The Moment of Letting Go

by J. A. Redmerski

  I pull away, grinning into his eyes. “What makes you think I’m not holding a grudge about that?”

  He arcs a brow. “Are you?”

  “Maybe,” I taunt him. “You could’ve flicked it off me a lot sooner.”

  He squeezes his arms around me tightly and buries his face in my throat.

  “So what are you gonna do to get me back?” His tongue moves along my collarbone and then his mouth finds my neck.

  My chest begins to rise and fall more rapidly, my skin breaking out all over in chills.

  “I don’t know yet,” I say with my eyes shut halfway. “But pay-backs are a bitch.”

  “Is that right?” His hands squeeze my butt and pull me hard against him. I gasp lightly. “Well, how about this,” he says against my ear. “I can make it up to you and you can promise to drop your little vendetta. I don’t like always having to look over my shoulder.” He sucks on my neck and then my earlobe.

  I ache with need.

  With my arms draped around his neck, I whisper back, “I don’t know. Maybe. It depends on what you plan to do to make it up to me.”

  Suddenly he hoists me off his lap and puts me on my back across his mattress. My eyes grow a little wider, my heart is pounding fervently behind my ribs. I look up at Luke, sitting at my feet, and his hands slide between my thighs, parting my legs before him.

  Oh my God …

  He just looks at me for a quiet moment, across the landscape of my body. I’m becoming breathless again, just looking at his eyes hooded with passionate, voracious intent. A heat moves through my thighs and travels down into my knees.

  His head falls between my legs.

  I can’t … I just can’t—

  I claw the sheet with both hands as his mouth sends me into sweet oblivion.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Sienna

  It takes a lot of scrubbing to get the paint off both of us the next morning. And between the cleaning, Luke has his way with me in the shower, too. And then it’s back to scrubbing again. He can’t keep his hands off me. I’d be really disappointed if he could.

  “Let me do that,” I tell him as we’re standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror. I take the razor from his fingers and jump onto the counter.

  “What if you cut me?” he says, stepping over in between my bare legs hanging over the side of the counter.

  “You jump off thousand-foot cliffs and massive buildings, Luke. I doubt my shaving your face is that worrisome.” That was meant as a joke, but once I said it, it didn’t feel so funny to me, after all.

  He laughs under his breath.

  “Luke,” I say, losing my smile, “why do you still do it? Wait, I mean … I guess the real question is: Why do you risk your life BASE jumping? I guess I sort of get all the other stuff—cliff-diving, surfing in storms, rock climbing; they’re not so … deadly—but I don’t really understand the risks you take with BASE.” When I realize I’m practically talking in half sentences, I stop for a second to gather my thoughts. “What I’m really trying to say is that … it scares me.”

  Something unfamiliar flickers in his eyes. Uncertainty? Disappointment? Dread? I can’t tell which, but I get the feeling it’s not something he wanted to hear me say.

  It makes me wish I hadn’t brought it up.

  Suddenly¸ as if I’d never said anything at all, Luke’s hands grab my hips and he steps closer, lining himself up with me below, a lopsided grin at his lips.

  Although it seems like he’s deflecting the topic, I give in to him, unable to shake that playful gleam in his eyes.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warn him, glancing downward, and he makes a pouty face.

  Despite my concerns—my fears—for Luke, I try not to think about it, but find that impossible. For a moment my playful smiles are forced and my laughter is only covering up my worry. But I get to work shaving him while trying to keep him in line at the same time, and before long Luke manages to make my smiles real again.

  I only nick him once, and he really lays the complaining on thick—more like whining—but he’s not fooling me. I threaten to cut him on purpose if he doesn’t hush, but the only thing that gets him to shut up is when I kiss him. That always works. But it always leads to more sex. If he’s not inside of me, he’s touching me with his fingers or his mouth. Just about everywhere except the laundry room and Seth’s room. Watching a movie—he can’t keep his hands off me. Standing at the stove cooking a real breakfast to show him how it’s done—he can’t keep his hands off me. Swimming in the ocean—he can’t keep his hands off me. In his car on our way to hike to a waterfall—he pulls over under a canopy of trees and I return the favor, surprised I can get him almost all the way into my mouth.

