“And what’s in Homestead?”
“Mostly farms. I get a lot of fresh vegetables down there. It’s a great ride on the bike. Sometimes I’ll head straight down to the Keys. It’s beautiful.”
“Is that where we’re going?” I asked. “The Keys?”
“Well, not exactly.” Aiden glanced at me as his lip curled up. “I think you will be able to see the Keys from where we’ll be though.”
Aiden continued to evade my questions about our destination as we drove down the coast of Miami, through Miami Beach, west across Biscayne Bay, and then down South Dixie Highway. We went past many vegetable farms loaded with workers wearing their wide-brimmed hats out in the fields, and we passed through a collection of small towns. It took a little while, but eventually Aiden announced that we were almost there.
Aiden turned the jeep into a long gravel driveway and headed toward a large building that looked like a big metal barn. Next to the barn were a small prop plane and a van painted with vivid colors and the words “Skydive Miami.” I looked at Aiden sharply as realization hit me.
“You are not serious.”
“Who me?” He feigned innocence. “I’m totally serious.”
“Skydiving?” I cried. “Jumping out of a plane? On purpose? I’ve never skydived in my life!”
“Neither have I,” Aiden said. “All the more reason to do it.”
“No way!”
Aiden parked next to a couple of other cars and turned to me.
“It’s time to live a little, Chloe. Come on, let’s just go inside and see what there is to see.”
“You are out of your mind,” I said firmly. “I am not doing this.”
“Why not?”
“It’s dangerous!”
“So is driving on the highway,” Aiden replied. “You didn’t mind doing that.”
“I’m used to that,” I said with less conviction.
“So we’ll go skydiving a few times until you are used to it.” I glared at Aiden’s smirk.
He came around to the passenger side of the jeep and reached up to take my hand.
“Give it a chance,” he said as I pulled back, determined to remain in the vehicle.
The sunlight captured the green in his eyes, and in turn, his eyes captivated me. I gave in and followed him into the building.
Inside, a receptionist handed each of us a large stack of papers to sign and had us sit down to watch a video. To sum it up, both the video and the paperwork said we were going to die.
“I can’t do this,” I said as I shook my head. “Did you read any of this?”
“Yeah,” Aiden said. “It’s a lot of lawyer talk.”
“Right—because we’re going to die.”
“Nah,” he said. “They just want to make sure if we do, they don’t get sued.”
I looked down at the papers again, seven pages of all the various ways we could be maimed or dead by the time the trip was over, and the demand that we sign away any right to sue the skydiving company for damages because we recognized that what we were about to do was completely stupid.
“Aiden…”
He lifted his hand to my face and stroked my cheek as he looked into my eyes.
“I don’t know what will happen,” he said. “That’s the excitement of it. That’s what makes life worth living. You don’t know what will happen next. We’ll probably be fine, but there’s no guarantee.”
He placed his other hand on the other side of my face and stared at me intently.
“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?”
“I suppose so.” I could hear her sigh. “I know I needed to move out here, but I still miss you being around all the time.”
“I miss you, too, Mom.”
“I thought I might come your way for Thanksgiving,” Mom said. “I don’t expect you to cook or anything—we could just go out if you like.”
“Go out for Thanksgiving? No way!” I laughed. “We can cook together. I’d love to see you.”
“I’ll make the arrangements!” Mom said.
Aiden beckoned me, and I took a deep breath.
“Hey, Mom? I have to run, but I’ll call you back this weekend, okay?”
“Of course. Just don’t do anything crazy!”
My heart began to beat faster.
“Um…crazy?” I asked. Was there really some deep mother’s intuition at work here? Did she know I
was about to do something life-threatening?
Good lord, what was I thinking?
“Well, I know you don’t get along with your new boss,” Mom explained. “Just don’t do anything to get yourself fired or get so fed up you quit without having a backup plan.”
“Oh!” I wiped a bit of sweat off my brow. “I won’t do that. I swear.”
“Good girl. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Sounds good, Mom. I love you!”
“I love you, too, dear.”
