Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia

12

Bennett

Twelve Years Before

Ruby & Bennett are Eighteen Years Old

“You’re too James Bond.”

“How can one be too James Bond, Mom?”

She observes my outfit—from my thick boot up to the one leg of my black slacks slung over the seat of my motorcycle, followed by the cummerbund and bow tie.

“You just look like it.” I grin, and she rolls her eyes, adding, “Well, no, you look more like your dad actually.”

My good mood is wiped clean at the mention of him.

“I’m nothing like him.”

Mom holds out her palm. “Uh, motorcycle?”

“I can own a motorcycle and not be him.”

She crosses her arms. “Well, just stay out of trouble tonight, okay?”

I chuckle. “When do I ever get in trouble?”

“Do we really need to talk about the championship game?”

I curl my lips in and nod. “Fair point.”

While Cedar Cliff High never found the bald streaker, my mom was the person sitting on our front porch with her nightly cup of tea, watching as the three of us parked in the driveway with me naked in the back, wearing only a towel.

Ruby only got one detention. I tried to turn myself in to prevent it, but Ruby kept blocking my attempts. She said she was very proud of her badassery.

“In that case,” I told her, “we should get the date tattooed on you as a keepsake.”

I firmly believe she was two seconds away from doing it before I carried her over my shoulder back into the house and away from her car.

“I’ll be safe,” I say as my mom walks into my arms and nods against my shoulder. She’s a foot shorter than me now, just tall enough for me to place my chin on the top of her head.

“Be safe in more ways than one,” she murmurs.

I laugh. “What does that mean?”

“Your best friend is your prom date.”

“Oh boy …”

“Well, I know you and Ruby are close.”

“It’s not like that,” I insist, giving an additional grin of reassurance. But my heart beats faster, and I can feel my face burn red.

Technically, it isn’t like that. But ever since I streaked across the football field, I catch Ruby staring at me constantly, biting those pink lips when she thinks I don’t see her, lingering on every part of me. But specifically, the area below my belt.

I wonder if she has the same thoughts I do from time to time. Thoughts like, How soft would she feel? And, Wouldn’t it be nice if we kissed again? It’s been years. We’re older. More experienced. I’ve kissed people, but so has she. Would it be better? Am I romanticizing my first kiss, or was it really that good?

Between school, Ruby’s college prep, my busy schedule at Honeywood, and our parents demanding we keep doors open, the mystery of kissing my best friend again is turning into a Schrödinger’s cat situation. Or Schrödinger’s pussy, so to speak.

“Just don’t follow the crowd,” Mom says, rubbing my shoulders. “Prom doesn’t have to be the time that you experiment with sex, okay?”

“Christ.” I tug my hand through my long hair and let it fall. “Ruby and I are not gonna have sex, Mom. She’s my friend.”

She sighs. “I’m just checking. You’ve never brought home anyone else. Even though I know you dated that sweet girl, Sarah.”

“Sadie,” I correct.

She squints. “You sure?”

“You’re a menace,” I say, pulling her in for another hug. “I gotta go. Love you.”

Her words are muffled against my chest as she says, “Love you too, kiddo.”

I let out an exaggerated, “Blegh,” just to make her laugh.

“I’ll meet y’all at the gazebo for pictures!” she calls as I rev up.

“I’ll make sure to lose my virginity before then!” I yell back over the engine.

“Bennett, so help me—”

I cackle before kicking off and zooming out of the driveway.

I feel justified that I spent part of my dad’s graduation gift on this beast. It seemed poetic—he left my mom to live on his motorcycle, and I used his stupid money on the same useless junk. I do like the thing though. When I admitted that to Ruby for the first time, she couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes, but then she hugged me for another five. Seemed like the appropriate reaction for a complicated father relationship. She understands all too well.

When the front yards start to change from chain-link fences to the white paint and freshly mowed grass of Ruby’s neighborhood, I slow down and rumble into her driveway. I hop off my bike, and my new steel-toed boots clunk onto her porch.

I ring the doorbell. There’s far less barking than there used to be. Moose is older these days, and the fight in him is relegated to a simple, huffing woof. His wet nose presses against the glass, and I tap against it.

When nobody answers, I creak open the door, squeezing through the crack so as not to let out Moose, petting him the whole time.

“Rubes?” My voice echoes through the house.

I forgot Miranda and Richard are gone for their monthly date night. It was coincidence that it fell on prom night, but Ruby insisted she didn’t want any pictures taken. They didn’t put up a fight.

“Coming down!”

I look at the curling stairs right as Ruby appears on the top step.

Damn.

The dress is tighter than it looked in the store when I saw her try it on. It was beautiful then, but it’s breathtaking now, hugging her thin waist, the neckline dipping just low enough to show the area between her breasts. My best friend doesn’t have cleavage, but I don’t care. I focus more on her collarbone. How delicate it is.

A slow smile rises on her face.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “You just look gorgeous, Parrot.”

Her face flushes red, and she looks down at herself.

“Good enough for the Queen?”

“Did we have that planned?” I snap my fingers. “Darn, I got tickets to prom.”

“Oh well. I guess we can go to that instead,” she says. “But we must send her an apology letter.”

“We absolutely must,” I respond, playing along.

A slow, beautiful smile grows on her lips.

Our friendship may only be that—friendship—but I do love how she looks in a blue dress.

* * *

I savor everything about prom.

I savor how my hand rests on Ruby’s lower back, where her dress dips down. The way she smells especially sweet in some new perfume. Her sunbeam smile and smattering of freckles.

We go to Honeywood after taking photos in Cedar Cliff’s square. Glowing lights and streamers are strewn up on every railing and around Buzzy the Bear’s fountain. We dance for one song, then two, then ten. Even when the slow dances start, I pull my best friend into my arms.

“Bennett,” she says with a laugh, but I rock back and forth with her, burying myself into the crook of her neck, “don’t you want to dance with one of the S’s?”

I chuckle. “You’re my date.”

“Yeah, but …”

“Shh.”

And somewhere between the dancing and the dessert, it hits me that this will be one of our last nights together before she goes off to college. Ruby is going to leave, and I’ll be in my apprenticeship program through Honeywood. I’ll have to learn to be okay with my best friend’s absence for the first time in my life.

But I don’t want to give her up just yet. Not yet.

When the night dies down and we walk through Honeywood’s parking lot, seeing my motorcycle gleaming in the corner, it feels like the end. And, sure, we have all summer, but not really. Not when I’m working six days a week. Not when she’s going back and forth to her mom’s, who decided to move back to the city. There’s really no time at all.

We stand next to my bike for a solid minute before Ruby reads my mind, like she always does.

“Does this feel like the end of an era?” she asks.

I heave out a breath. “I was weirdly thinking the same thing.”

“Not that weird,” she replies with a smile. “We think a lot of the same things.”

I wonder if she’s thinking what I’m thinking right now.

I’d kiss you if you asked me to.

“We do,” is all I say instead.

“Bennett, I don’t want to go.” The words come out with a weak laugh.

I walk closer, moving my palms around her waist and tucking her into my chest.

“Hey, me neither,” I say, placing the smallest of kisses on the top of her head. I glance down at my wrist—the pink string we both still share.

“Bennett?”

“Hmm?”

“If you could do anything tonight, what would you do?”

Kiss you.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Something daring.”

Kiss you.

She smiles, the pull of her beautiful pink lips so slow and devious.

“Something daring, you say?” she echoes.

“Yeah.” I drag out the word. “Why? What’s on your mind?”

“I have an idea for you.”