  “Oh my fucking God, Sienna …”

  The steering wheel hits me on the head when he moves his hips in a way that pushes my head against it.

  “Owww!”

  “No, no, no, don’t stop,” he says kind of frantically—and hilariously—with his free hand on the top of my head, I know just wanting to push it back down.

  I finish him off and complain more about the steering wheel on the way to the waterfall.

  He makes it up to me later.

  If the thought of having to leave Hawaii was unbearable before, now, after all of our intimate moments together, how he cherishes me in every single way, the thought utterly rips me apart. Every kiss, every touch, every whisper, every time he looks at me with those magical, endearing eyes of his, I lose myself a little bit more: to Luke, to the possibilities of change; I lose myself in ways I never imagined, or would have welcomed before I met him.

  After the hike, and a thousand photographs later, we spend the rest of the afternoon near a beach, lying out on a blanket on the grass, looking up at the blue sky. Our shoes kicked off, my camera sitting next to my purse. A couple of sub sandwiches half eaten beside us as we watch some local surfers ride the waves.

  “Luke,” I say, my voice filling the small space between us as we lie tangled on the blanket, “I’ve been thinking a lot about Monday.”

  His long fingers comb through my hair as he gazes into my eyes thoughtfully.

  “I think about it every day,” he says. “I wish you didn’t have to go back.”

  “Me too.” It’s all I can say; it kills me to think about it, much less talk about it, but I know we have to.

  “I know you have to get back to your job and all that, but I’d like to come visit you. My parents live in Sacramento. I can stay with them and visit you. And I know my way a little around San Diego already.”

  “I have my own apartment in Ocean View Villas,” I say, thinking it might ring a bell. “It’s in downtown San Diego. When you visit, you can stay with me.” I love the thought of that, but I still can’t keep the sadness from my voice. I want to tell him that the thought of a long-distance relationship is depressing, but what can I say? I want to be with him. I want to try to make this work, whatever this is growing so fast between us, even if it means living six hours apart, separated by an ocean.

  There’s something else, though, something darker looming in my heart. It bothers me worse than the distance that will separate us and I don’t want to think about it: him BASE jumping, and killing himself doing it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, his face just inches from mine.

  “I’m just a little overwhelmed,” I say, and instantly the smile drops from his lips. I try to bring it back quickly. “I just mean everything that’s happened between us. I wasn’t exactly prepared for that when I boarded the plane for my job. But I’m overwhelmed in a good way.” And that’s mostly true. Never in a thousand years did I ever think I’d meet someone like Luke and be lying here right now with him underneath a Hawaiian sky, talking about a possible future together. Things this magical only happen by accident. Sometimes only once. Sometimes never.

  “Are you sure?” The backs of his fingers brush the edge of my cheek.

  I nod, smiling, and lean in and kiss
his lips. He kisses my nose and then my forehead and pulls me closer, tucking my head beneath his chin.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Who knows? You might realize you don’t like me as much as you thought you did.”

  I scoff quietly, because that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

  “That won’t happen,” I say and lace my fingers through his on top of his chest.

  “Yeah? How do you know for sure?”

  Because I think I’m falling for you, and it’s breaking my heart to know that in a couple days there will be an ocean between us … And because …

  “I just know,” I say out loud and choke down the pain of my inner thoughts.

  “You were right,” I speak up after a long time.

  “About what?”

  “About at least two of the three things you said would happen before I went home.”

  “Oh yeah?” There’s a huge smile in his voice. “Which one was I wrong about?”

  “That photography would take the place of everything else in my life.”

