She tried to turn her blue eyes on me with a scowl, but she was just so damn cute it made it laugh. “I did not get out of that apartment just to be trapped in a car instead.”
“I know. I was just kidding,” I said. My hand made contact with her bare knee, my palm sliding up and down her soft skin. Scarlett pulled in a quick breath, and I yanked my hand back.
Fuck. This is why you shouldn’t fantasize about your friend. Because the next thing you know, the lines between fantasy and reality start to get blurred.
“Alright.” My voice came out a little too loud in the small space. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Point me in the right direction, Letty Girl.”
Scarlett pushed her hair behind her ear, looking straight ahead. “Go around the block, back to Main Street, and head north.”
Within a minute, any uncomfortableness from my rubbing her leg dissipated. She continued to give me directions for the next twenty minutes, but it wasn’t until we were almost upon it that it dawned on me.
“At the next lot, turn left into the parking lot.”
“Letty.” A word of warning laced my voice. “The next lot is the indoor skydiving place.”
“I know,” she said slowly. I glanced over at her. She looked so hopeful, a soft plea in her eyes. “Please, Luke. You said we could do anything.”
Shit. I did say that.
I ran my hand along my jaw and pulled into a parking space in front of the indoor sports complex. “Don’t you need a reservation? Do they even take walk-ins?”
“I made us a reservation this morning before I got in the shower.” Scarlett reached out and touched my arm. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to. I just thought it would be fun. And after being cooped up for days, the idea of wind blowing in my hair, the feeling of free-falling and being suspended in air, is exactly what I need.”
I laid my head back against the headrest and tried to concentrate on the feel of Scarlett’s hand on my arm instead of my already racing heart. I wasn’t afraid of a lot. My job was on the front line. I would put myself on the line for my family, friends, and community any day. But willingly jumping out of a plane thirty thousand feet high had never been on my to-do list.
This was different though. We would be indoors. It was just a simulation of skydiving. Not the real thing. I could do this.
What I couldn’t do was let Scarlett down.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go,” I said, much to Scarlett’s delight.
18
Scarlett
Oh my God. That was so much fun. I felt lighter and freer than I had in days. Poor Luke did not seem to feel the same.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked him again.
He could barely move with how tense he was. I had always thought of Luke as fearless. He had never given me any reason to think anything else of him. But I should have suspected something was up when we pulled into the lot of the sports complex earlier. Now that we had spent two hours simulating skydiving, I was energized and relaxed, and the stress of the last few days floated away in the wind. Luke, on the other hand, was stress city. I did learn something new though. Apparently, Luke was afraid of heights—or, more accurately, according to him, afraid of falling from heights.
“I’ll be fine. I’m just going to… uh… lay down for a while.” He shuffled his way to his bedroom, not even bothering to close the door. I heard him hit the mattress with a groan.
I went to the kitchen and poured us both a glass of water. Then I popped into the bathroom and grabbed a couple of over-the-counter pain relievers for him.
“Knock, knock,” I said, standing in the doorway.
“Mmmm,” he groaned.
“I come with the gifts of water and Tylenol. Can I come in?”
“Of course you can,” he grumbled.
I put the water and two pain relievers on the bedside table and took a seat next to his splayed-out body. He was starfished, face down on the covers, like he’d just dropped there and couldn’t be bothered to move.
“I’m sorry, Luke. I didn’t realize you were going to hate it as much as you did. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I had known.”
“Did you have fun?” he asked.
