Chapter One
“You are out of your ever-loving mind.” “I think it’s awesome.” Harley Kelso stared at her siblings in disbelief. She wasn’t surprised one of them didn’t think much of her latest plan, but it was beyond surprising that Montesa was the one who didn’t think it was a good idea. She was usually all gung-ho in support of Harley in whatever crazy thing she wanted to do. Her brother, Davidson, on the other hand, was almost always overprotective, scaring the shit out of the rare date who came to the house when she was younger and generally vetoing anything that was the teensiest bit on the wild side.
Both siblings were older than her, but ever since she was a little girl, Davidson had been the stereotypical protective older brother to both her and Montesa. He’d taken on a gang of boys who’d been harassing Montesa once, and gotten beaten pretty badly in the process, but his distraction had worked and given her the chance to run away.
Harley would do anything for her brother and sister, but this she had to do, no matter what they thought.
“I know it’s not exactly the safest thing in the world, but something’s wrong with my graphics, and the only way I can think to fix it is to experience it myself.”
“Bull,” Montesa countered immediately, then started ticking items on her fingers as she spoke. “One, you could watch YouTube all day and see firsthand what’s involved. Two, you could go to the airport and get a pair of binoculars and see what it’s all about. Three—”
“No,” Harley interrupted, knowing her sister could go on all day if given the chance. “It’s not the same as experiencing it myself.”
“Where do you want to do it?” Davidson asked. Glad that her brother was being reasonable, Harley eagerly told him what she’d learned. “Through a professional skydiving club in Waco. The guy who owns it has logged a gazillion jumps already. He was in the military, I don’t remember what branch, but he’s got all these accolades and stuff on the website. I watched the video online and I’ve read a lot about it. I’m doing a tandem jump, so it’s not as if I’ll be going by myself. I’ll be strapped in front of a professional. The whole thing will only take like twenty minutes, and most of that is getting up to the right altitude.”
Montesa sighed. “You’re really gonna do this, aren’t you?”,“Yup.” Harley knew she sounded a lot surer than she was, but if she showed even an ounce of fear, her sister would pounce on it and eventually convince her to give it up. “I need to. I’ve been working on the graphics for the latest game in the This is War franchise and every time I code the men parachuting out of the plane, it looks funny. All jerky or something.”
“And you think experiencing it firsthand will help you be able to code it better?” The skepticism in her sister’s voice was hard to miss.
“Well, yeah. Look, let’s just say for a second that I’m crazy, and don’t know what I’m talking about. At the very least, it’ll be a cool experience. I’ve read the club’s safety record, it’s flawless. No one has died. No one has been injured. The people they have as the jumpmasters have lots and lots of jumps under their belts. It isn’t like I’m randomly going to the airport and asking someone off the street if they’ll jump out of an airplane with me strapped in front of them.”
Montesa sighed and looked up at the ceiling as if hoping for an answer written up there. “I have no idea how we’re related.”
Harley smiled at her sister. “Me either. We don’t look a thing alike and I’m as different from you as I could be.”
“I wasn’t talking about looks and you know it,” Montesa griped, moving her eyes away from the ceiling and back to Harley’s, then dramatically sighing again. “Make an appointment with John, he’ll make sure your will is up to date before you go.”
Harley rolled her eyes. “Jeez, I don’t need to update my will, weirdo. You and Davidson are already gonna get everything I have if I croak. And I’m not going to go to your office and meet with your partner just so you can both grill me some more and try to talk me out of this. Forget it.”
Harley loved her sister’s law partner. He was about fifteen years older than her, and he’d hired Montesa right out of law school and after she’d passed the bar. He had a small law firm, but he’d obviously seen something in Montesa that he liked. They’d been working together now for about ten years. Harley thought there was more between them than just being law partners, but there was no way she was going to butt into her sister’s love life. The second she did, Montesa would be all over her about her lack of a relationship. No thank you.
