Page 92 of Secrets and Lies
His neck flushes pink, and he quickly looks at the editing program that’s still open on my screen.
“Is that one of your videos?” he asks.
I nod. “Do you want to see some of the others I’ve finished?”
“Really?” His embarrassment melts into a big, bright smile that warms something in my chest.
“Of course. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it, remember?”
A soft expression crosses his features, but he glances back at my computer screen before I can read it. “Yeah, that would be awesome.”
I make sure everything is saved, then close out of the program and open the folder that has my newest edits in it and click on one of the videos.
“Is that you?” he asks as the video starts, and an aerial shot of Rath speeding down a hill and toward a small jump fills the screen.
“That’s Rath.” I point to the figure on skis behind Rath, filming him. “That’s me.”
“How did you get those aerial shots?” he asks as the video transitions to a compilation of the four of us doing various small jumps and tricks when we were playing around one afternoon.
“Drones.”
“Who’s controlling them?”
“Me.” I point to the corner of the frame where my skis come into view for a few seconds, then disappear again. “I’m back there trying to stay out of the shot.”
He leans closer, completely enthralled by what he’s looking at. “Which one is you?” he asks when the video transitions to various shots of us doing runs. There’s nothing fancy about them, but it’s how the clips are set to the music that makes the impact. “I can’t tell when you’re all wearing goggles and masks.”
“I’m in blue,” I say. “Rath’s in black, Hazen is red, and Connor is in orange.”
“And now you’re all wearing different jackets.” He laughs softly as the video transitions to a shot of the twins taking a jump together and showing off their best moves as they twist and flip in the air before landing in perfect unison.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he mutters, his eyes wide as he stares at the screen. “How exactly does one figure out that they have a talent for doing that? And what would possess someone to actually do that at all?”
“Adrenaline and a twin brother you have a pathological need to always outdo,” I say. “I don’t even remember who said they were going to learn to do flip jumps first, but they just kept trying to one-up each other until they could do all that. Now they work together to show off.”
“Can you do that?” he asks.
“No, and I’m not stupid enough to try.”
“Not a lot of guys would admit that.” He tosses me a quick look.
“Probably not, but there’s no shame in knowing your limits.”
“In my family, having limits is considered a weakness,” he says. The bitterness in his voice is clear.
“In my family, pushing yourself to the point of failure is considered a weakness.”
“Your family sounds smarter than mine,” he muses.
“We have our moments.”
“Whoa,” he breathes, his attention fixed on the screen. “Can you go back a bit so I can see that again?”
I pause the video and move the counter back to the start of a shot of me taking a jump and doing several horizontal twists before landing on my skis backward, so I’m facing up the hill. I continue down the next portion of the hill without turning, then I hit another low jump and do a simple flip with a half twist to land so I’m facing the right way again and continue my run.
“I don’t know what it is about that shot, but holy fuck, whoever that is has some major aura,” he says, looking impressed as fuck. “It has to be the t-shirt. I don’t know what it is, but apparently seeing someone do a move like that in a t-shirt is a kink of mine.” His eyes widen comically, like he just realized what he said.
“So me skiing in a tee is a kink of yours?” I ask with a teasing grin.
