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Maverick gets up to go get his car and people start stepping forward from the small crowd.
“Hey, can I get a selfie?”
“Maverick, can I get a picture?”
“Guys, I’m sorry, but we need to get this woman to the hospital, okay?” he says. “I’m going to get my car so we can take her.”
“My back hurts,” a middle-aged woman blurts out. “Can I come to the hospital with you?”
“I think I hurt my pelvis,” the woman beside her quips. “Can you guys take a look?”
Maverick just shakes his head and walks away. This must be what his life is like all the time. It’s the opposite of my under-the-radar existence.
“Here we go,” Pike says, putting his arms beneath Ro.
I take the cloth away from her brow and see a swollen spot with a gash, blood already pooling in the wound without pressure being applied.
Pike gently picks Ro up and she cringes, her lips set in a tight line.
“Stay with me,” she says, her eyes wide as she finds me beside her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her.
Maverick pulls as close to the sidewalk in front of Caesars as he can and puts his hazard lights on. People honk and swear, but he ignores them as he opens the door to the back seat of his Range Rover. Pike eases Ro inside and I follow, pressing the blood-stained cloth back to her brow.
She’s okay. She’s okay. I repeat the words to myself as Maverick makes the drive to the closest hospital, occasionally meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror.
Ro is going to be just fine, but what about her dreams of advancing her dancing career? She squeezes my hand, tears streaming from the eye that isn’t covered by the cloth I’m pressing to her cut, and I know she’s wondering the very same thing.
Chapter Thirteen
Maverick
“I don’t know, man,” Dane shakes his head and looks away. “There are lots of other ways to bond that don’t involve violating our contracts.”
“Some of us are violating our contracts. It’s not in everyone’s. They’re not going to shitcan everyone who does it if we all do,” I point out. “And the whole point of this is that no one’s ever going to find out. I even asked the staff from the skydiving place to all sign NDAs, and they did. I gave them all a nice tip for their trouble.”
Dane looks away, still unconvinced. The rest of the team is ready to roll, all of us gathered at a dusty, barren airfield where an actual tumbleweed just rolled past in the distance.
“When you told us to meet you here, I never thought you were thinking about skydiving,” Dane says, folding his arms. “I’m not trying to be a pussy, but—”
“You’re being a total pussy,” Pike cuts in. “You heard what Maverick said; we’re all jumping tandem. You’ll be strapped to an instructor. You just let him do the work and enjoy the ride.”
“Have you done this before?” Kingston asks him.
“Many times,” Pike answers. “It’s a total rush. You guys are going to love it.”
Dane shifts on his feet, his expression stoic. Count on him to be a dick about this when everyone else is in. I paid for the whole thing and hired an attorney to draft up an NDA and a notary to get them signed, wanting to lead my teammates into an adventure we’ll never forget.
“Bonding by fire,” I say, clapping Dane on the shoulder and grinning. “You can do it, man. I’ve got a change of clothes in my bag if you piss yourself.”
“I’m not going to piss myself,” he snaps. “I’m not afraid of skydiving, but I don’t want to break my contract terms. Some of us need the money from hockey for more than whiskey and hookers.”
“You guys ready to hit it?” the head instructor asks, walking over.
“Just about,” I tell him. “Give us a minute.”
“No one’s going to force you,” Alexei tells Dane. “But seriously, man, you can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’d enjoy seeing my ass in a sling with the ownership,” I say.
Dane scoffs. “I won’t say anything.”
“Fuck, dude,” Pike says, scowling. “Just jump out of the goddamn plane, will you? If push comes to shove, I’ll say I made you do it.”
“It’s time to start the training,” I say. “Everyone who wants to do this, let’s get into the classroom.”
The fight fades from Dane’s expression and he stalks past me, the first one to walk into the classroom. The others follow, and I take a deep breath in and out before stepping into the classroom myself.
Asking my teammates to violate their contracts so we can all jump out of airplanes together took balls of steel. It remains to be seen if this idea was genius or an epic fail. The more I thought about what Gia said, though, the more I agreed.
