by B. B. Hamel
“Hi. I mean, good to meet you too.”
I was completely thrown off guard by how quickly she went from looking like she was about to stab me to smiling warmly and mentioning dad. I was going to have to be careful around her.
Suddenly, Lincoln grunted and his face twisted in pain. The blond woman went to grab him, but he shook her off.
“I’m fine. Just moved my weight wrong.”
“It’s okay if you want to stop.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m good.”
As soon as they started talking, everyone immediately forgot about me. All eyes were glued back to what was happening between the woman and Lincoln as he began to walk down the thin corridor between the two rails. I took a few steps back, my brain screaming at me to get out of there, but I was completely transfixed by the half painful, half joyous expression on Lincoln’s face. After another minute, he finished the full length of the walkway and stopped at the other end.
“That’s great, Lincoln. That’s such a huge improvement.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. He looked up at me and grinned again. “Not what you expected, was it?”
As soon as I went to answer, one of the cameramen shifted his attention to me. I blinked at the lights and at the mics that were suddenly shoved in my face.
“Uh, what’s happening right now?” I asked.
Lincoln laughed loudly, almost doubling over. I saw nervous smiles on the faces of the camera crew around me, but none of them moved to say anything. Jess continued to watch me with a wary smirk on her face.
“You heard about my accident?” Lincoln said, half asking and half stating.
I nodded. “Yeah. I heard it was bad.”
“Shattered both my fucking legs and had me in the hospital for a month.”
“That’s horrible, Lincoln.”
“Yeah, well. Your dad thought it would be a great idea to shoot a documentary about my recovery and rehab.”
“Oh. So that’s what this is.”
He laughed. “Yep, that’s it. And you’re just in time. Two weeks earlier and I would have still been in my wheelchair.”
His physical therapist made a disapproving sound. “You should still be in it.”
He gave her a shrug. “I’m fine. The cane is enough for now.”
I took another step back. “Okay, well, uh, I should let you get back to it.”
He grinned at me again. “It’s great to see you again, Aubrie. You home for the summer?”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
“Then you and I will be seeing a lot of each other.”
I blinked at him as the cameras shifted away from me and pointed back at him. He was already turning around, his attractive, blond physical therapist hovering over him like a worried mother bird, and I could only think to get out of there as fast as possible. I turned and sped back out the door, shutting it behind me, and walked quickly back into the kitchen.
I stood there, practically traumatized, as what had just happened sunk in. I was going to kill Jules, I realized. She hadn’t mentioned that her BASE-jumping, daredevil, playboy son was going to be living in the house with us.
Lincoln “Based” Carter was pretty famous. From what I could tell, he was the most successful BASE jumper in the entire world. His whole thing was climbing to the top of man-made structures and parachuting down to the ground. The bigger and the more dangerous, the better. He held the world record for jumping from the tallest building in the world, a stunt that landed him in jail for a few months. That only made him more popular.
I saw him everywhere, and I hated it. He had become the poster boy for new extreme sports, and he had his own clothing line. Of course, since he was an extreme narcissist, it was called “Based” and was in practically every store in the entire world.
I thought I had escaped him when I went out to Notre Dame for college. I had done everything I could to put distance between us, especially after what had happened the night our parents got married. While he was busy risking his life all the time in Europe, climbing bridges and jumping off them, I was studying hard and making friends and basically trying to be a regular person.
And suddenly, Lincoln was back in my life. After all these years, after what had happened between us, he was standing in my living room getting groped by some sexy blonde while a bunch of dudes filmed it.
I’m not being fair, I thought to myself as I sipped my drink. He was obviously in pain and struggling. Still, he could have done his therapy and rehab anywhere in the world. There was no reason for him to park himself right in the middle of my house.
I leaned back against the counter and shook my head. This was all my dad’s doing. Put Lincoln in the house, film his recovery, and profit on what would be both heartrending and uplifting. At this point in Lincoln’s career, it was hard not to make at least some money off whatever he did.
I sighed. Summer vacation was supposed to be relaxing.
There was no way I could feel even a little relaxed with Lincoln Carter back in my life.
2
Lincoln
I leaned forward and fell.
Wind whipped along my body and screamed through my ears as the night sky came toward me, faster and faster. I felt free and right and home, like floating through empty nothingness was the thing I was born to do. The usual thrill ran through me, but it was tempered by this strange calm that radiated through my limbs.
After a minute, I reluctantly reached back and ripped the chord, and felt my whole body get tugged backward as the chute deployed, immediately arresting my free fall. The feeling of right and calm slowly began to fade, but the thrill was still there. I held on to the handles, tugging at the sides of the canopy as I floated down toward the street below me. There was an empty lot not far away, and I was circling around it, aiming to drop right in its center. I knew Mike and Jared were idling in a car at the corner, ready to pick me up and speed off before the cops got there. If the cops were even coming, which they probably weren’t. But I wasn’t making that mistake again.
