“Ouch,” Erin said, obediently taking them off. Jack stowed them in one of his cargo pockets. She then pulled her hair back into a ponytail, catching his eye as she did. “That was my next instruction,” Jack said, smiling. She thought ahead. He liked that, liked how she stayed with him, every step of the way.
Tandem dives were a piece of cake to arrange and pull off. Jack already knew how to orient his body and control the canopy during free fall; the trick was making sure the passenger knew what to do to basically be nothing more than extra weight. Erin paid close attention as he guided her through how to position her body under his, how to keep her arms extended from her shoulders, her legs tucked together, between his, because he was so much bigger than she was. He walked her though the actual jump moment, how to cross her arms over her chest and trust her weight to his, getting nods of understanding at each step.
“Thumbs up?” he asked.
“Thumbs up,” she replied, giving him two and a big grin.
He’d packed their chutes himself, layering the tandem parachute into the deployment bag, then loading the deployment bag into the pack. Hefting the pack in one hand, he kept a firm grip on her harness as they walked to the waiting plane. Disdaining the stairs, he cupped his hands for her foot and boosted her into the plane’s cargo area, then planted his palms and swung himself aboard. The pilot fired up the propellers and taxied to the end of runway, and in moments they were airborne. A delighted grin on her face, she watched out the window as the ground dropped away at a sharp angle.
She was fine while he shrugged into the pack and secured the straps.
She was fine when he beckoned her to sit in front of him so he could secure her body to his at the shoulders, chest, and hips.
Of all people, Jack knew how someone’s mind could change in an instant. In his case it took a firefight gone wrong for his mind to wig out. In Erin’s case, it was the moment he shuffled their harnessed bodies across the plane’s floor to the hatch. She took one look down at the patchwork fields below them, and went rigid, bracing her sneakered feet and pushing back.
“Jack!”
“What?” he shouted back, running through his mental checklist. He’d packed the drogue chute himself, and the main tandem chute, and the reserve chute, too. Cords hung freely. Harness secure, Erin’s harness secure, the straps harnessing them together. He adjusted his mirrored goggles, then tried and failed to wiggle a finger under the strap of Erin’s pair, borrowed from the jump school’s equipment. Her hair was secured at her nape in a ponytail, leaving her elegant cheekbones and stubborn chin visible.
“I can’t do it.”
The body’s instinctive reaction to heights was to either back away slowly or tip over the edge. “It’s going to be fine,” he said.
“No, it’s not!” she shouted.
“One minute!” the pilot shouted back toward them. Jack checked the altimeter on his watch and gave him a thumbs-up.
She reached back, blindly grappling for something. To keep her away from the chutes, he guided her hand to the loose fabric of the jumpsuit. It went taut as she fisted her hand in it, all color blanching from her face.
“We’re above the clouds!”
“Yup,” he said. “Gonna be a good jump.”
“Nope. Nope, nope, nope. This is crazy. This is insane!”
He gripped the bar bolted above the door, as did she. Her knuckles popped through the thin fabric of her gloves, giving away the death grip she had on the bar.
“Thirty seconds!” the pilot yelled.
She had to let go in order for them to jump. “Erin,” he shouted next to her ear. He could see the whites of her eyes as she stared at the ground under them. “The fear is normal. But think ahead! If we call this off, what will you feel the moment we touch down, and you walk away from the plane? Relief?”
“Yes!”
“Or regret?”
Silence. “Yes,” she shouted, “but I’m scared, Jack! I’m really, really scared.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he said, patting her abdomen. It fluttered under his palm; she was all but hyperventilating. “But you’re not alone. I’m going out of this plane with you.”
A crazy, high-pitched cackle trilled from her mouth. “Then we’re both crazy! How many jumps?”
“Hundreds,” he said. High-altitude, low-chute deployment, for training, into enemy territory, into jungles and deserts and urban areas. “Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jumps, sweetheart.”
“Hundreds?” she repeated, like a mantra.
“Hundreds. Erin,” he said, then reached up and gently turned her chin so she could look over her shoulder at him. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing, but that’s not really the point. No regrets, sweetheart. No regrets.”
“Go time!” the pilot yelled, and the light overhead went green.
The pilot could make another circle if they needed him to, so Jack waited. “Trust me,” he said again, breathing the words into the skin of her cheek.
Silence. She was exhibiting all the signs of extreme duress, with a side order of terror thrown in. Accelerated heart rate, eyes the size of plates, fast, shallow breathing, full body tremors. “No regrets,” she breathed, eyes huge. “Yes.”