by Cindi Madsen
“The back rotor moves with the foot pedals.” He demonstrated and they swayed from side to side a bit. “Pull up on this and we climb higher.”
Her stomach climbed higher right along with them.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” he said.
“Right. Breathing.” Easier said than done.
“See the city?”
The tall uptown buildings jutted into the skyline. She could make out the blue seats in the Bank of America Stadium where the Panthers played. Her heart was jumping all over the place, her rushing blood thrumming through her head. If they went down, she was going to have a front-row seat to the ground coming at her.
Her stomach lurched, and she was worried she might lose her breakfast. It’s such a long fall. And we’d definitely crash into something solid, the kind of fiery, parts-flying-everywhere crash in the action movies.
“Tell me how Charlotte got its name,” Wes said. When she didn’t answer after a moment, he nudged her. “Dani. Tell me.”
She glanced at him. “You know how.”
“Humor me. I’ll do the flying, you pretend you’re doing the tour.”
She closed her eyes, focusing on the facts. “It was named for the queen consort of King George the third. Which is why it’s sometimes called the Queen City. It also used to be known as the city of churches, but now it’s known as a major US financial center, thus the stadium named after a bank.”
“Perfect. I should hire you to be my tour guide, so I don’t have to do all the talking. You’ve got a better voice for it.” He pointed. “You know what that building is?”
She opened her eyes to see what he was referencing. “Is that the Levine Museum that we went to when we were writing our Post Civil War paper?”
“Yep.”
Her eyes moved past the museum to the other buildings, trying to place them. The scary details faded away as she took in all the tiny little squares of different colors laid out in an intricate patchwork of buildings, parking lots, the swirl of the freeway with all the tiny cars, and, off in the distance, the city dissolving into a sea of green trees. Then she noticed how blue the sky was, the tiny cotton clouds stretched all around. Her breath actually caught in her throat at how beautiful the view truly was from up here.
That was when she realized the heaviness in her chest had lifted and her heart rate had returned to normal. She smiled at Wes, who was watching her take it all in with a big grin on his face. It was crazy how well he knew her, how he always found a way to push her to do things yet make her see past the fear and enjoy it. “Nice trick.”
“You’re not thinking about the fact you might plummet to your death anymore, are you?”
She’d smack him if she wasn’t worried that it’d cause a crash. “Thanks for putting that image back in my mind,” she said, but the fear was completely gone, replaced by a lightness, like she’d left all her cares on the ground. And she found she did trust Wes to get them wherever they were going safely.
He flashed her another smile and then they were flying across the city, buildings and streets a blur beneath them. He buzzed over to Wingate University, where they’d met. She wondered if any of the barely visible people down there were meeting someone for the first time. Someone who might turn into their best friend—someone who would make them go on crazy adventures they’d never dare try alone.
Dani leaned forward, warmth filling her as she thought of her and Wes’s days on campus. “If only I could go back in time and warn my past self of all the trouble her charming new study buddy was going to get her into.”
“You still wouldn’t have been able to stay away from me,” Wes said. “Admit it—I make your life more fun.”
“Fun. Dangerous. All of the above.” Truthfully, she always liked who she was when she was around Wes. She laughed more and was more spontaneous and funnier and all the things she wished she could be without him but just wasn’t. And now that she was up in the air, she was glad he’d talked her into coming.
“I saved the best for last.” He angled the helicopter back toward Charlotte and they buzzed around the outskirts of the city. Underneath them was a blur of green trees until Lake Norman came into view.
He looked at her like he was waiting for her reaction. Funny enough, she always felt safer when planes were over an ocean or lake, like the water would envelop her if she fell instead of tenderizing her body.
The sun glittered off the lake’s surface. Tiny boats were leaving white trails in the water. “It’s beautiful.” Beautiful in a way that wrapped her in peace and gave her the kind of spiritual calm that people talked about feeling in church. It was a picture on the wall, one of those paintings that you want to take home so you never have to leave the place. Only it was real.
I can’t believe I almost missed this.
Wes patted her knee. “See? Not scary at all, and I totally know what I’m doing. You feel safe now, right?
“Yeah. I do,” she said, and she was surprised at how true it was. “I’m glad you talked me into coming.” All her warm fuzzies disappeared as a wicked grin curved his lips. “Wes, no. Whatever you’re thinking about doing, just—”
The don’t was left somewhere behind her as the helicopter dove toward the water.
…
After this, Dani might not want to ride with him ever again, but he couldn’t help himself. He aimed down, toward the lake, watching her eyes fly wide.
“Wes…” She grabbed his arm. Her grip tightened as they got closer to the surface. “Wes!”
Last minute, he brought them back up, the landing skids grazing the water. She punched his shoulder. “Jerk.”
“Come on. It was a little fun.”
She tried to hold her dirty look, but she never could keep one for long. “I hope it was fun for you, because as soon as we’re on solid ground again, I’m going to kill you. And I’d feel bad if you hadn’t enjoyed your last few hours on earth.”