It was only my second night jump. They were pretty damn dangerous, for a bunch of reasons, and I avoided them if I could. The first time, the moon had been full, which made it much easier to see everything below me. This time, though, there were clouds obscuring the sky, and the wind was much stronger than we had anticipated. I was having a hard time keeping myself in line as I spiraled closer to the ground.
My heart was hammering in my chest. I felt more alive, more free, than I had at any other time in my life. Everything disappeared from my mind, all of the fear and the agony and the bullshit of promotional deals and clothing brands. Falling from buildings and drifting through the sky was what I lived for, not all the other shit, like TV interviews and commercial spots. If I could, I’d jump every single day of my life, and everything else could go to hell. But I was stuck in contracts, and even though they paid me pretty damn well, I hated all the shit that kept me from drifting in the air.
I didn’t care about the fame. I just wanted to fly.
I could see the lot coming up fast. I took a deep breath.
And then the wind hit me. I yanked on the handle, trying to right myself, but I was pretty much blown horizontal, thrown off to the side. I was dropping fast, yanking at the thing, trying to control the spin, but it was too late. I could see the ground tearing up at me and my heart hammered a million miles an hour, threatening to jump right out of my ribs. It was ten feet away and I struggled with the chord. It was five feet away and I pulled hard. It was inches away. I braced myself.
My legs crashed into the windshield of the car, splintering every bone imaginable, and pain tore up through my entire body. The only sound was breaking glass and crunching metal.
The world began to go black.
I thought I was dead.
I woke up with a gasp, drenched in sweat. Weak morning light filtered in through the curtains. It took me half a second to understand that I was safe in bed, that the crash had happened a while ago.
It was the same dream I had almost every night.
I sat up, ignoring the ache in my shins and thighs. Fucking dreams. I sat there for a minute, breathing deeply and gathering myself as the phantom pain and the body-breaking dread began to slowly fade away.
Every morning with this shit. I woke up, sweating like I had been dipped into a swimming pool, forced to relive one of the worst moments in my entire life. The pain and the fear. The agony.
I couldn’t wait to get my shit together. I couldn’t wait to jump again.
As I shuffled to the side of the bed, ignoring the pain that moved up my thighs as I swung my legs over the side, I heard my doctor’s voice in my head again. Lincoln, son, you probably won’t ever skydive again. The landing itself could re-break your legs, and who knows if they’ll even properly heal. I sneered, annoyed. He didn’t even know the difference between BASE jumping and skydiving.
And then it was time for one of the worst parts of my day. I braced myself against the nightstand as I slowly put weight onto my legs, pushing up and off the bed. Pain threatened to overwhelm me, but I grunted and ignored it as I slowly stabilized, the excruciating lightning slowly fading to the dull ache that wouldn’t go away no matter how much rehab I did. I moved my hand from the nightstand and grabbed the cane that I had left propped up against the wall and moved it forward, taking a step.
It hurt like hell. But at least I was up and out of the wheelchair and hobbling around on my own power. I didn’t need anything to help me out of bed, let alone to help me shower or brush my teeth. I couldn’t have imagined Aubrie seeing me like that, shattered legs, unable to do anything on my own. That was pathetic, and I wasn’t the type of guy to let people take care of me.
I moved across the room and into the bathroom. Every time I stopped in front of a mirror and saw my tattooed body, and the cane I had to use to help me walk, I couldn’t help but reflect on how stupid it had been to go through with that jump.
True, it had been fucking amazing, one of the best jumps of my life, but it had cost so damn much. Crashing into that car, the agony, and then waking up the next day in the hospital surrounded by lawyers and cops all wanting to know how I got up to the top of that building and did I know I broke a hundred different laws and blah blah, all a bunch of bullshit.
I did have one lucky thing happen, though. During the trial, Aubrie’s dad showed up and asked the judge to let me off lightly. In the end, I got probation for breaking and entering, and part of that probation was living under Cliff’s supervision. But at least I wasn’t going back to prison.
I brushed my teeth, took a quick shower, and got dressed. It took me way longer than it should have, since walking was a chore, but I had no regrets. I would rather break my legs a hundred more times than live like everyone else, floating through the days, practically still asleep.
I was alive up there, in the air.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I was dressed and clean and ready for the day. I checked the clock as I headed downstairs and inwardly groaned when I realized that I only had an hour before PT and the camera crew. I gimped my way downstairs, wincing at every slow step, and made my way into the kitchen.
Sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of cereal and looking like she just woke up, was Aubrie. She glanced up as I entered, and I gave her a big grin, a strange feeling welling its way up through my chest.
I hadn’t seen her in years. Not since our parents got married, not since that aborted attempt at whatever it was that went on between us that night. We hadn’t so much as kept in touch, which was probably because she was too busy being a huge dork at Notre Dame, and I was too busy being a badass that jumped off buildings. Or at least, so I told myself.
