Chapter 9
CALVIN
Two hours later I’m clinging onto the handrail of a Cessna, watching the ground far below from the open door. Wind whips at my face and whistles through the gap in my goggles. The backpack is heavy with the parachute Grace packed earlier.
“I can’t believe you talked me into doing this.”
Grace grins at me and says something that I can’t hear over the wind coming in from the open door.
“What?” I lean in at the same time as she does, and our goggles bump together. She laughs, the sound carried out by the wind.
“I said, are you ready?”
I glance down at the ground below and then back at the safety of the small plane.
Grace called in a favor from one of her colleagues who agreed to take us up on short notice.
I haven’t parachuted since my training at Fort Bragg.
I loved it then, grinning the same way Grace is now, the adrenaline making me know I was alive.
Now, I’m clinging onto the rail and wondering why the hell anyone would want to jump out of this perfectly good plane. It’s dangerous. The parachute might fail. The landing could go wrong.
Even with a dozen jumps with the army and a quick refresher from Grace and her colleague, Jason, who’s come up with us, I still can’t find the excitement my younger self had. There’s too much that could go wrong.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m definitely not ready.”
Grace just laughs. I’ve got no idea how she could be laughing right now. My stomach’s churning, threatening to bring up my lunch.
I’m clutching the railing when she undoes her clasp and steps toward the open door.
“See you out there.” She fixes me with a grin as she falls backwards out of the plane and into the air. Her body drops slowly through the sky as she lets out a long loud whoop.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I peer out of the plane and watch her tumble. She somersaults twice, then falls towards the earth with her arms outstretched.
If I leave it too long, I won’t catch her. I have to jump now.
“You ready?” Jason asks. “I’ll unclip you, but you have to jump yourself.”
I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready for something so dangerous, but Grace’s figure is getting further away.
I nod at the instructor, and my heartbeat speeds up as he unclips me from the rail. I edge over to the open door, squeeze my eyes shut, and let go.
I free fall as the wind rushes past, screaming in my ears. Someone’s yelling, and it takes a moment to realize it’s me.
The sensation changes as I reach terminal velocity and it’s as if I’m in a wind tunnel, air blasting me from below.
I pry my eyes open, and the ground is far below me. The dark forests spread over the mountain in shades of green and autumnal orange. Emerald Heart Lake winks far below, the sunlight catching on the water.
And directly below is the valley, the wide stretch of green plains carved out by an ancient glacier millennium ago.
It’s beautiful. It’s a wonder to see my home from up here. My breathing comes back to normal, and I feel like I’m floating rather than plummeting through the air.
I’m heavier than Grace, and in a few moments, I catch up to her. She holds a gloved hand out, and I grab onto it as I fall past.
She’s grinning, and behind her goggles her eyes sparkle with the flush of adrenaline.
I grab her other hand and grin back at her. We’re falling through the sky, and it’s fucking fantastic!
“Hey!” It’s quieter down here away from the plane’s engine, so I can hear her more easily.
“Hey!” I yell back.
I can’t stop grinning, and she mirrors my expression. My heart races as adrenaline shoots through my body. I let out a whoop and she laughs, both sounds carried away in the wind.
“I knew you’d love it!”
We keep our hands clasped together as we plummet through the sky. I’m not sure if it’s the adrenaline or the woman whose hands I’m grasping grinning at me, but I feel invincible right now.
The ground’s getting closer, and my altitude reader flashes letting me know we’re at 4500 feet. Time to separate and get ready to pull the parachute cord.
I drop Grace’s hand, but she grabs onto me and shakes her head.
“Not yet.”
She’s got a dangerous gleam in her eye that sends my adrenaline spiking.
“We need to spread out.” Or there’s a risk we’ll get tangled. We’re at 4000 feet now and I try to pull my hand away, but she tugs it back and gives me a mischievous smile.
“Wait a bit.”
The euphoria turns to panic as the ground comes closer, and the altitude drops to 3500 then 3000 feet.
