Virgin Flyer

“Oh god.” Please, please let him land softly.

“He’ll be fine,” Millie said with a chuckle. “Kirk does this like ten times a day.”

I snapped at her. “Yeah, and Kirk once got a compound fracture of his tibia for his troubles!”

My brain knew that skydiving wasn’t dangerous, but my gut had never been able to overcome my intellect on this one. Skydiving had always scared the hell out of me. I’d tried to keep my fear suppressed so as not to offend Kirk and subsequently my own sister, but I was not a fan.

I paced back and forth across the freshly mown grass with my eyes riveted on the tandem bodies beneath the yellow canopy.

He’d better be strapped to Kirk himself.

My back teeth hurt from clenching and grinding. Finally, finally, they landed. It looked soft and smooth at first, but then Teo’s foot got caught under them and the pair went tumbling across the drop zone.

My heart dropped, and I went running.

33

Teo

I did it!

The exhilaration I felt was jacked up by the relief of finally being safe on the ground. Had it been breathtaking and freeing? Yes. Would I ever do it again? Hell fucking no. I felt like I was going to puke and my ears hurt. The harness was too tight, and my face was cold. My body was shaking with the effects of an adrenaline response.

But I’d done it. And seeing all of the cameras recording Ryan Fae’s landing was all the reassurance I needed that my jump had been worth doing. I only wished Jack hadn’t been away on a trip so I could have surprised him with it in person.

“You asshole!”

I looked up from the mess I’d made of the landing to see the subject of my thoughts storming at me across the green grass of the drop zone. He was here. I grinned at him wildly. How was he here?

“How could you do this? Are you fucking crazy? Do you have any idea how fucking…” He seemed to realize where he was, that there were cameras rolling. He grabbed his short hair with both hands and turned his back on me. “Fuck!”

I felt the jostling of Kirk unbuckling me from himself and then my own harness. When I was free to move, I stumbled forward but went down hard when my ankle didn’t hold. “Oof.” Kirk hurried over, but Jack didn’t seem to notice.

“Shit. Did you twist it?” Kirk reached down to palpate it gently.

I tested it. “No, I think it’s fine. Just tweaked it.” I stood again and took a gingerly step. This time it supported me and only felt a little weak. I kept my eyes on Jack, who was pacing and muttering under his breath off to the side, near where Millie stood watching me with a worried expression. I tried giving her a smile of reassurance, but I wasn’t feeling it.

After all that, after what I’d just accomplished, Jack was mad at me. I didn’t understand.

“Why is he so upset?” I asked Kirk. My heart was in my throat at the thought I’d disappointed him or done something to upset him. “I thought he’d be proud of me for facing my fear. I kind of thought he’d be happy.”

Kirk chuckled softly. “Teo, he’s terrified of skydiving and fiercely protective of the people he loves. So the idea of you jumping out of an airplane scared the shit out of him. He’ll get over it now that you’re safely down.”

People he loves?

That couldn’t be it, and the more I watched him throw a tantrum, the more annoyed I became. I marched over to him and shoved his shoulder to get his attention. “What the hell is your problem?”

He turned on me, batting my hand away angrily. “My problem? What the fuck is your problem? Are you insane? Why would you do this when you’re scared of flying? Why would you put yourself at risk like this? What in the world were you thinking when you decided to jump out of a perfectly—”

“Good airplane,” I finished with him in a mocking voice. “Did it ever occur to you I wanted to help your family? It wasn’t my plan to jump out of a fucking airplane, Jack! But when I finally found someone who could help Nose Dive, there was a catch. And the catch was, I had to jump too.”

“You didn’t have to say yes! Millie and Kirk could have found another way.” His face was flushed with anger. “Why do you have to keep fucking setting yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm? Why can’t you just let people solve their own problems sometimes instead of—”

I held up my hand to stop his ridiculous rant. And then I turned and walked away without another word.

“Teo!” he yelled at my back. “Don’t walk away from me, dammit.”