Page 80 of Cuffed (Everyday Heroes 1)
Christ. I know I want more with her—what that more is, I’m not sure—but until I heard that tone to her laugh, I hadn’t realized how much I wanted it.
Studying her as she walks toward me, I know I’ll pay whatever cost to make sure that happens.
“You have some serious balls,” I say off the cuff the minute she’s within speaking distance.
“At least someone does,” Leo coughs out, and I lift a finger in his direction, but my attention is focused on Em—the flush in her cheeks, the lines around her eyes where her goggles pressed against her skin, the ear-to-ear grin on her lips.
She laughs and shakes her head. “We both know that isn’t true,” she says in a voice for only my ears followed by a wink. “You missed a good jump. Perfect conditions. Great visibility. Calm wind.”
“I appreciate the hustle, but I’m not buying.”
“You don’t have to buy; you already have a gift certificate.”
“You’re relentless.”
“And you’re handsome as hell.”
My feet stop moving as she keeps walking, her comment unexpected and probably one of the first things she’s said to me that was complimentary. The thought makes me laugh because to most people that would sound odd, but they’re not Emmy and me.
She’s sunshine with a little bit of hurricane thrown in, and I’m willingly walking straight into her storm with nothing more than the clothes on my back.
She turns to face me, her brow furrowing as I just stare at her as the realization hits me again that I want to be a part of her beautiful destruction. All of it. Without a damn forecast to prepare me for what’s coming next.
“What?” she asks.
“Why do you do it, Em?”
“Do what?” The setting sun plays against the strawberry highlights in her hair and pieces dance in the air like wisps of fire.
“Why do you push the edge?”
“I don’t.” She smiles and takes a step toward me so we’re a few feet apart from each other. Airstrip asphalt stretches all around us, and the excited chatter of the other jumpers coming down from their adrenaline highs turns to background noise.
“What if the chute doesn’t deploy?”
“Then it doesn’t deploy.”
The nonchalance in how she says it pisses me off. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Perhaps.” She shrugs, as if it were no big deal. “But we can die at any time. What if I get hit by a car? What if I have a heart attack? What if a meteor falls from the sky and kills me? What if, what if, what if. No use going through life living scared.”
“But jumping increases your risk.”
“Living every day increases my risk.” She laughs, but it’s the look in her eyes that shuts me up. “Look, I could wake up tomorrow with cancer and never get to jump again. I’d rather take the chance, Grant.”
“Em . . .” I know she’s thinking of her mom.
“Look, the probability that something will malfunction is so small that it isn’t worth even thinking about. Besides, I pack all my own gear, and unlike you, I trust what I do.”
I take the jibe because I deserve it, but it doesn’t help me process how casual she is being about this. “If it doesn’t work, no one can save you.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she says as her shoulders straighten, telling me I’ve activated her obstinate defiance. I’m too pissed at how she can be so careless with her own life to care, though.
“Every time you jump, that probability increases. Don’t you think that’s something to consider? It isn’t as if I could do anything standing here on the ground to help.”
“There goes Grant Malone and his hero complex.”
“I saved—” I saved you once, and I?
