Swap Out (40 page)

My favorite part? Our wedding pictures are a fucking disaster. In most of them Zoe is flipping me the bird—nearly five months pregnant but looking more like seven—and I’m laughing my ass off while appearing to be ten sheets to the wind, because I was. Cast on one arm and a boot on my leg, bandages on my forehead and right cheek and I’m fairly certain my jacket was inside out. And in nearly every single one, Scott—still dressed as Elvis, side burns and all—is in the background or corner giving a smoldering smirk at the camera while a bunch of guys are doing keg stands behind us.

Except for the one single shot that wasn’t terrible and somehow snuck its way in, probably because Tori took it while Scott was off calling his doctor girlfriend. I was barely conscious, my forehead leaning against Zoe’s temple with a sleepy smile on my face as my left hand cupped her cheek, and she was beaming as she looked down, her left hand crossing over to tuck her hair behind her ear. The whole thing was a fluke, just a moment Tori happened to catch, but with the moonlight glinting off our rings and the Vegas skyline behind us… Hands down, best picture in the history of cameras.

But since all in all the entire thing was pretty much a wreck, I promised Zoe we’d do another wedding. One where I’m not on pain killers I can’t even pronounce and with a real photographer and a cake and a band if she wants and an officiant who isn’t dressed like Elvis, the whole deal. But every time I bring it up, she shrugs it off. Secretly, I kinda think she agrees our totally unplanned, screwed up and utter calamity of a wedding, was entirely perfect.

I do one more check of her container, looking over her main and the seal on her reserve and make sure she can reach her rip cord without difficulty, and she has to say my name three times before I finally concede.

“You’re freaking me out,” she growls, and I smile confidently.

“It’s what I do best.”

I go ahead and get my rig on, and after I strap on her helmet and mine it’s a short walk to the plane.

“Luca,” Zoe breathes when we’re a few feet away, and I stop and turn her towards me.

I kiss the ever living hell out of her, and when I pull back she blinks at me.

“Trust me?”

“Yes,” she says immediately.

“Love me?”

“Some days.”

“How’s today looking?”

“Don’t kill me and I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she says and I grab her hand, walking her over to the plane and sharing a high-five with the pilot before he helps Zoe in. I know this guy well because he works with Scott and always flies us, and he was all gung-ho when I told him I was taking Zoe up.

I honestly don’t know what the hell I was thinking, why I was so insistent she jump at least once with me. But I really, really wanted to share this with her, so we did all the classes and she’s fully ready to go. Except all I can think is I’m about to throw my wife out of a plane and our daughter is on the ground, and Zoe is afraid of heights. And I’d probably feel better if Scott was going with us, but I don’t trust Evelyn with anyone else if something were to happen to both me and Zoe.

God, I have so many problems with consequential thinking it’s a wonder I ever managed to keep Zoe around for longer than five minutes. She plans. I jump without looking.

I hold both her hands and talk about every random, mindless thing I can think of to distract her while we’re taking off and on the fifteen minute ride up to our drop altitude, but she’s still shaking and gnawing on her lip and screw it, I don’t have a choice.

“Zoe, time to play your favorite game,” I yell over the plane engine, and she glares at me.

“Remembering how when I murder you I’m going to claim we were on a business trip and then your life insurance will triple?”

“That’s a myth you got from
Fight Club
.”

“So? You’re still a dead man, Roark.”

“You say that every time I go too long between washing your car.” I laugh and her knees are bouncing, eyes wide in nerves. “What’s the worst case scenario here?”

“We both die a horrible death while Evie watches, and then Scott raises her.”

“See? Is that so bad?”

“Yes!” she shouts, and I roll my eyes.

“Best case?”

“We live through this and I still kill you and claim your life insurance.”

I chuckle and kiss her long and sweet, because we’re a minute away from the drop point and my worst case scenario is I may never get to do this again.