The truth was, I hadn’t stopped thinking about her over the years. I hadn’t stopped imagining her perfect, pale-smooth skin, her beautiful body, and that pouty look she gave me whenever I teased her too much. We had danced for hours that night at the wedding, our bodies close and sweating, despite the fact that we were suddenly related.
And then there was the balcony back at her dad’s big house, after the reception, after everyone had gone home.
Her skin in the moonlight. Her lips, the way they parted when I got close.
I had jumped off some of the most intense and terrifying places in the world. I had spent months in jail. But none of that compared to the feeling I had for those brief moments. And there she was, suddenly back in my life, looking exactly as gorgeous as she used to look back then.
“’Morning, Brie baby,” I said.
She looked up at me, surprised for a second, and then her eyes narrowed.
“Good morning, gramps. Nice cane.”
I laughed and shuffled over to her, sitting down on a stool on the other side the island.
“Okay then, nerd. Nice glasses.”
“These aren’t nerdy.” She reached up and touched them unconsciously.
“Yeah, and this isn’t a cane. It’s an assisted walking device.”
“Looks a lot like a cane to me.”
“You’re way mistaken. How’s Indiana?”
“Fine. How’s jumping off buildings and breaking both your legs?”
I laughed again. Most people danced around that particular subject, but Brie was not the type to avoid something.
“Pretty damn good, actually.”
“That’s right. You’re ‘based’ now, aren’t you?”
I nodded. Based was a lifestyle. It was a frame of mind. Some rapper named Lil B made it famous. Based meant you did whatever you wanted and didn’t give a shit what people thought. You were cool because you felt like it.
“Based” was also my nickname, given to me early on in my career. Over time it had morphed into my brand, or whatever my managers were calling it, and it encompassed a whole bunch of shit, from clothing to gear.
“Guess so. Has to be better than being a nerdy little school girl.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s so great seeing you again.”
“Ditto. Why are you here, anyway?”
“Well, it is my house. I grew up here, remember?”
“So you spend your summers at home?”
She paused and then shook her head. “No, not usually. This is my first summer back, actually.”
“Look at that. We have something in common.”
“What about you? Just spending your time getting stretched out by cute girls?”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, not always. Sometimes the cute girls are gorgeous instead.”
She snorted and shook her head. “You haven’t changed one bit.”
“Are you a little jealous?”
“Not in the least. How long will the cameras be around?”
I smirked. She was changing the subject.
“Not sure. Depends on how long it takes before I can jump again.”
She paused and raised her eyebrows. “You’re planning on jumping again?”
“Of course. It’s what I do.”
“Didn’t you smash your legs? Like, a barely able to walk kind of injury?”
I laughed. “Like I said, it’s what I do, Brie baby.”
“Quit calling me that.”
“Why? Anyway, what do you care if I jump?”
She shook her head, struggling for a reason. I could tell she was getting frustrated, and I loved it. She was exactly the sort of person that would admonish me for jumping again; she had probably never taken a risk in her entire life. Aubrie was daddy’s little princess, the straight-A, academic golden child. Full ride to Notre Dame plus great grades in whatever bio-related program she was going through. It was apparently some brain-drain thing for the best of the best. It was probably pretty easy for her to look down on what I did, but she would never understand the feeling I got as my body first shifted from solid ground to nothing and the air roared all around me.
It was like a cocoon of screaming freedom. Or something like that.
“I guess I don’t care. It’s jus
t stupid.”
“Easy for you to say, nerd. Everyone is stupid compared to you.”
She looked confused. “I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not.”
I laughed again and slowly stood up, carefully keeping the pain off my face. “Both, probably,” I said.
She watched silently as I hobbled over to the refrigerator, got out the milk, and poured myself a bowl of cereal. I hobbled back to my spot and hopped back up onto the stool. The last thing I wanted was for Brie to see me in pain, but there was no helping that. My PT may have been going well, but I was still at least another few months from walking completely normally again.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, breaking the silence.
I shook my head. Typical Brie, saying exactly what she was thinking.
“Sometimes. I can handle it, though.”
I took a bite of my cereal while she watched me. It felt weird sitting at the table with her after all those years. Though we hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time together before my mom and her dad found each other, we had gotten pretty close very fast. And then that night changed everything, or at least made it obvious what was happening.
“What do the doctors say?”
“They say a lot of stuff.”
“But, about your recovery?”
I stopped eating and looked at her. “What’s with all the questions?”
“I’m curious, I guess.”
“Well, don’t be. I’m fine.”
She looked surprised, and I instantly regretted the harsh tone. I knew she was just trying to engage with me, maybe even show a little concern in her own way, but I hated pity. I hated pity more than anything, which was why the wheelchair was so terrible. And the last person I wanted any pity from was Aubrie.
Before I could apologize, maybe cover my shitty reaction by talking about the PT, my mom made her typical, perfectly-timed entrance.
“Good morning, children,” she practically sang as she took a yogurt from the refrigerator and leaned up against the counter.
“Good morning, Jules.”
I nodded to her. “Mother.”
