Their Freefall At Last by Julie Olivia

34

Ruby

The fall air is eerie tonight, and it’s not even Halloween yet. Not that Halloween is needed for a creepy night, but the air is off in a way that feels particularly foreboding.

I left Honeywood shortly after Bennett, both of us using our usual excuse of being tired or having work early in the morning. It wasn’t the first time we’d snuck away from our friend group to hang out just the two of us, but normally, it’s to watch wrestling or drive to the edge of town and watch the sunset. But tonight, I already know what we are going to discuss, and I feel like I’m walking into the principal’s office.

We’re meeting at our tree in the woods tonight. He’s already there when I arrive, hands in his front sweater pocket with the hood pulled up and his long hair spilling from the collar. He leans on the tree trunk and smiles when he sees me—the special kind with the lines at the edges.

I crunch through the leaves and twigs on the ground. “Yarr, it’s an angsty teen.”

Bennett rolls his eyes before tugging his hood down. “Yarr, it’s my jerk friend.”

I giggle and walk past him, nudging his hips to the side so I can climb up the tree. He holds out his palm, and I place my foot in it. He boosts me up to sit, letting me settle in the junction between the branch and trunk.

Our tree is a good marker of just how large Bennett has grown over the years. He couldn’t sit with me in these branches anymore even if he tried.

“So,” he starts, kicking a rock like a little kid, “Emory offered you a job, huh?”

“Oh, we’re gonna start there?”

“Oh, we’re starting there. It’s your dream job, and you just brushed it off like it was nothing.”

I shake my head. “Nah, he was just being nice.”

People tend to use kid gloves around me, and I get it. I’m quiet, and I rarely say anything offensive. Even when I receive criticism sandwiches, I tend to get more bread than meat. I’m used to it. And Emory Dawson, a man who only gives criticism with meat, would not want me at his company, where he feels he has to tiptoe around my sensitive soul.

I get it. I do.

Bennett blinks at me. “Rubes, you’re serious?” He shakes his head. “He wasn’t being nice. Do you think that guy is capable of being nice?”

I laugh. “Lorelei was there. He’s always nicer around her.”

“No, I saw the way he looked at you,” Bennett continues, his eyebrows pinching in, looking a lot like Emory’s at this moment. “You were schooling him on that coaster, and he’d built the damn thing.”

I laugh. “That’s not true.”

“It is.”

I let out a skeptical, “Hmm,” to add humor value, but Bennett just tilts his head to the side, his smile fading.

Oh, he’s being serious right now.

“Okay, fine, let’s just say he is then,” I say. “What do I do? Quit tomorrow?”

Bennett does that barking laugh where his head leans back. “Yes! You do.”

“No. I couldn’t. It’s so … I don’t know.”

“Risky?”

“Yes!” I answer with a laugh. “Emory is starting a brand-new company. That’s so unstable!”

“Okay, but the opportunity—”

“Is great,” I finish for him. “Yes, it is. But what am I gonna do about insurance, huh? Or … pay? He can’t exactly guarantee a salary, can he? I need to pay my mortgage.”

Bennett tongues the inside of his cheek. “Okay. You make a good point.”

I roll my hand around and bow. “Thank you.”

“But just think about the position. That’s all I ask.”

“Fine. I will think about it, I promise.”

He shakes his head with a smile. “You are lying through your teeth.”

I gasp. “Am not!” I am.

And as if on cue, my work phone rings.

“Nope, hand it to me,” Bennett says, holding out the palm of his hand.

“No.”

“Rubes, hand me the phone. It’s pirate ship time. Not work time.”

“Bennett—”

“Ruby.”

I let out a frustrated exhale that has him chuckling. I plop the phone into his palm. He pockets it.

“You get this back when you leave.”

“Rude.”

“They’re rude.”

I hmph.

“Hey, do whatever you want, Ruby,” Bennett says, his hands in the air. “If you want to stay at Dominion, stay at Dominion. But you could work for Emory and be so much happier and fulfilled. You’re talented. And he’d be lucky to have you.”

“I’m not that talented. They don’t even promote me where I’m at.”

“Yeah, because your company just sucks.”

“Well—”

“No. It’s true,” he interrupts. “Take a risk. For once.”

