Freefall (Santa Cruz Skydivers Book 1) (9 page)

“Yes.” I swallow hard, trying to dislodge the huge lump that had reformed in my throat. I rubbed my now sweaty palms along my pants and started nodding my head, mimicking Fran who was concentrating hard on whatever Phil was saying to her.

Just then, Levi unexpectedly put his arms around me in a huge hug and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“Head back, legs back, have fun,” he recited for me.

I turned my head slightly and, just then, looking into his eyes, something inside my head finally connected the dots. I had already lived this moment. I knew what was going to happen next and that I was going to be safe. I know it sounds cliché, but everything around us just seemed to fade away. I forgot that we were ten thousand feet above the earth, about to jump from a plane with nothing but a parachute to bring us safely back to ground. I forgot that we had another tandem couple in the plane with us, literally squashing us in the small confines of the cargo hold. I forgot that Levi was working. This was it, the moment I had been dreaming of.

I crossed my arms over my body, covering his arms with mine, tilted my head back, lifted my face to his, and closed my eyes, waiting for him to kiss me. Unexpectedly, the plane hit an air pocket. Shuddering, it dropped in altitude. Turbulence ruined the moment. I cried out in shock as my head flicked up and ungracefully head-butted his.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Levi,” I apologized as soon as I could calm myself down from the drop in altitude. “Did I hurt you?”

Levi just laughed it off. “No problem, Andi. You’re not the first girl to head-butt me. Just a little split lip. Never know when a bit of turbulence is going to hit.”

My face burned with embarrassment. I was glad that I couldn’t fully turn around and look at him or that he couldn’t see me. I was majorly humiliated. But I don’t know what was more embarrassing. That or the fact I thought he was going to kiss me. Humiliation tears began to sting my eyes, and I rubbed them away quickly before he could notice.

Thankfully, Phil and Fran hadn’t noticed the incident and were still prepping for the jump. Phil had already clipped Fran onto his harness and was now taking GoPro video of her with the small camera that was strapped to his wrist. Seeing her clipped onto his harness made me panic slightly.

“Should you clip me on now?” I asked over my shoulder, panicked at the thought of being unprepared, especially when I was about to jump out of a plane.

“No, we still have another five minutes of climbing. Just a bit longer.”

“But Phil already has Fran clipped on.” I sounded whiney.

He exhaled a puff of air ever so softly by my ear, making me feel somewhat guilty about pestering him. I knew I was being over anxious, but I wanted to be ready. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. From our seated position, he hoisted me up by the back of my harness and pulled me even closer between his legs. Considering how close I had been sitting to him just now, I didn’t believe it possible I could get any closer. He then clipped me onto his harness and tightened all the straps on mine so I wouldn’t fall out of it.

“Comfortable?” he asked once he had finished with all the safety checks.

“Not really.” The harness was cutting into my thighs and buttocks, and it was so tight across my chest it was hard to breathe, but I didn’t dare complain after pestering him.

We were now body against body. I could feel his chest rising and falling with each breath he took. It must have been uncomfortable for him, too. He was holding all of my weight with his harness.

“Won’t be long now. Phil had to get Fran strapped in earlier because she has the video package. He has to take video and stills with the GoPro, plus he’s at the door. Once we are clear to jump, he opens the door and out they go.” He handed me a pair of clear goggles. “These are for the jump.”

I promptly put them straight on. They were so tight they cut into my face and immediately began to fog up.

“Just leave them around your neck for now or they will continue to fog up,” he instructed. “I’ll tell you when to put them on.”

I pulled the goggles down so they hung around my neck. “I’m sorry for being a pest.”

“No, I’m sorry for getting frustrated. Now that you’re strapped in, I’m kind of kicking myself for not doing it earlier.” He rested his chin on my shoulder again and blew teasingly in my ear. “Now you can’t get away from me when I do shit like this.”

I tried unsuccessfully to pull away, but I was literally trapped. He laughed and blew in my ear again. “Consider this payback for my split lip.”

For the remainder of the climb, he blew in my ear repeatedly and flicked my hair. His attention never progressed into anything more flirtatious, though, which led me to believe my earlier anticipation of him kissing me couldn’t have been more wrong. I wasn’t in the jump zone. I was in the friend zone.

Finally, the time came for the pilot to call out we had reached fifteen thousand feet. We were clear to jump. The build up to this moment had been so gradual that now that it was finally here, everything seemed to happen so fast it was all a blur. A rush of cold air hit us as the door was opened and Phil and Fran disappeared from sight. A thought of chickening out momentarily flashed through my mind, but I didn’t want to disappoint Levi with my cowardice.

“Our turn,” Levi yelled in my ear over the loud noise of air rushing through the unobstructed doorway.

Somehow, we managed to scoot our bottoms across the floor of the plane, and Levi maneuvered me so my feet were now dangling out the edge of the plane. Looking down at the ground far below us, I thought I would have been more scared. Strangely enough, I felt a sense of calmness, almost like I was having an out of body experience. I was here but not here.

Levi yelled in my ear once more. “Put your goggles on now. Feet to the back of the wheels.”

I obliged and, next thing I knew, we had dropped out of the plane and my stomach was in my mouth. Like he instructed, I put my head back on his shoulder and tucked my legs up behind him, as we spun away from the plane, back flipping as we fell. The initial back flip took my breath away, and I let out an awkward exhale, the sound somewhere between a moan and groan as the pressure of the g-force from the fall pushed down on my chest.

Back we flipped, once, twice, three times. The sky blurred with the ground and I didn’t know what way was up and what way was down, but I held my position like he had instructed, putting all my trust in him. Before we turned into a forth flip, he tapped my shoulder, and I saw his arms go out to the sides. I followed suit, spreading both my arms and legs in a star formation. We were now in freefall. It was exhilarating. I could feel the ice cold wind contorting my face, and as it pushed up hard against my falling body, it whipped loose strands of my hair around my face that had pulled free from the braid. My ears started to burn from the friction and my arms and legs were locked into place from the intense pressure of the fall.