“I love you,” I tell her, and her whole body relaxes. “Now,” I say in a mock serious tone, “put your game face on because we are Roarks, and Roarks are badasses. Are we afraid?” I yell and she shakes her head with a grin.

“No!” she shouts and fist pumps.

“Do we shrink from a challenge?”

“No!”

“Do we give our husbands blow jobs when he gets us home alive?”

“No!” she says and fist pumps again, bursting out laughing and the pilot is all too happy to join in.

“Yeah, fuck my life,” I mutter.

“Luca, time to go!” the pilot yells over his shoulder and I kiss Zoe once more, maneuvering her to the side of the plane. I open the door and the wind is screaming and the ground is clearly visible below, just beyond the thin rail. She takes a deep breath and grips the bar, then cautiously swings out so her feet are inside, but behind her is nothing but air.

I wait, but she’s not doing anything but breathing deeply with her eyes closed and gripping the rail like it’s salvation incarnate.

“Anytime today, Zoe,” I tease, and she shakes her head. “Just let go, I’m right behind you.”

“I take it back!” she yells. “I don’t trust you and I’m not doing this!”

I wave her back in and she does so immediately, and as soon as her hands let go of the rail, I leap.

“
Lucaaaaa
!” she shrieks, because I didn’t just jump out…I may have kinda sorta tackled Zoe out of the plane.

The loudest laugh I’ll never hear is rippling out of my chest because Zoe is screaming and screaming and we’re falling and it’s fucking fantastic. The sky is perfect and the air is cool and she’s perfectly level in a textbook box man position: stomach down and knees bent, her hands clinging to mine so fiercely I’ll probably have bruises. But she’s got her eyes squeezed shut and that just won’t do.

I let one of her hands go and her eyes open in shock, and I make the hand signal to ask if she’s okay. She flips me off and I mime for her to pull her rip cord, and she shakes her head no.

Yeah, that’s not fucking funny.

I reach for it and she swats my hand away, then squeezes her eyes and…there she goes.

I risk rolling onto my back into a dead spider for just a second so I can watch her: gorgeous orange I packed more carefully than any other chute in the history of my life billowing up and out, the picture perfect deployment the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since I first laid eyes on Evelyn.

Filled with a high I only ever get from Zoe I turn over and break away, admittedly showing off a little before I’m a safe distance from her, and after waving off, I pull. A curse rips out of my throat and I let go: trusting my weight and life to a massive stretch of nylon material, the only thing capable of getting me back to my girls in one piece.

But I know it will, and it was the first thing I trusted on my road back to being myself.

Once I was healed enough, Scott and I went and did a 20,000 foot jump. He’s more comfortable in the air than on the ground, and the idea was it was a long enough free fall for me to get used to it again, and plenty of time to account for any problems that would’ve arisen. Also, he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Zoe was terrified and begged me not to go, and I don’t know what Scott said to change her mind, because the asshole kicked me out of my own house for ten minutes. When they were done talking they both came outside, and Zoe smiled at me and then got in his truck so we could leave. Just like that. The jump went off without a hitch and I rode the high for days, but it still took a while for me to get back on a rock. It just felt like there was too much at stake.

But once again, Scott showed up on some random Sunday afternoon and gruffly called me a whiny bitch and said we were going back to the Lightning Bolt Cracks at North Six Shooter tower, end of story. I didn’t ask Zoe to come ‘cause I figured it would freak her out and mostly be incredibly boring to watch me and Scott climb. Plus Evelyn was only a few weeks old and hiking with a baby to get to the start of it…yeah no. But when I was halfway up I looked back and far, far away, the sun was glinting off a silver SUV parked next to Scott’s truck that hadn’t been there before and I knew: there were my girls. After that, it was just
clearer
.

I didn’t second guess my hand or foot placements, I wasn’t letting my mind come up with crazy scenarios of every little thing that could go wrong and I knew Scott felt the change come over me. Because his jokes and taunts from where he was ahead—since he led the pitch and was belaying for me from the top—started to sound more normal and carried less hints of “Suck it up, pussy, I won’t let you fall” than they had before.