I suck in a breath and look away. He grabs a leaf and absentmindedly starts ripping it into tinier pieces, like little dots of confetti sticking to his large fingers. He’s more upset than he should be over this, and I remember his own look of concern back at Honeywood.

“So, what’s all this about?” I ask.

He grunts, “What’s what?”

“The sulkiness.”

“I’m not sulky.”

“Bennett, that poor leaf is crying for its life.”

Bennett’s eyes widen, and he gingerly places the remaining pieces on the branch beside me. “Well, thanks. Now, I feel bad for the thing.”

I giggle and nudge him with my dangling foot. “Seriously, what’s up? I come here, and you’re in full teenage angst mode.”

He sighs. “I don’t know. It’s just … don’t you think about what you want in the future?”

“I don’t know. Will there be flying cars?” I joke.

Bennett huffs out a half-laugh. “Yes. I definitely think there will be flying cars in the future.”

“Oh, definitely. Me too,” I agree. “I’d want that or the little transportation thingies, like in The Jetsons.”

“You’d wanna materialize somewhere else?”

“Absolutely. As long as someone else had a transporter thingy in their house, I’d be there in no time at all.”

Bennett’s smile tips up at the edges. “I gotta keep that in mind.”

“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head. I’d figure out how to transport all over your house.”

“Would that be considered illegal transporting?”

I twist my lips to the side, as if thinking. “Could be. I don’t know the future laws yet.”

“Y’know, you’re assuming I’d have tons of transports just randomly in my house.”

“You wouldn’t?”

He shrugs. “Seems kind of excessive. I don’t know what the future currency would be like.”

“Touché.”

Bennett laughs, and so do I. I lean my head against the trunk of the tree to breathe in the cool air of the forest.

Then, Bennett murmurs, “I’d always have a transport for you though, Rubes.”

It’s weird how nerves spark in my stomach, like a light switch getting clicked on after so long, the fluorescent inside my soul flickering to life.

“Same,” I agree. “And I’d make sure it had little welcome signs and pictures of you.”

He barks out a laugh. “You’d make a shrine for me?”

“Well, it wouldn’t exactly be a shrine.”

“It’d be a shrine.”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“I’m not the one with a shrine of me.”

“Oh, look at me,” I mock. “I’m Bennett, and I think the world revolves around me.”

“No, just your transport,” he counters with a laugh.

I push his shoulder, but I reach too far and have a bit more confidence than I should, so my foot gets caught in the divot in the tree trunk. I windmill my arms as I fall forward, and Bennett grabs me by the waist. I land in his arms.

We stand there, chest to chest, breathing in and out. And slowly, I slide down the front of him, running over every ridge of him with my own body until my sneakers touch the leafy forest floor.

My eyes dart between his, just as his are doing to mine. It’s been so long since his large hands have gripped my waist like this, since we’ve been this close. My breath is caught in my throat as I watch his large chest pick up and fall over and over. His jaw tenses, grinding back and forth, tightening and loosening and accentuating every little line and scar and dip in his beautiful face.

I forgot how brown his eyes are, how they have layers and tints and depths. And for the first time in two years, I see a very specific look in them. It’s the same look he gave me in that dressing room mirror when he thought I wasn’t looking—the stare through glassy eyes and a furrowed brow. The look of want.

No. That can’t be right. Can it?

I open my mouth, but I don’t know what I’d even say, so he speaks first and quick.

“I should go,” he says.

“Yep. Me too.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I can go myself.”

“No, let me walk you.”

I don’t argue further because it only means we’d spend more time in this forest, which we shouldn’t be doing at all. So, we walk. And I feel every movement. Every shuddering crunch of leaves, every whipping blow of wind, and even the too-loud whine of Miss Lisa’s back gates as we take her path back to my car parked on the street.

I unlock my door and step inside. Bennett’s large palm lands with a thump on the roof of my car as he leans in. I roll down the window.

“Thanks for the talk, Pirate.”

“Anytime.”

He chews the inside of his cheek.

Finally, he nods for the both of us. “G’night, Rubes.”

“Night, Bennett.”

He pushes off my car and walks back toward the woods and his home. Back to the woman who isn’t me.