I ended the call and took another deep breath. I turned the phone off and placed it in my purse before walking back to the plane. One of the workers took all our valuables, including Aiden’s baseball cap, and promised to lock them up until we got down.
If we got down in one piece, of course.
“All ready?” Greg asked.
“No!” I screamed in my head. Outwardly I smiled and nodded.
Greg climbed up into the plane first and then motioned to me to join him.
“Come on and sit right here,” he said as he patted his thighs.
“On your lap?” I asked.
“Between my legs,” he corrected. “We’re going to be pretty cozy on the way up.”
I sat between his legs, and then Mike climbed in and sat between mine. Aiden sat in front of Mike, and we all sandwiched ourselves into the small aircraft. There were three other jumpers going with us—one of them in tandem like Aiden and I were. The other two were experienced jumpers and going on their own.
“Getting personal again,” Greg warned as he began to buckle his harness to the back of mine. His hands came around my front as he checked the latches around my chest. I tried not to lean too far back against him, but it was nearly impossible in the close quarters. By the time we reached fourteen thousand feet, my back hurt from trying to sit up straight, so I gave up and rested against his chest.
“We’re good!” the pilot called from the cockpit. “Fourteen thousand five hundred feet.”
The door on the side of the plane opened, and I peered around Mike’s shoulder into nothing but blue sky and a few wispy clouds.
Holy crap! What was I thinking?
The two experienced skydivers made their way to the edge of the door and barely blinked before tossing themselves out into the air, tumbling into the sky with a whoop of exuberance.
I couldn’t share their enthusiasm. I was terrified.
Aiden and his instructor moved up to the door, and Aiden looked back at me.
“Here goes nothing!” he shouted. He leaned back against Mike, and a moment later, they both dropped out of the door and were gone.
“Your turn!” Greg said. He helped maneuver us both to the doorway, and I looked out into the open sky and ground below. We were so high up, I couldn’t even make sense of the scene in front of me.
“Cross your arms over your chest and lean back against me,” Greg instructed.
I did as he said. My heart was beating so fast, I wondered if I would go into cardiac arrest before the chute even opened.
“Ready?” he asked.
I swallowed hard and nodded. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready at all. This was insane.
“Yes!” I called back.
“Here we go!” Greg leaned forward, then back, and then forward again.
We tumbled into space.
The cold wind bit at my flesh as we fell. I tried to keep my mouth closed, but I was pretty sure a string of curse words were automatically flowing from it. The ground was impossibly far away but getting closer and closer by the second. Below us, I could see the forms of the other jumpers, including Aiden and Mike.
What if we crashed into them?
I felt Greg’s tap on my shoulder—the signal for me to spread out my arms. I did so, but it didn’t seem to slow us down at all. Greg pushed against me, angling us forward. I could see the fleeting image of Aiden and his instructor as we whizzed past them and through a cloud.
We were still falling. Tears were pulled from my eyes as the wind tore past my face. I tried to look at the meter on my wrist to see how far we had fallen, but I couldn’t see it clearly enough to read it. The air was freezing cold on my bare skin, and my stomach did flip-flops inside of me.
With a sudden jerk, my body pulled upward and into Greg. The straps around me tightened somewhat painfully, and our descent slowed as the chute opened.
We floated.
“What do you think?” Greg asked.
“Holy shit!” It was all I could manage to say.
Greg laughed.
“That’s the Everglades to your left,” he told me. “Key Largo is on the right. See it?”
“It’s beautiful!” I exclaimed.
“Let me loosen you up a little.” I felt Greg’s hands at my back. The harness released, causing me to gasp as I slipped forward slightly. The straps were more comfortable, but my heart remained lodged in my throat.
We floated into a cloud, and for a moment there was nothing but white and a slightly damp feeling on my skin. We dropped below it quickly, and I heard Greg’s voice again.
“How about a little spin?”
He pulled on the left side straps, and we spun in a counterclockwise direction. Then he pulled on the right, and we went clockwise. My stomach churned a bit.
“You try,” he said as his hand covered mine. I pulled the strap and we spun around again. “Go ahead and turn whichever direction you like.”