We made it all the way to the top of the tower, the same one I had failed to even
begin
to conquer barely eight months before, and he laughed his ass off when I roared and beat my chest. And once we rappelled back down, I couldn’t get packed up fast enough. But I somehow managed to keep my walk casual and calm the entire hike back towards Zoe and Evelyn, finding proud tears and a massive smile on my wife’s face.

I swear I hugged my girls for ten solid minutes, just listening to Zoe whisper things that a year before I never imagined she would tell me, and that was the moment when I truly felt healed. I was me again, but a different, better version and utterly complete. Soft kisses and calloused hands, hummed lullabies and bellowed battle cries.

I glance over to check on Zoe and she’s doing awesome, getting the view of a lifetime with our small town coming into sharper focus below us. When we first started talking about today I went back and forth deciding over whether to pull before her so if something happened, I could cut away and get to her like I did for Scott on that fucked up AFF. But I had a feeling she would hesitate to pull.

She’s a hesitater, through and through, at least until I act like I’m going to do it for her. Because it sends her control issues surging into life and then she’ll do it herself. And I set her up with an Automatic Activation Device for 6,000 feet because I wouldn’t have ever considered putting her in the plane without it, but I just…I wanted to be with her when she pulled that rip cord. It’s also why we didn’t tandem. I wanted her to do it herself, because I knew she could and she needs to remember that too.

I can’t promise her I’ll never get hurt again, that cords won’t tangle or I won’t fall. I didn’t plan on it that day and I don’t plan on it happening again, but there’s always the chance that when I leave, I may not come back. So as much as we’re a team, that I like how we rely on each other and give help when needed through our daily life from the simple things like one person cooking for the other, all the way to the more weighted items like managing her anxiety without medication—we’re also going to joint counseling sessions for both her well-being and to make sure our marriage is on track since we have no idea what the hell we’re doing—I still need to know she can survive if something happens to me.

It’s a point of tension that comes up a lot, especially on our therapist’s couch because Zoe would rather I stop risking my life, but I am who I am and I need what I need, and some things you can’t change. I don’t want to change, and I won’t. And Dr. Genius gets that too because when I suggested Zoe jump with me so she could see it from my point of view, she oh so kindly agreed and I literally hopped on the couch laughing and victory-dancing. And okay, it all came back to a sermon about how a healthy part of marriage is sharing and listening and displaying trust, retaining your identity while finding a compromise, yadda yadda yadda here’s 500 bucks, but all I heard was that Zoe was given an iron-clad prescription to skydive and I had won.

Although I’m probably in deep shit with Zoe, and will be with our shrink when Zoe relays the news that I tackled her out of the plane. Yeah, consequential thinking and all…

Fuck it. Tomorrow’s problem.

I grit my teeth and remember to try to keep the weight off my right leg as much as possible as I brake, then exhale when my feet touch down and I run to a controlled stop, Scott giving me a high-five on my way past. I gather my parachute and dump my rig as quickly as I can, snagging one too-short kiss from my giggling and clapping daughter before I turn to watch Zoe.

Please, don’t let her land rough.

“Any chance you have a Kevlar vest on you?” I ask Scott, and he arches an eyebrow at me. “Yeah…I may have ended up pushing her out of the plane…”

Scott chuckles. “Evie, I think you’re gonna have to stay with me tonight because your dad is gonna be in deep—”

His voice cuts off as Zoe touches down perfectly, me and Scott cheering her on along with the other few gawkers clapping and hollering. But Zoe doesn’t stop running and instead, turns back around and then barrels into me.

“I’m gonna kill you!” she shouts, knocking the wind out of me as we fall to the ground. I can barely breathe but I also can’t stop laughing, locking my arms and legs over her body to keep her from delivering on her promise.