He poked her in the side, knowing it drove her crazy. “If I had a dollar for every time you’d threatened to kill me, I’d be able to buy my own plane by now.”
She smacked his hand, but the corners of her mouth couldn’t hold her serious expression anymore. A slight dimple he’d never noticed before came out in her cheek. “I hope you do get your own helicopter someday to do your adventure tours, but the only way I’m going on one is if the Holy Grail is at the end. And I’m making you drink out of it first to make sure it doesn’t melt skin off bones.”
“Deal.” He tipped the nose of the helicopter up, lifting them higher in the air.
When they’d started the flight, Dani had looked so pale he worried she was going to pass out, but now she was pointing out buildings as they flew by, only occasionally gripping the edge of her seat when he changed direction. If he ever did do adventure tours, he knew he’d find a way to get her to go with him. Unlike Sophie, she’d break eventually. His ex had been all for him going out on his own, but the few times he said he’d wait for Dani to visit and go with him, he’d gotten a death glare and the silent treatment. And just when he thought she’d let it go, they’d have to “talk it out,” which always ended in an argument. It only got worse over time. Whenever the phone rang, Sophie would be hovering, wanting to know who it was. And every time it was Dani, he’d wind up alone in his apartment instead of her staying the night.
A couple of weeks after Sophie had dumped him, when he felt like hell and missed her like crazy, he’d picked up the phone, planning on calling and telling her he’d do anything to fix them. Even cut Dani out of his life—after all, she’d picked Steve and moved with him to Little Rock, even after Wes told her he didn’t want her to go.
“Did you and Steve fight a lot about us being so close?”
Dani slowly twisted to face him. “It came up a lot, yeah. It’s one reason I couldn’t come when you were celebrating getting your pilot’s license. Now I hate that I let him stop me.”
“You didn’t miss much. Sophie threw the party, so it was all c
hampagne and plates of hard-to-pronounce food.” Dani would’ve made the party more fun, but her being there would’ve probably just caused a fight between him and Sophie, and that was back when he was still convinced they’d work everything out because they loved each other.
“I thought if I could show him I was devoted enough to move with him… But it seemed like we only argued more in Arkansas—about really stupid things, too, nothing and everything. He was stressed, I was stressed, and money started being an issue. And then he’d be, like, you don’t talk to me, but you’re on the phone all the time with Wes.” She shook her head and leaned back in her seat. “I think he thought the friendship wouldn’t last the move. Like I’d give you up that easily.”
A solid rock of guilt formed in Wes’s stomach. Now he felt even worse that he’d thought about cutting her out of his life. Even when he’d been considering it, though, he knew he’d never be able to go through with it. It wasn’t easy to find a girl who made Indiana Jones references, had a killer fade-away shot, and was so easy to talk to. Hours trickled by whenever they spoke on the phone, even though it only seemed like minutes.
“I don’t understand why people can’t get over the fact that you and I actually are just friends,” he said. “That we’ll always be friends and nothing more. Is it really that hard to grasp?”
Dani glanced out her window. For a moment he thought he’d said something wrong, but then she looked at him and shrugged. “I guess it is. Not sure if that makes us lucky or screwed up.”
“Probably a little of both,” he said, and she laughed.
Being here with her now, truly happy for the first time in months, he was sure he’d made the right decision. He needed Dani in his life, no matter what.
Wes focused his attention on landing as they neared the tour office. He held the helicopter steady and then slowly lowered it, kissing the landing skids on the ground and easing off the accelerator.
Dani released the grip she had on her seat.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I expected a bumpier landing. I’d say something about your smoothness, but I’m sure I’d end up regretting it.” Smiling, he took off his headphones and made sure everything was shut down.
His phone beeped. He pulled it out and stared at the screen, expecting another Have you gotten your hair cut yet? text from Audrey. But it wasn’t his sister.
He looked at Dani. “When’s the last time you played ball?”
She handed him her headphones. “I play the occasional pickup game at the gym. Why?”
“How’d you like to make an easy fifty bucks?”
Chapter Five
Dani kicked off her shoes by Wes’s front door and then flopped onto his couch. Her muscles burned from what she’d just put them through. “FYI, that was not as easy as you made it sound.”
Wes placed the plastic bag on top of his coffee table and sat next to her. “But we pulled it off.”
Back in college, they used to go down to the basketball courts and hustle guys out of their money so they could eat something other than ramen. They’d simply go up to a couple of guys who were playing ball and challenge them to a game, winner gets twenty bucks. The guys would always look at Dani, laugh, and in most cases, say, “You’re on.” Then, between her speed and ability to sink three-pointers and Wes’s height and competitive nature, they’d proceed to wipe the floor with them.
Of course, she wasn’t practicing several hours every day anymore, so in today’s game they’d barely scraped by. Apparently the betting rate for a game with cocky businessmen was fifty bucks.
“That half-court shot you made there at the end saved us.” Wes mimicked shooting the ball and made a whoosh sound.
She sank back against the cushions. “I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.”