  We lie together for a long time, talking about our families and our firsts: first kisses, first time we had sex, first bad breakup—his first kiss was age thirteen, mine age fifteen. He lost his virginity at sixteen. I lost mine at seventeen to a football player who I liked a lot, until I had sex with him. Probably had something to do with the weird noises he made when he was on top of me. Luke laughs at the expression on my face as I tell him about it.

  “Now I know how to get you good if you ever piss me off,” he says. “I’ll make sounds like a hippo giving birth when we have sex.” He laughs hard.

  I smack him on the knee. “You better not!” My eyes are wide and I’m trying not to smile. He grabs me and kisses me hard and then makes a weird noise into my mouth that makes me choke with laughter and play-kick him right off of me.

  We didn’t even realize when the clouds had started rolling in and then without warning the sky opens up true Kauai style and sends us scrambling to get our stuff off the ground.

  “My camera!” I shout over the rain thrusting into the ground like a million tiny marbles.

  Luke scoops my camera up and covers it with his body until I can get my purse open and make room for it. Then he grabs the blanket and the rest of our stuff from the grass and we run to his car parked a few yards away in a parking lot. The drive back to his house is gross and uncomfortable. We’re drenched right down to our underwear, and our clothes soak the fabric of the car seats. I just feel icky and want to strip off my clothes right here, but I refrain. I don’t want to pull into the drive at Luke’s house and be naked if Seth happens to be there already.

  Sometime today Seth and Kendra are coming over. Now that things have been cleared up between Luke and me, I wanted Luke to know that I thought it was important he invite Kendra over. So that’s what I did just before we got rained on. I like her now that I know more about what’s going on. And I know she’s an important person in Luke’s life and they need to make up.

  Luke comes back with some beer, and I’m trying to clean the place up before they get here—old habits. I wash our dishes and wipe off the counters. The stereo is on low in the background, playing a mix of my favorite stuff.

  “What time are they supposed to be here?” I ask as Luke is putting the beer away in the fridge.

  He steps up in front of me and kisses me hard.

  “With them you never know,” he says, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “They’re the most unpredictable people I’ve ever met.” He fishes his wallet from his pocket and tosses it on the counter. Then he begins to sift through the cabinet. “Seth has to meet Allan over on Oahu at the surf school. It might be six o’clock before they get here.” He points at me. “Want some?”

  I glance at the package of Nutter Butter cookies and shake my head, making a face. He breaks apart the package and shuffles out a few.

  “I kind of like Kendra,” I say. “I don’t know her very well, and we got off to a bad start, but she seems like a really good friend to you and I’m a little worried about her.”

  Luke holds a cookie near his mouth and asks, “Why?” before biting it in half.

  I cross my arms and lean with my hip pressed against the counter.

  “I don’t know. I just am.” I pause and then say, “She tried to get closer to you because you’re the closest thing to Landon, didn’t she?” It was both a question and a statement because I’m confident I already know.

  He stops chewing for a second, looking at me thoughtfully, then finishes the cookie and swallows it down. He nods.

  “Yeah,” he says, and then pulls out a chair from underneath the tiny kitchen table. He puts the other cookies down. “Like I said, we’ve all taken Landon’s death really hard. Him being my brother; her fiancé. They were together for four years. It was crazy how much they loved each other. Everybody used to give ’em shit about it. All in good fun.” He stops, takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “She was pretty messed up when he died. Seth and I thought she was being reckless on purpose. I swear she wanted to die jumping a few times because when she did it, she walked away alive and well, but she seemed disappointed.” He looks right at me under hooded eyes. “And no one is ever disappointed after a jump. So even though I was trying to deal with my own demons, I tried to help her too, because I thought that if someone didn’t, she’d be next.”

  “What about Seth?” I ask.

  “Nah,” he says. “Seth loves her and all, but he’s not the helping type. Not that he doesn’t care or try to help. He just doesn’t know how. Anyway, I tried to help her, and we got closer, and I think she started seeing me as my brother’s replacement.”

