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The waitress came by then. “Thank you,” I said as she filled up our water glasses. “We’ll actually be heading out now, I’m sorry. My date isn’t feeling too well.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “No, no, I’m fine. Sorry, can you just get me a glass of wine.”
“Do you have any preferences?” she asked, motioning toward the wine menu.
“Just wine. Any wine. Strong wine, preferably.”
She smiled an “I got you” smile and turned to me. “For you, sir?”
“Let’s do a bottle of the ’97 Lost Valley.”
A breeze danced through the palm tree leaves above us as the waitress left. It carried Sam’s scent my way. He didn’t look to his side, keeping his eyes pinned on me, but he did seem a little less pale.
“Of course you’re a wine guy,” Sam said. “You’re practically a professional James Bond cosplayer. I’m sure you also drink whiskey with one ice cube and frequently jump out of planes on the hunt for double agents.”
“Yes to one of those.”
He cocked his head and laughed. “Are you a big thrill seeker?” he asked, taking a drink of his water. I noticed he didn’t raise the glass, instead leaning down to bring his lips to the straw. I wondered if he was hiding his nerves.
“I can be. I’ve gone skydiving twice, and I’ve been shark diving once.”
Sam’s jaw cracked open. “Whoa, whoa. Shark diving?”
“It was for an investigation I was doing. The owner of the cage diving company was being investigated for potentially tampering with one of his cages, leading to the death of his ex’s boyfriend. It was suspicious from the jump. I went to his company and booked a cage diving session, wanting to just check out the process. To compare it, I booked another diving session with a rival company. That one convinced me to actually do it.”
“And? How was it? Did you see anything?”
“I saw four black-tipped reef sharks and one hammerhead. The hammerhead came right up to the bars of the cage. It was unbelievable.”
“Holy shhhhhark.”
“Nice,” I chuckled. “I recommend it, actually. There’s something really majestic about sharks, and being up close like that, in their own backyard, it kind of opens your eyes.”
“What happened with the guy you were investigating? Did he do it?”
“Oh absolutely. He weakened the bars of the cage and chummed the waters extra that day. I’ve got footage of two great whites swimming toward the cage before it cuts out.”
Sam’s brows almost fell off his face. “I can only repeat myself: holy mother-fucking shhhhhark.”
“Don’t worry, the owner’s now behind a set of bars, and those aren’t opening anytime soon. Don’t let that story make you cross off cage diving for good.”
“Right, well, it wasn’t really just that story that makes me nervous about me and sharks, but I’m not going to lie, it didn’t really help.”
The wine was brought out, our glasses filled before we clinked them together in a cheer. Sam was looking less and less scared as the seconds ticked by, color coming back to his face.
“So what is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” I asked Sam.
“Craziest? Hmm. Well, I did eat an entire moldy slice of bread once before realizing anything was wrong. I was drunk off my ass, but yeah, that was pretty crazy.”
I laughed, kicking my foot out under the table. Sam’s shoe tapped against the edge of mine.
“I also stayed up for forty-eight hours straight playing a video game, and that was all for charity. I had a stream on for the Trevor Project. I raised a total of three thousand dollars. Not the best but the most I’d ever gotten in two days, that’s for sure. That was also pretty crazy.”
“That’s incredible,” I said. Sam took a drink of the wine. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. I swallowed, feeling a different kind of heat rise inside me, one that had nothing to do with the external temperatures.
We ordered our food and kept chatting, Sam talking to me about his dream of opening up a game development studio. His passion bubbled up to the surface whenever he talked about video games. It reminded me of someone. He had the same light around him, the same kind of energy that my little brother always gave off when he talked about gaming.
It was toward the end of the dinner that I had realized something.
“You’re looking out at the view,” I said, my eyebrows rising in surprise. Sam nodded, looking out at the glittering city.
“I am… I guess you helped me get over my fear… huh.”
He wasn’t even just looking out at the view. He was admiring it. The fear that had him sinking into his chair earlier was nowhere to be found.
“Look, you can see Heaven’s Gate from here. It’s going to be the tallest building on the East Coast once it’s finished.” I pointed at the tall structure, still under construction but already taking up a large portion of the downtown Miami skyline.