“Their faces were worth more than the money.” Wes pulled the white-and-red boxes out of the bag. The scent of garlic sauce and fried chicken made her stomach growl.
In a lot of ways, it was like being transported back in time four years. Sitting on Wes’s couch—though this couch was actually comfy and not made of scratchy fabric—celebrating winning a basketball game and eating take-out.
He picked up a remote and turned on his stereo. Kelly Clarkson filled the room.
Yep, just like college. When she’d first met him, she’d expected death metal or classic rock. But he mostly listened to pop music. He’d had a thing for Kelly Clarkson ever since the first American Idol.
He leaned back, half an eggroll sticking out of his mouth, and said, “She can sing and she’s hot, so don’t even go there.”
“I wasn’t going to say a thing.” She grabbed her box of orange chicken and a pair of chopsticks and dug into her food. She twisted, tucking her feet under Wes’s legs.
He jerked to the side. “Holy crap, your feet are freezing! I can feel them through my shorts.”
“Which is why I need you to warm them up.”
“I’ll never understand how it can be ninety degrees and your feet are still cold.”
She caught a piece of chicken between her chopsticks, ignoring the cold comment in hopes he wouldn’t make her move her feet. “Time to work out the details of our relationship. Guess we’re stuck with the story about you proposing on a hike, and then re-proposing at a concert, since that’s not weird or anything. When do we say this all happened? The transition from friends to more.”
“How about when I went to help you out after your knee surgery? That was the last time we were even in the same state.”
“You were still with Sophie then, so that’d probably be bad.”
“Right…I didn’t think about the time line. It’s not like my family would know whether or not you were visiting me or I was going out there, though.”
“Especially if we say we wanted to keep it on the down low, afraid it might mess up our friendship.”
“Good, good. That sounds believable.” He took a drink of his Coke and rested the cup on his knee. “So if you and Steve broke up, like, what? Four months ago?”
“Close enough. It was two weeks before my surgery. Just long enough for him to move out and leave me without a ride. Until you showed up. Total Knight in Shining Armor move, by the way, so it’s too bad we can’t use that. When did you and Sophie break up exactly?”
“A couple of weeks after I got back from visiting you. Okay, so we’ll say that I started calling you more and more, we kept talking…”
“I came to visit a couple of times.” The lemonade she’d gotten must’ve been light, because it tasted like water with a disgusting lemony aftertaste. She reached across Wes, grabbed his Coke from his hand, and took a long pull, then gave it back. “And suddenly we realized that we were perfect for each other.”
“Works for me,” he said.
“So we’ll say we were a couple for two months and then we decided to get engaged. Is that too fast?”
“In real life, maybe. I think it’ll be fine for our fake engagement.” He put his empty carton on the coffee table and sat back.
She caught a whiff of cologne, musky and woodsy, with a mixture of outdoors and even sweat. It shouldn’t have smelled good to her, but it made a flutter go through her chest. Her gaze traveled up his muscled arms, well-built pecs, and settled on his face. She found herself thinking about all of his good qualities. How she’d never find a guy as good as him to date. How stupid Sophie was for dumping him.
I guess I’m stupid for not dating him myself.
Then she remembered how their one attempt to move the slightest bit past friends had not only crashed and burned but also nearly ruined their friendship.
He really is the whole package, though.
Wes’s eyebrows drew together. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
She glanced away, heat rising in her cheeks. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
She met his eyes, telling herself it didn’t mean anything that her stomach lurched. “Just abo
ut today. Being here with you. It’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
He put his hand on her bare leg and squeezed. “Right back at you. And I’m glad your knee surgery hasn’t slowed you down. When I first saw the cut, I thought you’d never be able to walk normally again, much less play ball.”
All her blood seemed to rush to where his hand was warming her skin, and she suddenly had to work at getting words to come out of her mouth. “Well, if I hadn’t had you there to help me recover, I probably would’ve pushed myself too hard and never fully healed.”
Wes brushed his fingers across the scar on her knee, and her leg involuntarily twitched at his touch. She hoped he didn’t notice.
She wished she didn’t. But her heart was beating faster, and the way he was running his fingertips along her knee was sending little zips of heat across her skin.
Pull it together, Dani. He’s your best friend. Don’t screw it up now because you’ve gone without so much as a hug from a guy in months.
She swung her feet to the ground and stood so fast sparks of light danced across her vision. “I’m beat. I’m gonna go to bed.”
“Okay. I’ll be up for a little while, but I’ll turn down the music.”
“No worries. I sleep through anything, remember?” Most famously, she’d slept through a fire alarm. Luckily, Wes had been passed out on her couch and had to basically carry her out of her apartment.
She waved—cursing herself for the stupid, awkward gesture—and rushed back to the bedroom. Closing the door, she shook her head.
What the hell was that all about? Even though she knew she’d never be able to sleep, she crawled into bed. Wes’s bed.
Earlier today, she’d been right there with him when he’d said they were friends and would never be more. So why was she noticing the way he smelled, and why was her skin humming under his touch? Why was she suddenly so aware of the fact that Wes usually slept where she was now?