by B. B. Hamel
As I moved into the large main building, I looked around. It looked exactly the same as it had the last time I was there briefly during Thanksgiving, which was actually pretty surprising. Jules loved to redecorate. Like, she loved it a little too much. For a while, the whole place was purple and had this weird Arabian Nights theme going on. That is, until she watched The Lion King and suddenly everything was safari.
I liked Jules. I liked her a lot. She was kind and caring and one of the most genuine people I had ever met in my life. She laughed at my jokes and took an interest in what I said and did. But she wasn’t the brightest bulb.
Frankly, she was a little dumb.
But she was so sweet. I hated being mean to her, even just mentally, but I couldn’t help it. Jules was like a Golden Retriever: loyal, fun-loving, always happy, but a little bit slow.
“Hello?” I called out again as I made my way into the kitchen.
I sighed. It was typical of my family to completely forget about me. Dad was probably somewhere going through his latest film footage, and Jules had probably gotten distracted by a shiny, faux-vintage vase at some fancy, fake secondhand shop over in town.
As I dropped my bag and opened the refrigerator to grab something to drink, I heard an incredibly strange noise. It was somewhere between a grunt and a moan, almost as if someone were having sex in the next room over.
But that couldn’t be possible. Right? Nobody would be having sex loudly, out in the open, especially with me coming home. I was just imagining things. I probably forgot the kind of noises the house made all on its own, the creaks and groans.
I grabbed a soda, cracked it open, and leaned against the kitchen counter. As much as I would have rather gone to L.A., it was actually pretty good to be home. I was looking forward to long walks through the mountains and seeing some of my old high school friends again. I sipped my soda, smiling to myself. Maybe my summer wasn’t going to be totally horrible. Maybe I could salvage it, make it relaxing.
But then there was that sound again. It was louder, another grunt, and definitely masculine. Tingles ran down my spine. Were Jules and Dad having sex? No, there was no way they’d do it right there in the other room. They weren’t the best parents in the world, but Jules was way too proper to risk getting caught, and they at least knew I was going to be home eventually.
But the sound came again, and it was getting to the point where I couldn’t ignore it. My curiosity began to win out over my desire to never see Jules and Dad having sex ever in my entire life, and so I walked through the back hall leading toward our large den area. I heard the noise again, that time accompanied by a woman’s voice, though I couldn’t make out what she said. It definitely wasn’t Jules, though.
I stopped just outside the door. My heart was pounding in my chest. Is Dad having an affair? I thought to myself. No, there was no way he would do that to Jules and me. There was no way he’d bring some strange girl home and bang her right there in the den where anybody could catch him.
Would he?
My mind was reeling with the possibilities.
I took a deep breath. I heard another grunt, and the woman’s voice again, low and encouraging. I shoved the door open and stormed into the room, ready to yell at the top of my lungs.
And what I saw was worse, way worse than anything I had been imagining. It was worse than Dad having an affair, worse than Dad fucking Jules on the couch. I stood still as seven pairs of eyes all turned and stared at me simultaneously, completely stifling the angry admonishment I had on the tip of my tongue.
It took me a second to really understand what the hell I was seeing. The den had been completely changed, and it looked more like a gym than a hangout space. The floor was mostly covered by blue exercise mats, and there was exercise equipment scattered around. The TV was still mounted on the wall, but the rack of movies had been replaced with a full, wall-length mirror.
Two guys held cameras. They looked like they were in their 30s, maybe younger. Another was holding one of those long boom microphones up in the air and had big headphones over his ears. An attractive brunette woman, rail thin and intense looking, stood just behind the cameramen and stared daggers at me.
And in the middle of the room, his ripped and tattooed arms wrapped around two metal railings, was my stepbrother, the asshole I hadn’t seen since I had left for school, the biggest dickhead in my life, Lincoln Carter. I worked my mouth, trying to find some words, as everyone continued to stare at me. Although it was clear that nobody was having sex, something weird was happening, and I had no clue what it was.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run away. But Lincoln’s dirty-green eyes pierced directly into mine and held me there like a pin through a bug. I wanted to wriggle away, but his lips curled up into that irresistible smile of his, cocky and adorable and fucking sexy all at once. I blinked at him, shocked beyond shocked.
“Hey, Aubrie. Long time no see,” he said.
He cocked his head at me as I continued to stand there, memories and emotions swirling through my body. It took me a second to register the attractive and fit blond woman standing in front of Lincoln, supporting some of his weight. He was dressed in gym clothes, and his chest and face were sweaty. I could see the tattoos that snaked up his arms and covered his chest disappear behind the white, damp T-shirt he was wearing. His body was muscular and strong, but for some reason he looked like he was having trouble standing.
And then it all clicked. The fucking injury, I thought.
“Excuse me? We’re filming here.”
My head snapped over to look at the harsh brunette woman giving me an impatient look.
“Oh, right. Okay,” I said weakly.
“It’s okay, Jess. This is my stepsister, Aubrie.”
She nodded at me. “Aubrie, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much from your father.”
“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.
Chapter Two: 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.
