Epilogue
EPLIOGUE
MAYA
The airfield sat at the end of a long dirt road, flat and sun-bleached and surrounded by nothing but dry grass and sky. A tin-roofed hangar squatted at one end, its doors propped open, and beyond it a single small plane waited on the tarmac.
I was out of the truck before Nate had even cut the engine. Standing on the tarmac, with my arms folded stiffly, I stared at the plane like it might take off without me if I blinked.
My stomach was clenched, fluttery and tight at the same time. The kind of nerves that came with Christmas morning and first dates and sitting at the top of a roller coaster just before the drop.
Nate wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on the top of my head. I leaned into him the way I always did, my body finding his like a compass settling north.
“You’re vibrating,” he said.
“I’m nervous. And excited. I’m nercited.”
He chuckled. “You’re going to vibrate yourself off the tarmac before we even get in the plane.”
“Good. Then I won’t need a parachute.” I tipped my head back against his shoulder and looked up at him. “Are you excited?”
He kissed my forehead. “I’m something.”
I turned in his arms and straightened the collar of his jacket, smoothing the fabric flat even though it didn’t need smoothing.
His hands settled on my hips, thumbs tracing absent circles through my shirt.
For a second we just stood there in the middle of a dusty airfield at the edge of nowhere, breathing each other in.
“Thank you for this,” I said. “Seriously.”
“You haven’t jumped yet.”
“I know. But thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome.” He brushed his lips across mine, then he stepped back, grabbed our gear bags from the truck bed, and slung them both over one shoulder. He held out his free hand and I took it, threading my fingers through his as we walked toward the hangar.
The jumpmaster met us inside. He was a wiry guy in his fifties with a deep tan and the calm energy of someone who had thrown himself out of a plane several thousand times and found the whole thing pleasantly routine.
He ran us through the briefing, showed us the harnesses, and explained the altitudes and freefall times. I absorbed every word with a focus I used to reserve for things that terrified me.
The fear was there. A low hum in my belly, a tautness across my ribs. But it sat alongside the excitement now, sharing the space. I let both of them exist, fully owning every single feeling.
Nate kept his gaze on me through the briefing, tracking my face like he was looking for a crack, a wobble, a sign that he needed to step in and steady me.
I smiled at him. Full wattage, dimples and all. The return smile he gave me made my heart squeeze so hard I could barely breathe.
Then the jumpmaster slapped his clipboard against his thigh with a sharp crack. “Alright folks, plane is fueled and ready. Let’s go defy gravity.”
The brave, full-wattage smile slid straight off my face.
Outside, the small plane engine sputtered and roared to life. The mechanical growl vibrated through the soles of my boots and straight up my spine. My stomach plummeted. Ten thousand feet in the air. Nothing but a glorified backpack keeping us alive. Fuck.
My hands started to shake. It was just a slight tremor in my fingers at first, but then my breathing hitched and the walls of the hangar abruptly closed in on me. I was about to jump out of an airplane. I was completely out of my fucking mind.
Then Nate was there, taking my hands in his, flattening my palms over his heart. The beat was a slow, steady thud beneath my fingers.
“Hey,” he said softly, ducking his head to catch my eye. “Look at me, Slayer.”
I dragged my gaze up to his. “I think I might throw up. Or pass out. Or both. Nate, this is crazy.”
“It’s objectively insane to throw yourself out of the sky,” he agreed, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles over my knuckles. “You have every reason to be terrified. But I’ve got you. I’m strapped to you the entire time. I’m going to keep you completely safe.”
“Promise?”
“I swear it on my life.” He leaned down and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to my forehead. “Breathe with me. In and out.”
I closed my eyes and matched my breathing to the rise and fall of his. He stood there like a mountain, absorbing all my panic until the roaring in my ears finally dialed back down to a manageable hum.
“You good?” His voice was a low rumble against my palms.
I took one more deep breath and nodded. “Yep. Better.”
His hands slid up from my waist to cup my face, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. The intense, adoring way he looked at me made the rest of the hangar fade away entirely. “I love you, Maya.”
My heart did a completely different kind of flip. The good kind. The kind that had absolutely nothing to do with plummeting toward the earth at terminal velocity. “I love you too.”
He gave me one last quick, grounding kiss and flashed a wicked grin. “Alright then. Let’s go jump out of a perfectly good airplane.”
We suited up. The harnesses were bulky and graceless and made me walk like I’d just climbed off a horse. Nate looked annoyingly good in his, because of course he did. The man could make a garbage bag look hot.
The walk to the plane took forever and no time at all. Then we were catapulting down the runway and we were off.
The plane climbed in a long, slow spiral and the world shrank beneath us.
Fields and roads and the thin silver thread of a river, all of it flattening out like a photograph as we gained altitude.
The engine noise filled the cabin, deep and steady and so loud it swallowed everything else.
I pressed my face to the window as the ground pulled away.
The houses became game pieces and the cars were just glints of light crawling along grey ribbons of road.
The jumpmaster held up five fingers. Five minutes.
Nate settled against the wall and I sat between his legs, my back against his chest. The harness clips locked us together and the metal clicked with a finality that sent a fresh swoop through my stomach. Nate wrapped his arms around me, his hands resting on my thighs.
“Scared?” The word was barely audible over the engine, more breath than sound.
I turned my head so my lips brushed his jaw. “Thrilled.”
