Page 72 of Sapphire Storm

Ethan wasn’t sure what it felt like when your heart melted,but he was pretty sure this was it, and ironically, he was feeling it mostly inthe sides of his neck. He pulled Roman in for a big, Danish-flavored kiss. Thenhe was alone in the shower, practicing various expressions he could say onrepeat between now and their date with certain death to make him soundconfident and excited. Mostly military expressions he’d picked up from Donnie,whose every other model had a Marine Corps background.Boo-rah. Let’s dothis. Get some. Etc.

“Are you feeling okay?” Roman asked when he emerged from thebathroom.

“I’m excellent. Why do you ask?”

“It sounded like you were coughing.”

He tugged on a polo shirt. “Oh, no. I’m great. Let’sdothis! Boo-rah!” Once he had his arm through the sleeve, he pumped a fist in theair.

“Afor energy, but you’re going to need somethingwarmer. The winds can be intense, and once we get up to about four hundredfeet, the temperature really drops.”

Nodding enthusiastically as the wordsfour hundred feetrippedthrough him like a pinball, Ethan said, “Good thinking. Clearly I’m inexcellent hands.”

He knew his way to the glider port because it was close towhere he, Donnie, and Zach used to hike down to Black’s Beach. On the waythere, he’d asked Roman to talk about every flight he’d ever taken, thinking itwould make for a good distraction. It worked. At first. But by the time theyreached the parking lot, Roman’s descriptions of sailing off desert cliffs,near collisions with ornery hawks, riding thermals that seemed to surge out ofnowhere had grown so vivid and constant that Ethan’s palms were greasing thesteering wheel. Ethan saw the open grassy field perched right at the edge ofthe cliff’s three-hundred-foot drop to the sea. It was strewn with littleparachutes spread out across the grass and dotted with helmeted flyerspreparing to take the leap.

“Oh my God, look how perfect the weather is!” Roman said.“It’s like the rain cleaned everything and now there’s nothing but wind.”

“Indeed.” Ethan parked and Roman leapt from the passengerseat and raced for a nearby trailer plastered with various wooden signs.Warnings, mostly.

Telling himself he should keep his eyes on Roman, Ethan didhis best to put one foot in front of the other as he watched a paraglider andtheir accompanying pilot literally run toward the edge of the cliff, theparachute lifting behind them so weakly he was sure they’d plummet to theirdeath in an instant. Suddenly, the wind caught and they went sailing as Ethan’sheart roared.

He focused on the stunning view. A coastline made up mostlyof bluffs extended north and then a little way’s west. He could see all the wayto the smokestacks of the desalinization plant in Carlsbad and farther up thecoast to the sudden jagged mountains of Camp Pendleton that marked the boundarybetween San Diego and Orange County. The only clouds were high white cottonpuffs sailing briskly across the cornflower blue. For miles and miles, theocean sparkled. And if he kept his gaze up and not down, everything was bigopen skies filled with nothing but promise.

Look up and not down.The words settled into him,almost as if they’d been spoken by someone else—the encouraging parents he’dnever had or the deep, intuitive voice some folks called God.

Inside the trailer, Roman excitedly talked over procedurewith the attendant, who handed him two helmets, but he kept looking back over oneshoulder at Ethan with delight in his eyes.

Roman didn’t just want to fly, he wanted to fly with Ethan.This knowledge filled him with a warmth that drowned out his anxiety, a feelingmore powerful than his terrible fear of heights. Roman, in all his wild,restless enthusiasm, wanted to share something with Ethan that brought him joy,and that fact alone brought Ethan joy before they’d even left the ground.

When Roman emerged onto the trailer’s porch, helmets inhand, he said, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Ethan said firmly, but this time he didn’thave to work very hard to keep the fear from his voice.

He wasn’t sure they would survive. Wasn’t even sure he mightnot lose the contents of his stomach. What he was sure of was that he wanted todo whatever he could to fill Roman with more of this intoxicating enthusiasm.

The next thing he knew, they were standing a few yards from thecliff’s edge while his pilot-to-be strapped him into the chair, which wasreally more like a double harness. He could barely feel his feet, and he wasnodding a lot to hide the fact that he was having trouble breathing and wasn’thearing much of what Roman said.

“Cold?” Roman asked before snapping a buckle closed.

“Perfectly comfortable,” Ethan lied.

“Really? ’Cause your hand’s shaking.”

“I’ll heat up once we get going, I’m sure.”Once I pissmyself, Ethan thought.

Then the two of them were fully strapped in. Roman’s warmbody pressed against his back was a soothing balm for his paralyzing terror.

Turning him to face their destination, the cliff’s edge andthe shining sea beyond, Roman said, “Now, don’t worry. That fifteen-minute trainingclass I took online was super comprehensive.”

Ethan dug his feet into the dirt. “Fifteen minutes?”

Roman cackled. “I’m kidding. It was a bunch of trainingsessions. I know what I’m doing. Ready? On three.”

If he waited that long he’d chicken out, so he startedrunning right away, and by the time Roman got to two, they’d left the edge andEthan was howling as his feet cycled through open air.

Every fiber of his being was braced for a terrifying plummetthrough the void below. When it didn’t happen, his desperate yell turned into ahigh, barking laugh. The force that filled the parachute behind them, liftingthem above the cliff’s edge at the last possible second with a confident yank,felt otherworldly, divine.

They were floating. Then they were flying. Sailing.Soaring.

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