I did. I moved a little to the left and then a little to the right but kept the motion slow and steady so I wouldn’t lose breakfast. Far below, the green of the Everglades dominated the landscape. I could see the fields we had passed in the jeep and the tiny forms of field workers gathering vegetables. The blue water around the islands of the Keys sparkled in the sunlight.
I looked around some more, marveling in the beauty of the panoramic scene below me. I pulled at the strap again and looked out over the ocean, my mind spinning.
Was I really doing this?
I looked up to see two other parachutes above us, but I couldn’t make out which one of the figures was Aiden. I glanced over my shoulder to see Greg smiling.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s incredible!” I cried. “Really, truly incredible!”
“There’s nothing else like it!” he agreed.
We floated through another cloud, and Greg took control of our direction as we began to approach the ground. I could see a wide field below us with two circles of brown grass in the center and several people standing around. The colorful van was parked at the edge of the grassy area.
The first two jumpers landed below us, and their chutes billowed out briefly before the thrill-seekers gathered them up and pulled them away from the circle. Greg turned us again, angling us down and toward the ground.
“Remember, hold your legs up. Leave the landing to me.”
We were drawing near the group quickly. I pulled my knees to my chest as we approached one of the small circles in the middle of the field. With a jolt, Greg’s feet touched down, and he began to run.
“Feet down!” Greg called out as we slowed. I dropped my feet and rejoined the earth. Greg held my upper arms, keeping me from falling backward as we slowed and then stopped.
Greg hauled the parachute away from the circle and started balling it up. I looked up into the sky and saw the tiny speck of blue and yellow still high up there. I could barely make out Aiden’s form, strapped to Mike, as they made their way back to the ground. I watched as Aiden pulled his feet up, and he and Mike landed just outside the circle on the grass. As soon as they slowed to a stop, they both fell backward onto their butts.
I laughed.
“That was fucking incredible!” Aiden screamed as Mike released the harness so he could stand up again. “Holy shit, that was awesome!”
He ran over and lifted me into the air, spinning me in a circle. I grasped his shoulders and held my breath—my stomach was still a little queasy.
“Wasn’t that
fucking awesome?”
“It was,” I agreed with a laugh.
“And you lived!” he exclaimed.
“I did!” More giggling as he dropped me back to my feet.
“You lived,” he repeated, “in more ways than one.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “I did. Thank you.”
I reached up and pressed my lips briefly to his. When I looked at him, Aiden was smiling down at me, his eyes wide and bright with excitement. His hands were trembling at my sides, and I realized mine were as well, but I wasn’t scared. I was exuberant.
And with that, I realized what had been missing from my life.
EIGHT
The drive home was spent comparing our experiences as we flew through the sky. I was still pumped up on the adrenaline running through my system and couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Aiden was the same way and occasionally stuck his head out the side of the jeep to whoop in joy as we drove down the road.
When we finally arrived back at Aiden’s house, a silver Lincoln Town Car was parked in the driveway.
“What the hell,” Aiden mumbled under his breath as he pulled around the car and stopped the jeep beside it.
“What is it?” I asked. “Who’s here?”
“Just some friends,” he said as he exited the jeep.
I climbed out the other side and followed him through the house and to the back patio.
Sitting in the patio chairs were two men. Both were tall with dark skin and massive bodies that would barely fit through a doorway, even one at a time. The darker one was bald and had a bushy black beard. The other, slightly lighter-skinned man had a goatee and short, sculpted hair.
“What’s up, Hunter?” the man with the goatee practically screamed as they both stood up.
“Where the hell have you been, motherfucker?” the bald man asked, his voice equally as loud. “You missed a big-ass bash at Redeye’s last weekend.”
“Ohio,” Aiden responded. “Had some business.”
“Oh, yeah. How did that shit go?” Goatee asked.
“Later.” Aiden glanced quickly at me and then back to Goatee.
“Gotcha.”
“And who is this fine lady?” the other man said as he jabbed Aiden in the ribs.
“Chloe,” Aiden said as he took my hand and pointed to the darker complected of the two visitors, “this is Lorenzo, or just Lo, we call him.”