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.