“There’s never a guarantee, Chloe. You never know what life is going to throw at you. We could say forget it, go back to my place, and sit on the beach. It would be nice and peaceful and fun. You could have a heart attack or a brain aneurysm while we sat there. Driving back, we could be killed by a truck full of zucchini. Life isn’t about how it ends; it’s about what you do while you’re alive.”
“How much can you do if the guy you are with has a death wish?” I asked.
“I don’t want to die,” Aiden corrected. “I want to live. That’s the point.”
“Couldn’t we hunt for seashells or something?”
Aiden shook his head slowly.
“I’m doing it,” he said definitively. “You join me if you want.”
Aiden signed the last piece of paper and walked back up to the counter. I looked down, reread some of the scarier parts, took a deep breath, and signed my name. At the counter, Aiden threw down a credit card and insisted on paying for my jump as well. I wasn’t going to argue. I wasn’t about to pay for this insanity.
Once the receptionist had all our information and promises not to sue if we died, we were led to a back room where we were both strapped into harnesses and given little helmets. The headgear looked ridiculous, and I didn’t see what the point of them was. It wasn’t as if they would stop our heads from looking like smashed pumpkins the day after Halloween if we fell out of a damn plane and hit the ground.
We were given very brief instructions about how to fold our arms in front of our chests and lean back when we were ready. The instructors would have the parachutes, and we would be strapped to the instructors. Just as the lesson ended, our instructors came in and introduced themselves as Greg and Mike.
“For your first jump, you always go tandem,” Mike said. “I lost the coin toss, so I’ll be strapped to the big guy, and Greg here gets the lovely lady.”
Greg winked at me and then walked over to check the straps around my shoulders.
“I’m going to get a little personal here,” Greg warned. “I just have to make sure everything is on right.”
A little personal was right. He ran his hands over the straps around my breasts and around my ass, checking them thoroughly. I caught Aiden watching out of the corner of his eye, but Mike was doing the exact same thing to him.
“You’re all set!” Greg said. “Let’s go!”
We followed the two men outside and headed toward the plane.
“How many times have you done this?” I asked Greg as we walked.
“Over twenty thousand jumps,” he said.
“Really?”
“Really,” he repeated. He winked at me again. “Never died once.”
My phone rang.
“Crap!” I bit down on my lip as I looked at my mother’s picture on the screen.
If I die in the next hour, this would be my last chance to talk to her.
“Do I have time to take this call?” I asked Greg.
“Sure,” he said. “It’ll be a few minutes before we’re ready to go.”
I took a few steps away from the plane to dull the noise.
“Hi, Mom!” I said into the phone.
“Hey there! I was just thinking about you. I hope I’m not interrupting a meeting or anything.”
“No, not at all.” I glanced toward the plane and saw Mike adjusting Aiden’s harness. “What exactly were you thinking about?”
“I was going through some old photos,” Mom said. “There were some in here of your kindergarten graduation, which got me thinking about high school and college, so I pulled those out, too.”
“A little trip down memory lane?”