“How about I drop you off then?” Davidson asked. Harley shook her head, glad she’d already arranged everything. “No can do, bro. It’s next Wednesday, you have that conference next week.”
“Shit, Harl, why’d you schedule it for a weekday? Put it off until the weekend and I’ll be back and can go with you.” “No. I’ve already got the appointment and have paid the deposit.”
“How much is it?” Montesa broke in. Sometimes talking with her siblings was like watching a tennis match, but Harley was used to their ways.
“It’s only two hundred and fifty bucks.” “Jesus, that’s highway robbery.” “No it’s not, cut the crap, Davidson,” Harley exclaimed. “Think about it. The plane, the fuel, the parachutes, the expertise of the jumpmasters…it’s actually pretty cheap.”
“Dammit. I hate when you’re right, but I still wish I could be there,” he grumbled, looking anything but happy.
“Do you want me to get the video? It’s an extra fifty bucks. I wasn’t going to but…”
“Yes.”
“No.” Montesa and Davidson answered at the same time. “I have no desire to watch my baby sister go splat, or drool all over herself as she plummets to the ground,” Montesa said firmly.
“On that visual, I have to agree. Sorry, Davidson, no video. My drool doesn’t need to be plastered all over the Internet, because I know if you got your hands on it, that’s exactly what you’d do.”
Davidson smiled at her, then got serious. “I think this will be good for you. You don’t get out much and maybe you’ll meet someone there.”
Harley stood up from the couch and carried her plate to the kitchen, refusing to be hurt by her brother’s insinuation. She knew what she was and what she wasn’t. She was a nerd. A dork. She wore glasses and preferred to wear comfortable clothing all the time. She’d never in her life worn makeup, much to Montesa’s consternation. It just wasn’t her. From a young age, she’d been fascinated with computers and video games, and she’d spent most of her high school years in front of the television playing first-person shooter games with people on the Internet she’d never met.
Her love of all things video games had led to her majoring in Computer Science at a local community college. She then moved out to California to finish her undergraduate degree and went on to get her graduate degree in Computer Science, with game development as a specialization.
It had been tough to move away from home, but both Montesa and Davidson had supported her wholeheartedly. After years of hard work, and an internship with Activision, she’d been hired on full time. The best part of the job was that she was able to work remotely, and had immediately moved back to Temple, Texas, to be near her family.
She’d always been close to them, even before her parents had died. Maybe it was because of their names and the fact they’d been picked on, or because they were close in age, or maybe simply because of genetics, but the three siblings had always stuck together. Davidson was two years older than Montesa, who was two years older than Harley, and neither would let her forget that, no matter how old she got, she’d always be the baby. Harley wanted to argue that at thirty-four, she could hardly be considered a baby, but secretly she didn’t mind her siblings being so involved in her life. The alternative was too depressing to think about.
Honey and Jim had been hard-working and hard-playing parents. They were into the biker way of life, and had named their children accordingly. Harley didn’t think naming your children after motorcycles was normal, but who was she to say. Her mom was always smiling and wouldn’t hesitate to drop everything to help out a friend, or one of her children, if needed. She was healthily plump and never made any apologies for liking to eat and drink whatever she wanted. Jim had been a tall bear of a man. He’d had a slight beer gut, but like his wife, didn’t seem to be bothered by it. He’d worn his hair long in the back and had a full bushy brown beard. He’d frequently said he loved the feel of the wind blowing through it as he rode.
The two fell madly in love in their early twenties when they’d met at a biker rally. They’d gotten married six months to the day after they’d met and didn’t let society’s expectations on what they should do with their lives matter. They loved the biker lifestyle, and made no apologies for it either. They weren’t strict parents, but did insist on their children being respectful. They’d encouraged their children to follow their hearts and passions and do what they wanted to do with their lives.
They’d been on their annual pilgrimage up to Sturgis in South Dakota when a man in a big pickup truck had simply not seen them in his blind spot and changed lanes right into them. Jim had tried to protect his wife, but his bike had collided with Honey’s and they’d both careened over the side of the mountain they had been traveling on. Neither had a chance.