“You’re a natural,” Levi yelled, then let out a loud whoop.

I still couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even turn my head. In fact, I could hardly breathe. We continued to rush at the ground when I noticed an orange-colored chute open up below us. Phil and Fran were now gracefully floating to the ground.

Levi and I were still in our freefall. Adrenaline now pumping through my veins, I began to understand how Levi could be addicted to this. Our freefall went on, the ground getting closer to us every extra second we held our position. I was positive we had been falling for over a minute when Levi pulled the parachute cord and we were pulled back up against the up draft as the parachute caught the air.

The harness once again cut into my thighs as the chute jerked us upwards. The lobes of my ears still burned with intensity, but the hard rushing sound of the wind was gone, replaced by the peaceful sound of the nylon parachute rustling softly as it gradually floated us down to earth.

“That was amazing!” I yelled out.

Levi laughed. “Here, reach up and give me your hands.”

I reached up to his hands that were holding the steering lines of the parachute.

“Grab a hold,” he instructed.

He waited until my hands were on the toggles next to his.

“Now you’re going to steer us,” he calmly informed me.

“What?” I exclaimed, panicked, and nearly let the handles go before he quickly clasped his hands over mine.

“It’s easy,” he said. “Now pull hard to the right and we’ll spiral right.”

He made me pull the line hard to the right and we spun around in a circle formation.

“Now pull hard to the left, and we’ll go left.”

Again, he made me pull the line hard, but to the left this time, and we spun around in left-handed circles.

I let out a euphoric laugh. I hadn’t realized inside of boring old me there was an adrenaline junkie just waiting to get out. Usually, any sort of amusement ride would make me nauseous, but this? It made me feel alive. Then it hit me. Levi made me feel alive. I was falling for him in a big way, and I was one hundred and ten percent sure it wasn’t reciprocated. I knew I had to keep him in my life. If it was only as a friend, then so be it. I was willing to make some consolations.

Now that we weren’t hurtling to the ground at over one hundred miles an hour, I had time to take in the view of the bay below us. It was all a very surreal, picture postcard view. The coastline curved around with a solid sand border, framing the crystal clear blue waters. I almost wished that I had agreed to Levi taking photos of the jump so I could look back and relive this moment.

Finally, he took back control of the steering lines, and as he began lining us up for our landing, he instructed me to practice lifting my legs high for our beach landing. I did as he asked. It took an enormous amount of core strength that I obviously didn’t have. After the third lift, he declared it was high enough and he brought us down fast to the beach. Just before we landed, I tensed my core and raised my legs at the hips. Levi took the landing fast and we hit the ground running. A sudden gust of wind filled our chute, pulling us backwards, dragging us through the sand. He pulled down hard on the brakes to try and collapse the chute to stop us from getting caught in the up draft, but we were forced to run back a few feet before ground staff ran to our assistance and shut down the parachute manually.

Our rough landing did little to curb my enthusiasm. Once he had unclipped me from his harness and was free from his, I jumped up and wrapped my arms around him in a massive hug.

“I’m sorry about that landing. It wasn’t exactly textbook.”

“Are you kidding me?” I yelled. “That whole experience was the most awesome thing I’ve ever done in my life. When can we do it again?”

Levi threw his head back and laughed. “I knew you’d love it.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, lifting me effortlessly, and spun me around in a full circle before putting me back on the ground.

I kept my arms around him and looked in his green eyes. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how alive I feel right now.”

“I believe I do.” He laughed, both of us high on adrenaline. And before he released me from our embrace, he tenderly brushed my hair down with his hand. “Let’s get this harness off you and head back to the clubhouse.”

“Okay.” I stood still and let him loosen the straps on the harness. His hand lightly brushed across my breast as he unfastened the shoulder strap. My adrenaline increased ten-fold. As if I wasn’t excited enough already.

He continued to release the other straps and helped slide the harness down. Once it was on the ground, he took my hand while I stepped out of it. Much to my continued excitement, he kept a hold of my hand while he led me up the beach toward the waiting shuttle bus. You’ve got to love a hand holder. It wasn’t something I’d done a lot of with guys, except perhaps my brothers, but they didn’t count. Holding Levi’s hand was definitely something I could get used to.

He playfully swung our arms as we walked. “So, I’m finished for the day. I just have a few things I need to take care of back at the clubhouse first, then you and I are free to do whatever we want to do for the rest of the weekend.”

“Um.” I was shell-shocked. “Sure. What do you have in mind?”

“Well, for starters, let’s go grab some lunch. Then I think we need to finish that drinking competition.” He gave me one of his flirtatious winks.

“Why not?” I agreed to go, excited that I got to spend the rest of my Saturday with him. “You probably don’t know this about me, but I love a good excuse to party.”

“That’s something I plan to rectify tonight.” He must have noticed the puzzled look on my face before he made himself clear. “Getting to know you, that is. I never need an excuse to party.”

“Really? You want to spend more time with me?” My head felt light and giddy with excitement from the jump. Or maybe it was the fact he was still holding my hand and wanted to spend more time with me.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I? I can see we’ll be great drinking buddies.”

My heart dropped. Buddies. Great. But at least I would still get to be his friend. I’d gone from top of the world to rock bottom in less than a minute. In fact, my freefall had lasted longer. I plastered a stupid grin on my face so he wouldn’t see my pain.

Once we reached the mini bus in the parking lot next to the beach, he dropped my hand. “Jump on board. I’ll be back in a second. I just need to help the boys with the chutes.”