  I nod, understanding.

  “Well, I think it’s natural that she’d feel like that toward you,” I say. “Especially after something like that. You and Landon must’ve been a lot alike.”

  Luke smiles, a reminiscent look passing over his features.

  “In more ways than not, yeah, we were a lot alike.” His eyes meet mine and then he laughs lightly. “All except for the hair.”

  Luke gets up from the table and takes my hand, walking with me into the living room. Mild excitement has filled his mood, a permanent smile at rest on his face. Just seeing him like this makes me smile too, and I can’t help but make note of how devastatingly gorgeous he is, even more so when he’s happy.

  He guides me to have a seat on the couch and then goes over and crouches down in front of the television. He switches off the stereo.

  “We recorded a lot of our jumps,” he says, looking through a pile of DVDs, reading the words scribbled across the front in black Sharpie until he finds one he’s looking for. “This one was a blast. After the jump, the ten of us camped out on the site. Landon got kind of drunk and …” Luke’s words fade into the DVD.

  “No, man, Kendra gets first jump this time,” a guy same height as Luke, same hazel eyes and tanned skin and dazzling white smile, says, standing next to Kendra.

  Landon had longer hair than Luke, but not too long, and it was done up in dreadlocks that he kept pulled back behind him.

  There were several people standing on top of a cliff in a desert, all wearing thick black harness straps over their shoulders, across their chests, and between their legs, bunching the fabric of their jackets. Packs were mounted on their backs, containing their parachutes. Helmets on their heads, some with built-in cameras mounted on the front. Landon’s dreadlocks poked out from beneath his helmet.

  I never considered dreadlocks attractive on a guy before, but Landon Everett owned the look and I can’t help but find him as gorgeous as his brother. Luke sits down next to me on the couch with the remote in one hand, his eyes fixed on the flat-screen where his brother still lives and breathes and smiles and jokes around like they had always done.

  “All right,” Luke says. “I guess we have to give her one on account that she’s a girl!”

  “Hey! Shut the fuck up, Skywalker!” Kendra says.


  “Control your girl, bro,” Luke tells Landon, grinning.

  Landon puts up his hands. “Hey, I don’t control her. If anything, it’s the other way around!”

  “WHIPPED!” Seth yells from the side.

  “WHOOP!” some other guy shouts.

  Landon laughs when Kendra play-punches Seth on the shoulder.

  “Hey! No abuse until after the jump!” Luke says as he straps on his helmet.

  The jumpy video went on for a few minutes while all of them checked each other’s packs and hardware and things I couldn’t begin to name or understand what function they serve. There was a lot of laughter and Luke and Landon were exactly like I always imagined close brothers would be. And although Luke was right about him and his brother looking and being so much alike, it’s a surreal and heart-wrenching experience to finally place the face with the name of Landon Everett, who I’ve heard so much about and who has been such a force in all their lives.

  Kendra jumps off the edge of the cliff and I absently dig my fingers into the sofa cushion.

  And then Landon jumps and my heart sinks into my toes when the edited video switches to his head cam and shows how fast he’s free-falling toward the desert landscape below.

  And then Seth jumps and does a front flip on his way down; his camera view seems so close to the sheer rock wall that my hands begin to shake.

  And then Luke jumps …

  My stomach swirls with panic as the ground comes up so fast toward him. He’s shouting his excitement all the way down, and all I can think is, Please pull the parachute, please pull the parachute, hurry and pull the parachute, and, I hope the parachute opens, even though Luke is sitting right next to me, alive, and this video is old. As I watch him fall to the earth and the blue sky spin around his body, I can’t help but be terrified he won’t make it.

  Then Luke pulls his chute and the canopy opens up above him with a snapping sound that fills my heart with relief. He hits the ground softly, on his feet as if he’d just walked right out of the sky, and the camera wobbles and jumps until he comes to a stop. The bright yellow canopy falls like a giant windblown blanket off to the side of him.