Zoey fell, the freezing air rushing past her ears, waves of mortal panic and terror crashing through her nervous system. Limbs trying to climb through the air, uselessly grabbing for purchase that she knew wasn’t there.
Just a few seconds.
An eternity.
Her last thought was “I’m going to die with a hot dog wrapper in my pocket” and then,
WHAP!
Zoey impacted pavement that was much softer than she had expected.
Her face was crammed into something that felt like rough canvas, and then she was sinking, gently being lowered until she was resting in what felt like a gigantic hammock. A split second later Armando landed five feet away from her and sent a jolt through the cloth that sent her bouncing. Zoey thought for a moment they had lucked out and landed on an awning, but Armando was laughing when she sat up and saw it was some kind of massive inflatable trampoline thing, which Zoey believed stuntmen used when jumping off buildings for movies. This one seemed to extend forever in both directions, covering the sidewalk and part of the street. It was black, with huge yellow letters printed on it that said simply “DROP.”
A moment later Andre, knees drawn up in a cannonball, landed nearby, sending another ripple through the bag. It rolled Zoey into the dent in the canvas where Armando was lying, and she rolled on top of him and giggled and poked him in the chest.
“That was some real good bodyguarding you did there, buddy! You just let somebody push me off a roof!”
“I knew this was down here. Otherwise I would never have let you get so close to the—”
She kissed him, right on the mouth. She didn’t even know she was going to do it until she did it.
Armando didn’t kiss her back, but was very gentle in the way he pushed her off.
Very sternly he said, “Zoey. No.”
“Okay, okay.”
He sat up, trying to figure out the quickest way off the high-fall bag.
He said, “Don’t be embarrassed, this is a very normal reaction when you have had the kind of experience that—”
She started crawling away from him while he was still muttering his explanation and stumbled/rolled toward the edge, finding she was still six feet off the ground.
A piercing horn sounded and suddenly there was a rain of people falling from the ledges of the buildings along the park. They fell, landed on the bags, rolled off, and ran into the buildings to go back up and do it again.
Zoey rolled awkwardly off the bag. Andre was already standing in the street, which was covered in a soft mat that she assumed was there to catch people who accidentally fell off the edge of the bag on impact. He had a ridiculous grin on his face. Zoey shoved him and laughed and Andre put on an innocent look.
“What, nobody explained to you what a Drop party is? You ain’t felt adrenaline until you’ve jumped off a tall building and seen the ground flyin’ up at you. Arthur kept wanting to set it up around Livingston Tower but that’s way higher than what these bags are rated for.”
Zoey brushed snow off her skirt while Armando attempted the impossible task of dismounting from the high-fall bag gracefully.
She said, “Ugh, I’m all wet now.” She said to Armando, “Take me back home, you need to get me out of these wet clothes.
“Zoey…”
“Calm down, grumpy pants. I’m just joking. But seriously, these tights are cutting off circulation to my legs and you may have to take me to the hospital if I don’t get them off.”
Andre said he had three prospective ladies waiting for him back at the party, so he excused himself while Zoey and Armando made their way to the waiting car. Armando checked it from stem to stern to make sure there wasn’t a bundle of dynamite strapped to the engine, despite the fact that it hadn’t been out of the sight of four armed guards for the entire night.
Armando slid in first, and as Zoey climbed in the passenger side he shook off his suit jacket, and unbuttoned the top tree buttons of his crimson shirt, revealing a gold cross on a chain, and a square Band-Aid on his chest, as if he’d cut himself shaving his body hair.
As Zoey settled in she said, “It’s that tea, right? It makes you feel like you’ve got a fever or something.” The second Zoey’s door closed she said, “Turn your head,” then kicked off her shoes, hiked up her skirt, and shoved the tights off her legs. She wadded them up and stuffed them into her pocket along with her hot dog wrapper.
“That’s better. And I’m—wait—yes, I am wearing underwear. Whew.”
Armando sighed, pulled them out into traffic, and hesitated as if trying to formulate his words.
“Zoey … I have had a lot of female clients, this sort of thing, it comes up more often than you think. It is actually covered in training, during licensing. The client is under stress, in a vulnerable place, coming down off a rush of adrenaline. They start misinterpreting their feelings. The reaction is chemical, nothing more.”
“Okay, okay, stop lecturing me. I’m blaming the tea all the way.”
“I cannot continue with the contract if it is going to be like this. Even if it was mutual, it is strictly forbidden by our code of ethics.”
“You’re right, and using the word ‘forbidden’ definitely doesn’t only make it hotter.”
“Zoey, this is not a joke.”
“I get it. You’re a handsome Latin action hero. I’m a trailer troll with the wrong eating disorder. Stop freaking out about it, you can surely resist the temptation of little ol’ me.” She shrugged out of her blazer. “Even if I’m not a hundred percent sure I can make it home before I have to get these clothes off. Are these windows tinted?”
“Just so you understand, this is the last we speak of it.”
“Of course. Jeez, you’re so tense. I don’t think you were this tense during the actual life-and-death standoff.”
Silence, of the awkward variety. They crawled through the coagulated downtown traffic.
After several minutes, Zoey said, “You know what would help you relax? A nice massage.”