“Good girl.” His shoulders expanded against my back on a slow, controlled inhale, and his heart beat steady and strong. I pressed into it, letting the rhythm settle my own.
Two minutes.
My pulse kicked up several notches. I covered Nate’s hands with my own and laced our fingers together across my lap. The vibration of the engine hummed through both of us, in one continuous frequency.
One minute.
The door opened.
The wind hit like a wall, filling the cabin with a roar that made the engine sound like a whisper. Below us, the ground was a patchwork of green and gold stretching to the horizon. The air tasted sharp and cold and clean.
Nate’s arms tightened around me. Together, we shuffled forward until my legs dangled over the edge and the wind pressed against my goggles and tore at my jumpsuit and filled every gap in my clothing with rushing, living cold.
Adrenaline spiked through my veins.
Every molecule in my body lit up like a switchboard.
And behind me, solid and warm and certain, was Nate.
“Last chance, Slayer. You say stop, we stop,” he shouted in my ear.
My heart was thudding in my ears, but I shook my head and leaned forward.
The sky swallowed us whole.
The freefall was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The wind hit my body with a force that was absolute, pressing against every inch of me until I couldn’t tell where I ended and the air began. It filled my mouth and my ears and my lungs.
I was flying. Properly flying. Faster and freer and more alive than I had ever been.
My arms spread wide. The world blurred beneath me, green and gold and the dark slash of a river, all of it streaming past in a beautiful, violent rush.
Nate’s body was curled around mine. His laugh vibrated through me even though the wind stole the sound before it reached my ears.
Then he pulled the ripcord. A sharp jolt yanked us upright, snapping the canopy open and turning the violent roar into instant, ringing silence.
Just like that. One second the wind was everything. The next it was gone, replaced by a quiet so vast that my ears rang with it.
We hung suspended for an eternity. The sky was everywhere. Above me, around me, draped over the world like something sacred. My chest heaved and my cheeks ached from smiling. The only sound was the soft creak of the harness straps and my own ragged breathing finally settling into a rhythm.
“You still with me?” Nate’s voice rumbled against my back, sounding loud in the sudden quiet.
I let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. “Yes. This is incredible.”
I turned my head as far as the bulky helmet and harness allowed. Nate leaned in to meet me, pressing a hard, wind-chapped kiss to my lips right there in the middle of the sky.
Below me, the landing field spread out in a wide green rectangle. The hangar. The parked cars. Tiny shapes of people milling near the edge of the grass.
“Legs up, Slayer.”
We hit the grass at a jog. Nate absorbed the impact behind me, his legs taking our combined weight as we stumbled to a stop. The parachute sighed and collapsed around us in a massive heap of white silk. Nate unclipped the harness, separating us with quick, practiced hands.
My whole body sang.
The second the clips released, I spun around.
Grabbing his face, I hauled him down for a kiss. It was messy and breathless, full of wind and cold and pure exhilaration. He laughed against my mouth, his arms wrapping around my waist to lift me off my feet for a second.
“We did it,” I gasped when we finally broke apart, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Oh my god, Nate! We fucking did it! You’ll never top this, I swear! It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”
“Yeah?” His blue eyes were incredibly bright, glassy and intense. He set me back on my feet. “Look over there.”
He nodded toward the far side of the field. The group of spectators and drop zone staff milling near the perimeter of the grass abruptly shifted, moving around until they formed a straight line facing us.
The breath stilled in my lungs.
They were holding large, white squares of cardboard. As one, they turned them around.
M. A. R. R. Y.
M. E.
MARRY ME.
Oh. Oh my god.
I snapped my gaze back to him, shaking all over. “N-Nate?”
His eyes were locked on mine, fierce and completely bare, stripped down to an emotion so profound it made my knees weak. He stepped back and dropped onto one knee on the grass, the crumpled parachute pooling behind him like a messy silk train.
His hands shook as he fumbled with the zipper on his thigh pocket. The metal caught for a second, but he yanked it free, pulling out a small black velvet box.
He popped it open. A brilliant solitaire diamond sat atop a simple gold band, catching the afternoon light.
“Maya.” His voice cracked, rough and breathless.
He cleared his throat and tried again, looking up at me like I was the only thing tethering him to the earth.
“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I want to spend the rest of my life making sure you never forget that. Will you marry me?”
The world stopped spinning. The wind died down and the ringing in my ears faded to absolute silence. It was just Nate. Just this man kneeling in the dirt, offering me his entire heart. Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast, blurring the diamond into a brilliant star.
I dropped to my knees in front of him, shins hitting the ground hard. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”
“Thank Christ.” He plucked the ring from the velvet cushion and took my left hand. His large fingers were surprisingly gentle as he slid the gold band onto my ring finger. It fit perfectly.
I crashed my mouth against his, crying and laughing all at once.
The momentum tipped him backward, and he took me down with him. We tumbled into the soft grass, tangled together. His arms banded around my waist, holding me flush against him as we kissed like the rest of the world had completely ceased to exist.
When I finally broke away to catch my breath, I lifted my head. Reaching up, I brushed a wind-blown lock of brown hair off his forehead, my thumb lingering on his cheekbone.
“God, Nate, I love you so much.”
His hands slid up my back, pulling me down for one more soft, grounding kiss. “I love you too, Slayer. Forever.”