The Heartbreakers

“Lenley, what the fuck?” he snaps, tightening his hold on my elbow and dragging me into another corner. “I thought I told you those guys are bad news and every time I turn, you’re talking to one of them!”

A part of me wants to argue with him, or even better, tell him that “talking” isn’t all I’ve been doing with the Devils. But it would be too soon and way too obvious to throw in Darrius’ face the fact that I had Payton’s dick in my mouth just yesterday.

I know Darrius better than anyone else and for him to really be jealous, it’s better to rub his face in my new friendship with his rivals over time. Plant the seed of his jealousy and cultivate it, water it every day. If I take a cheap shot now, he’ll dismiss the whole thing as it being about Kiara.

And he wouldn’t be wrong, but I realized that there’s more than that.

Darrius rejected me before, he’s been rejecting me for years. Kiara was just the tip of the iceberg. This is about him jerking me around and playing with my heart since forever. This is about every single girl he’s ever been with, while stringing me along and making me believe that deep down, I was the one.

“Lenley, you need to stay away from the Cove Devils!” He repeats, grinding his jaw.

“I was only being nice to our guests,” I say, pulling away from him. “Look, Mom wants to put an end to the bad blood between the two teams. If you have a problem with them being invited tonight, you need to take it up with her.”

That does the trick and he calms down. He knows that after forcing Mom’s hand when he demanded that Kiara be hired, he needs to stay on the straight and narrow. Sure, his father owns part of the company and his spot on the team is secure, but his position as captain and star athlete isn’t untouchable; especially since he hasn’t won a World title yet.

“I guess Gina must have some kind of strategy there,”he concedes. “But I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by being friends with the Devils. They’re scum and losers. They’ve never won anything in their careers. Your mom should remember that I led our team to win Nationals. It hadn’t happened since your father.”

That’s true and I nod, but I remain quiet; winning Nationals two years in a row changed Darrius for the worse. He slowly started pulling away from me after his first victory.

“Baby!” Kiara comes toward us, grabbing Darrius by the arm and throwing a dirty look my way. “The photographer is waiting to take those photos of us you promised!”

I watch my ex-best friend drag him away and decide to continue the tour on my own.

Sarah is talking to Trent and his other teammate Shawn; she was worried about me having to be here with Kiara and Anna all night, but I reassured her that I’m a big girl and I can be professional for one night. I know she likes Trent, so I told her to go for it and see if he’s interested. That’s why I got her an invitation to the opening, I have all the support I need since the guys are here and I’ve been feeling their gazes on me all evening.

The next couple of rooms are dedicated to the beginning of Papà’s career, first with the Sprites, where he met Kyle, and then the birth of the Cove Angels.

There’s a section about him meeting Mom and deciding to move to her native Star Cove, putting our little town on the map as the main hub for wingsuit flying and competitive skydiving in the US.

There’s footage from my parents’ wedding on the beach, and some of them with me as a baby.

The room after that is the trophy room; Patrick DeLaurent won everything that can be won at the highest levels when it comes to skydiving, with or without a wingsuit, and BASE jumping. He was the reigning World Champion and held more than one world record at the time of his tragic death.

The last room is the hardest to walk through; especially the last glass case that contains the wingsuit Papà was wearing during his last, fatal jump.

I look at the suit through the glass, resisting the urge to touch the case because I know that there’s an alarm connected to it. On one side of the case there’s a stand with a copy of the sketch with the modification that caused the rigging error that proved fatal to my papà.

I close my eyes, remembering the last night with him, how he believed that the change in design would’ve allowed him to fly longer before opening his parachute. How the investigation of the circumstances of his death pointed out the modification was to blame for the parachute getting jammed in its own casing.

How the world was shocked at a loss they really knew nothing about. How the press commented over and over that the modification looked great on paper but ended up with that disastrous outcome.

My memory of that day is that I was waiting for Papà to come back from his flight to take me cliff diving; how instead Uncle Kyle came to pick me up to take me to the hospital where Mom already was.

He and their two other team members had been flying with Papà that day and had seen what happened, powerless to do anything to save him.

That work trip to Mexico should’ve doubled up as a family vacation for us and the Penns; but I know for a fact that none of us has ever returned there since.

A masculine hand lands on my shoulder, and I know it’s Peyton even before his front comes into contact with my back; before I inhale his clean scent that reminds me of clean clothing drying in the sun; before his deep voice and his warm breath tickle my ear.

“Hey Snow.”

I turn my head, taking my earphones off. “Peyton,” I utter softly, seeing an emotion that closely mirrors my own in his dark blue eyes.

“I was curious to see this,” he says. “Do you mind if I take a photo of that sketch? I know it must be patented but I want to understand exactly what went wrong. It could help me with the wingsuit design I’m trying to develop.”

I open my mouth to say something but no sound comes out and Peyton interprets my silence the wrong way. “Of course I’m not trying to copy the design but it’s a similar principle. I think with today’s better technology and materials, it could work.”

I nod, trying again to voice what’s going on in my head. “As long as you promise you’re going to be careful, Peyton. That particular modification hasn’t actually been patented, obviously no one would want it anyway, after what happened.”

Peyton’s fingers curl over my naked shoulder, in a comforting grasp. “I promise it isn’t exactly the same mod, Lenley. But if you’d rather me not—”

I shake my head. “No, you can. But that’s just a photocopy, really. I have the original sketch. Papà left it to me in a sealed envelope with a letter. He wrote it maybe a week before it ... happened. I haven’t read the letter yet, but I had a quick look inside the envelope.”

Peyton lowers his hand, running gentle fingers down my arm and surrounding my waist with his. “I know how you feel.”

I turn completely so that we’re face to face but he doesn’t let go of me.