It was the worst time in Harley’s life, but deep down she was glad her parents had died together. She and her siblings knew there was no way either of them would’ve been able to handle being alive when their spouse wasn’t. She was seventeen at the time, and since Montesa was still living at home, her sister was able to get full custody of her until she’d turned eighteen.
More than once when she was little, Harley had wanted to change her name, but after the accident, she grew to love it. It was a connection to her parents. So what if it was a bit weird? Celebrities gave their kids all sorts of names today that were way stranger than hers.
“I’ll call when I get back from the conference and we can do lunch. You can tell me all about it,” Davidson ordered, his eyes piercing in their intensity as he looked at Harley.
“I’d like that,” she told him immediately. He and Montesa were her closest friends, of course she would tell them about the jump afterwards.
Her brother and sister had brought their dishes to the sink and were getting ready to leave. It was their weekly ritual to have dinner together one night and they usually rotated houses. It had been her turn to host this week, and as usual, she’d ordered out. Tonight was pizza night. Montesa and Davidson complained about it, but Harley knew they secretly loved the junk she ordered for them.
“Please call me the second you get home,” Montesa said as she hugged her sister. “I know your mind will be going a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to put what you just experienced into code, but I’ll worry until you call.”
“I will. Drive safe you guys.” “Love you,” Davidson said as he hugged her. Harley stood on tiptoes to wrap her arms around her brother’s shoulders. She was tall at five-ten, but Davidson was easily five inches taller. Montesa put her arms around the two of them and they had a group huddle by the front door for a moment. Much to her consternation, Montesa had gotten her mother’s genes; she was the runt of the family at five-six and had a hard time keeping weight off her heavy frame.
“Okay, enough. Go. I’ll keep in touch and let you know how it goes,” Harley ordered as she pulled back and pushed her siblings toward the door.
“You better,” Montesa scolded as she hitched her purse up on her shoulder. She might look like a sweet, slightly frumpy middle-aged woman, but she was a firecracker in the courtroom and had gained a reputation as someone who didn’t take crap from anyone. She won way more cases than she lost. Rumor had it that when other attorneys learned they’d be up against Montesa in the courtroom, they’d push their clients to settle, knowing their chances of winning had been lowered dramatically simply because Montesa was on the other side of the courtroom.
Harley watched as her siblings waved once more as they left. Her townhouse was in an area of Temple that catered to the older set. Exactly how she liked it. She craved quiet and didn’t worry about her safety much living in the subdivision. Gretel Owens was a widow who lived in the townhouse next to her. She was eighty-three and acted thirty years younger. She had a crush on the man that lived on the other side of Harley, Henry Baberfield. Henry was a Vietnam Veteran who had never been married. According to Gretel, he was a womanizer in his day, but that didn’t seem to deter her. Harley had no idea how old Henry was, but could guess he was probably around the same age as Gretel.
Living where she did, tucked between two octogenarians, suited Harley just fine. She was socially awkward and preferred her video games to people. The computer couldn’t hurt her like people did. She’d learned a long time ago, however, to not take shit from anyone. So what if she was a nerd? So what if she was an introvert? There was no rule that said every human on earth had to be outgoing and beautiful. And when push came to shove, Harley would bet that most of the people who gave her pitying looks probably had kids who played her video games. It was money in her pocket, and that went a long way toward making her not as sensitive anymore to the looks and comments she got.
Harley shut the door and went back into her office. She had a ton of questions she wanted to research about skydiving and how it all worked. She only had a few days to get everything together before her adventure. As much as she’d talked her brother and sister into accepting what she was going to do, deep down, Harley wasn’t sure she really should do it. But Activision had recently hired a new batch of developers and she didn’t want to be left in the dust. She had to do something to impress her boss, and making the troop drop in the latest War game was just the thing. She wanted it to be visually stunning and make the player feel as if they were actually parachuting down onto the battlefield.
It was a great idea—she just had to have the courage to go through with it.
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