We’ve got to separate and pull or we’ll be getting into dangerous territory, and if something goes wrong, there’s not a lot of time to resolve it.
“Grace!” I pull my hand out of her grasp but not without a struggle. She’s fighting me because she wants to fall for longer, but if we leave it much longer it will risk a difficult landing. Can’t she see that?
“You need to pull the cord!”
She smiles at me, her eyes dancing dangerously. “You go first.”
I shake my head. There’s no way I’m pulling my parachute and leaving her falling like this. I don’t care how many times she’s done this and gotten away with it. Not on my watch.
“You have to pull.”
She smiles at me but doesn’t reach for her cord. The altitude meter is beeping at me now, and the ground’s coming up fast. We’re at 2500 feet, which is the lowest recommended pull height.
“Grace, you’ll get yourself killed!”
She shrugs. And that little movement, the way she has such disregard for her own safety, makes my blood boil.
I reach across her body, and before she can stop me, I pull her chute. Her parachute unfurls from the backpack and begins to pull her upward.
As she pulls away, she’s laughing. “Relax, sheriff. We’re fine.”
But it’s not funny to me.
I push myself through the air and away from her before pulling mine at 2000 feet.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until the parachute unfolds and tugs at my shoulders. My trajectory slows down, and I drift through the air.
My heart rate steadies as I drift slowly to the ground. My feet touch down in a field, and a moment later Grace comes in beside me.
She’s got a perfect landing, running as the parachute hits the ground until it pulls her down.
She shrugs off the parachute and runs over to me.
“You should have seen your face!”
She slides the goggles back on her head and she’s laughing, her eyes dancing.
“What the fuck, Grace? You could have gotten us killed.”
She shakes her head like she’s disappointed in me.
“We had plenty of time.”
“We’re supposed to pull before 3000 feet.”
“It’s perfectly safe to go a little under, trust me. I’ve done it loads of times.”
I run a hand through my hair.
“Why do you always have to break the rules? Why do you always have to take risks like that?”
She bites her bottom lip, and the laughter disappears from her eyes.
“Because life could end tomorrow, Calvin, so what’s the point of playing it safe? We’re all going to die one day. Why not today?”
The anger drains out of me. Losing her mother must have made her like this. Fatalistic.
She stalks back to her parachute and begins bundling it up.
I unclip mine and approach her. I crouch down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Hey.”
She turns around, and there’s pain in her expression. I want to rub it away; I want to bring back the smile and easy laughter.
“I’m sorry I got cross, but it was reckless. It freaked me out.”
Her lips curl up at the edges, and I’m relieved when I see her smile again.
“I know it did. You should have seen your face.”
She does an impression of me with wide, scared eyes and an open mouth. I laugh, and the tension dissipates.
My arm’s still on her shoulder, and her face is so close I can smell her minty breath. Her gaze meets mine, and I lean toward her. Adrenaline’s coursing through my veins and I want to kiss her, to claim her as mine.
Her lips part and her eyes close. Her warm breath grazes my lips.
“How was it?” comes the booming voice of Jason. The plane must have landed, and he’s stalking through the field toward us.
Grace gets to her feet, and the moment’s gone. I could murder this guy right now.
“It was awesome!” Grace beams at Jason, and I have an inexplicable urge to punch him in the face.
Oblivious, he gives me a friendly bro punch on the shoulder. “I didn’t think you were going to leave the plane, dude.”
Grace giggles, and I give the man a death stare. He just interrupted us when we were about to kiss, and now all I can think about is Grace’s lips and where I can take her to kiss her properly.
We pack up the parachutes and make small talk with Jason, but as soon as I can I maneuver Grace over to my bike.
“Where are we going?”
I clip up her helmet and tighten the cheek straps to make sure they haven’t come loose.
“Now that we’ve jumped out of a plane, we’re going for a stroll.”
There’s a secluded part of the woods I want to take Grace to where I can push her up against a tree and kiss the smile right off her face.