“Come on, Maine, don’t be weak.”
He stood at the edge of the formation and stared down into the crystalline blue water below. Stone Canyon was beautiful here. The rock was warm from the midday sun. The sky above him was light blue, but just as deep as the water below. The breeze blew against his bare chest, making him shiver. His toes curled around sharp edges as he glanced at the gathering of kids in the clearing maybe fifteen meters below — at Beatrice in particular, who was dripping wet and made her one-piece look like something out of this world.
They’d gone out twice before, and already Maine knew he didn’t want to lose her.
Lionel yelled up. “You gonna jump, man?”
He smiled. The weight of the riders’ presence weighed in his mind.
He looked at the water.
He loved this moment, the anticipation, the feeling that came before the jump.
He loved the jump itself, too, as terrifying as it might be. He liked the sense of controlling his body as he plunged through space to fall hard into the water. Diving was a science as much as it was an art.
He liked the preparation.
He crushed on riding TS, too, of course. Beatrice’s feed especially. It was fun to feel the endorphin rush sizzle as her body rose through the air, and that weightlessness moment at the top. But, while most people said they got the same buzz from a wire as when they did something themselves, Maine Parker had never been one to go along just to get along.
Maine preferred being the host rather than the rider.
He spotted the four columns of rock that lay below the surface to his right, and tracked the shallow sandbar further out in front of him.
The water was deep enough, but the leap had to be modulated just right. Hitting the sand would be disaster. Too close to the columns was tempting fate.
He bent his knees, and fear signatures from the riders amped.
They were going to like this.
Maine curled his toes, bent further, then launched.
Spread his arms.
Felt that moment of zero gravity, then tucked himself into a ball to rotate twice and twist as he came out of the tuck, looking for water, his hands in at first, then reaching.
The impact was sharp, a rush of white noise, then a muted silvery scrub of the cold water.
Gorgeous.
He glided to the bottom and pressed his feet against the silty floor, feeling the soft mud between his toes and the solid chill of deeper water. Opening his eyes, he was surprised to see the rocky column so close.
He kicked upward and broke the surface.
The gathering was hooting and hollering.
“That was sick!”
“Incredible!”
“I can’t believe you did that!”
Lionel Burgess was literally lying on the sandy beach and writhing with put-on ecstasy.
Maine swam to the shoreline and stepped out of the water, feeling streams chill in the breeze over the warmth of the sun. He smiled, looking at Beatrice.
“I can do you better,” she said.
“Oh, really?” Maine said.
Her smile flashed, and Maine knew she wasn’t lying. “Link in, flyboy.”
Then she was climbing the vine that lay over the rock, making her way barefoot over the sheer surface, climbing hand over hand like she’d been born to it, her legs driving her upward, her hair trailing in ringlets behind.
She came to the ridge, then stood, legs planted, arms dangling from lanky shoulders, the sun behind her framing her silhouette as she stood above them, flesh golden-brown against the endless blue of the cloudless sky.
Maine shaded his eyes.
What was she going to do?
Three flips? A twist?
He jumped into her wire to find her examining the rocks under the surface, felt the loose gravel of the cliff under her feet. She adjusted further right to align with the rocks. The movement made him clench his hands.
Beatrice was going to thread the columns, dive directly at the rocks, hoping to split the space between them.
“Come on, Beatrice,” he said over the wire. “Don’t play with that.”
She laughed. “If there’s one thing you should know about me by now, baby, it’s that I don’t play.”
“You’ll kill yourself.”
“You don’t trust me?”
She took a step back, then another.
Maine felt warm blips as others joined her TS.
They felt her plan just as he did.
“Stop it.” Lionel ran toward the rock, his muscles glistening in the sun, sand still clinging to his back as he grabbed the vine to climb.
Maine watched him, knowing it was useless.
Beatrice took two steps and jumped.
He felt the fall, heard the cry of her voice with such clarity and such joy that for just one instant he forgot about the formations that lay below the surface.
He felt her entry, sensed the angle created by the speed of her run, the leg splayed off-kilter and out of control, the shin that crashed hard into rock, and the body, thin and arched as it sliced a path between two spires, then out into open water where friction finally slowed her pace.
Arms extended, legs together, chin tucked into his breastbone, he felt her rise, kicking upward.
As Beatrice broke the surface, Maine let out a breath.
As she approached the shoreline, he came out of the ride.
Lionel Burgess dropped from the cliff surface. “You scared me, girl! Don’t you ever do that again.”
“I thought you were dead,” said Pammy Granier.
“What did you think?” she said to Maine.
Their eyes met. She smiled and shook water from her hair.
Everything about Beatrice Diaz was poetry.
She was a centimeter or two shorter than him, her eyes dark in the shade of the cliffs, her lips thin.
He held her by the shoulders.
“I think that was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”
Gently, he pulled her toward him.
She followed without resistance.
His face dropped toward hers, and she raised her lips to meet his.
Somewhere behind him his friends hooted and hollered. Lionel attempted to access his wire, but Maine shut it down. Some things were his, and his alone, and while he already knew Beatrice would never belong to anyone in particular, this moment, the heat of her body against his, the softness of her lips, the sense of electricity where her hand touched his shoulder — just like the moment where he saw Beatrice leaping, flying out in midair — was going to remain with him forever.