/bachelorette party, which I planned all on my own. Dating Leif in a new setting was something that I never dreamed of. Don’t get me wrong, seeing him in a T-shirt and board shorts does indecent things to everything below my waist, but seeing him in a suit and tie, his hair coifed, and his shoes shined makes my mouth water. In any situation or circumstance, he’s ready for whatever—a chameleon in a human’s body. I took my party organizing duties seriously, but when we retreated to our hotel room at the end of the night, it was nothing but him and I and our explosive connection. It’s been like that for months, an undying spark that usually only exists in a new relationship.
My friends felt a little neglected as I steadied my footing in a real relationship for the first time in a long time, but I eventually figured out the balance. This is the first time since Dylan—the marriage that crashed and burned in ways no one should ever have to bear witness to, that I’m committed to a man. Thinking about Dylan brings forth a searing guilt. Leif doesn’t know much more than Dylan was a failed relationship. Do I owe him more than that? The deeper in love I fall, the more I think I do. I’d want to know if the roles were reversed and Leif had a botched marriage, founded on a family that he couldn’t create. Now I’m in a serious relationship founded on the exact opposite. I’m afraid of what it will label me if I admit to the gruesome failure. It failed for legitimate reasons that were out of both of our control, but that’s an excuse.
Leif doesn’t like excuses. Or lies. A fact made blatantly clear anytime I try to give reasons why I haven’t accomplished something. Be it a daily task or other loftier life goals. He is a cheerleader for every aspect of my future, and I feel like I’m cheapening it by not telling him about my past. I like to keep my secrets in the vacuum of my mind—where no one can use them against me. Where no one will label me. It’s already a freaking miracle no one has mentioned my divorce to Leif in passing. I think enough time has passed that it’s considered old gossip and not worth sharing. There are far more scandalous things to talk about these days. Things such as the war raging in our country.
Shirley shifts in her seat in front of me at the diner. She’s taking a break, guzzling coffee like it is her oxygen. Our friend Caroline’s mother owns this diner. When Caroline married Leif’s friend, Tahoe, she began spending more time running their Bed and Breakfast on the water instead of waitressing here at the family restaurant. Shirley picked up the slack and now she’s so busy she doesn’t have time to annoy her friends.
“What time are you going to the spot tonight?” she asks, pausing her coffee assault.
“Oh, I don’t know if I’m going. I have a ton of work to do,” I reply, tapping the keys on my laptop responding to an email. “It’s always the same thing. Everyone gets drunk. At least one couple gets into a public fight, another gets caught having sex, and someone ends up in the E.R. I’d rather hang out at home and read,” I say, knowing full well she won’t accept it and also knowing I’d rather be naked with Leif.
She cracks her neck, and the sound jolts my attention from my screen to her. “You’re going. We don’t hang out anymore. I don’t get days off anymore. You start your fancy business and spend the other remaining hours humping your mastodon boyfriend. Friend time. You’re going.” Shirley runs her hand through her hair. “And we need to swing by the store. I need a box of hair dye, and you’re going to help me turn my black roots white. You understand?” Shirley clicks her tongue and sighs. “Caroline is all wifed up and my boyfriend never leaves the kitchen back there.” Turning, she looks back toward the counter where Caleb, her on-again boyfriend is wiping the counter. “What do you say?” She closes my laptop slowly, until it clicks all the way.
“I was emailing someone back, Shirley. If that didn’t save, I’m going to be pissed,” I deadpan. “Aren’t we too old for parties at the spot?”
“It’s your spot, Malena. We will never be too old for parties at the spot. Keg beer. Canoes. Toes in the sand. Bonfires. It gives me life.” This debate is over before it really got started. I can tell.
“Let’s go then. You’re finished for the day?” I slide my cell phone from my purse and send a quick message to Leif. He was planning on stopping by my house after work. He’s been at work more lately. He told me he likes to be in the office when updates come in. I get it. Even if it means he’s spending less time with me. The commitment he shows to his job is a turn on. Basically, at this point, I haven’t found anything about him that isn’t a turn on. Even as I hit send on the message, I hope he’ll still swing by if Shirley is there. I send another message letting him know I’ll be at the spot and what time in case he’d rather meet me there instead.
The spot is a place down by the water that’s secluded by wild forest on each side. No one remembers, but my dad bought it when we first moved here. He was going to build my parents dream home on the land. He left without selling it, which in a way, does make it mine. Most people think it is a distant relative that owns it, and I don’t correct them. It has picnic benches, and over the years it’s turned into something awesome and civilized. When we were teens, it was a patch of prickly grass where we came to get drunk. Everyone left with sand spurs in their ass and ankles covered in fire ant bites. Now there’s poured concrete and a lit path guiding us down to the water and dark stained docks. A few of the guys who own the construction company in town made it what it is today. Mostly because they wanted to have somewhere to drink on the weekends other than Bobby’s. I have enough positive memories of the spot that I sometimes forget it is mine. My father wasn’t able to taint this spot with his abandonment.
Leif doesn’t text me back right away and my mood falls even though I know he keeps his phone in a bag at work. It’s unreasonable morose, but I sigh anyways. That’s what he does to me. Shirley confirms she’s ready to leave after talking to Caleb who offered to cover for her so she could have a break, and we set off for the General Store.
Tossing It Page 13
