Page 6 of Jump

Or worse, when I say something challenging or provocative.

She hums for me. Leans into me. And though we both have our reasons for not wanting this accidental moment we’ve found ourselves in, neither of us seems to have the power to walk away.

Ana, whoever she really is, maintains her anonymity purely because I arrived in this town just days ago. I don’t know anyone but the guys down at the firehouse. Axel Feeney might be the closest thing I have to a friend, but the fact is, I kinda hate him.

Because he’s alive. Because he’s here, breaking his girl’s heart. While I… have a broken heart because my girl is gone. Because she worked a shift Feeney was supposed to, and didn’t survive a structure fire the crew got called to that night.

She went in to do the job she’d trained for all her life, but the flames were too much, and they overtook her. That night, Ainsley Cootes became a cherished memory by the occupants of the firehouse she hailed from. And by me.

Dead too young.

Gone, when we were just getting started.

Never in my fucking life had I considered getting serious with a woman. I was entirely comfortable with the idea of being a permanent bachelor. Slutting my way up and down the eastern seaboard, and working a fire season wherever the flames beckoned me.

I jump out of planes for a living—or at least, I did until a few days ago. Now I’m, in the most technical sense, unemployed, homeless, and still as deep in my pool of grief as I was seven months ago when Ains fell in the line of duty.

It’s the new normal for me, that pit of emptiness. That well of sadness that eats me up if I think about her too deeply. The grief has become my companion. A comfort, when I lie in bed at night all alone.

I like being alone.

But then Nicole’s birthday rolled around, and I was forced to buy a stupid mask and pull on this stuffy suit. And now, a woman who isn’t Ainsley Cootes has caught my attention.

I suppose I should be relieved, right? To know I’m not irreparably broken. To realize I can still feel something for someone besides a fallen hero. But along with that sexual tension bubbling deep in my belly and the flicker of hope blooming in the back of my mind, comes a filthy, sludge-like feeling of disloyalty. Of revulsion.

Because I loved Ainsley. I swore myself to her.

And now, Ana—whose name isn’t Ana at all—has got me tingling in a way I haven’t experienced in a very long time.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with these feelings?

The hope. The pain. The interest and curiosity. The anger that follows right after.

And so, instead of plowing through my thoughts, my conscience, and demanding an answer, I choose to focus on the masked woman.

Fake names. Hidden faces. No real identification. It sets the perfect stage for a man who can’t quite move on yet, and for a woman who pretends to be formidable, but is, beneath the façade, a shy bundle of nerves who wants so badly to experience whatever it is I’m offering.

What am I offering?

I have no fucking clue.

I think, maybe, it’s an escape from reality. A night of being anyone but who we actually are. If she gets to pretend to be Ana the anarchist, then I can be Jump, the not eternally screwed up Matteo Ruiz.

It’s fair, right? To pretend. To experience something we both get to secret away and revisit on our lonely nights once real life encroaches and we’re thrust back into reality.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” I ask.

It’s too bright in this dim ballroom. Too public, with a hundred of Nicole’s closest friends and family all in the same space.

All of whom knew Ainsley, too.

They knew us when we were an us. And they know me now as just a… me.

But I’m not the same man on each side of that coin. Not the same at all.

Gently pulling away on the dancefloor and placing my finger beneath Ana’s trembling chin, I tilt her head back and catch her fearful eyes. “Wanna come create a little chaos with me, Anarchy? I promise not to kill, kidnap, or harm you in any way.”

She chokes out a nervous laugh and slides her tongue forward to wet her dry bottom lip. “That sounds like something that someone who intended to kill, kidnap, or harm me would say. Suspiciously so, really.”

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