Page 34 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Agonizing seconds passed. “Munch and Wyn’s wedding,” he put her out of her misery. “Come outside for a minute before I say hi to the kids and leave. I won’t take Doll from your party. I’ll just pop in for a second. But step outside first.”

The tingles on her scalp started. Only Vin could make her feel like she was standing in two places at once.

A battle Tahli understood more with time—the real world and the world their parachute had gotten stuck in.

Her planet was behind her at this party.

But Vin, at this doorway, was enticing her away from it.

“Why?”

“Ten minutes.”

Tahli’s heart skipped.

“I can’t.” She peeked back. “I have–”

“He doesn’t even know you’re gone,” Vin said it so brazenly, it parted her lips. “I can speak more on that, but I won’t.”

Tahli rushed to defense. “I told you… We’re just friends.”

Vin shrugged a shoulder, peeking at his buzzing phone before silencing it.

“Even when I was your friend, Tahli…I was always aware where you were in the room.”

Her cheeks flamed. So much so, she pressed fingers to her skin to cool them.

“How am I ever gonna co-parent with you?” She mainly muttered to herself, but it still made him chuckle.

“Just come outside. Five minutes.”

“No.”

“Three?” He was a businessman. A negotiator.

A fucking pest when he wanted something that Dalvin Hayes.

Like the beach house in LBI, he talked the owner down from $700,000 to just over half a million the day after the hurricane hit—his favorite house-hunting time.

Now, the property from the view alone was worth 2.

1 million. That was Dali’s property. Each child had one.

She wondered if DJ did. Of course, he did.

“Vin, I’ll go grab the kids so you can say hi.” The thought of DJ locked her body up. Tahli started her shaky step off.

“Come smoke a blunt with me under the stars for old times’ sake.”

She shut her eyes, pulling her lips in.

Motherfucker .

In the upstairs back terrace, Tahli marveled at the twinkle lights flanking the trees.

A marble fountain of cherubs flowed water gently into the sound the trees held, sprinkled with the laughter of inside guests and soft music.

A few patrons lingered far off—a couple near the path bathed in moonlight, and a man smoking a cigarette further down.

But for the most part, they were alone. It was a fever dream.

One of those moments of beauty that didn’t happen enough in life.

The way life should always be. Twinkle lights and mild weather nights with gentle breezes caressing her shoulder in an expensive dress.

Stars in the sky. A scented garden. Lovely and loved.

“You look nice, baby love.” Vin pulled from his jay, squinting at her.

The fire glowed orange under the stars, and Tahli inhaled the dissipating smoke through her nostrils.

“I mean like, fucking…celestial, golden goddess, Aphrodite, Cleopatra shit.” Vin mixed all of that history up and Tahli snorted, trying not to laugh. Or swoon.

“New tat,” he observed, brushing the back of his fingertips across her shoulder, and Tahli shifted, catching an invisible chill.

“Piercing,” he added, tapping her septum ring lightly, dominating her personal space. “You’re like a whole new woman.”

Her eyes shifted to his under moonlight.

“Or the same one. You remind me of the girl I met at that barbecue.”

“I am not the girl at the barbecue,” Tahli shook her head gently. “And I am not the woman you were married to for fifteen years. I am something else, now. A different version of them both.”

His stare revealed comprehension.

“At your doing…and my own,” Tahli admitted, causing Vin to nod, eyes lowering to the ground with the next hit of weed he took.

“You sent Robin Thicke,” Tahli accused, though her voice carried a smile. And Vin had one in his stare.

“You like music. I speak your language.”

Tahli snorted.

“One of the few people that’ll play a song on repeat until you understand all of the lyrics. You don’t just listen to music. You devour that shit,” Vin insisted. She didn’t argue against the truth.

“So, what’d he get you?” Vin asked like it burned, handing over the blunt. She accepted it, walking to a nearby bench. Tahli sat on the table, her feet on the part made for sitting. It was her favorite way to board a bench.

Clicking her tongue, she really didn’t want to say. But the more she stalled, the bigger of a deal it would be…Drew’s birthday present.

“Four days…in Negril.” She didn’t have to add that they were going together. Vin wasn’t an imbecile.

She watched Vin bite down on his lip so hard, she thought it would tear off. He looked off, boyish eyes in the distance, nodding in some silent tolerance. Sometimes, he looked like the little boy in Lola’s pictures.

She wondered if that was how he survived prison: the stoic acceptance of punishment he felt he was owed.

“So, you’re enjoying your birthday?” He visibly regrouped, clearing his throat.

“I am.”

“Good.” Vin put less space between them, hands in his suit pockets. “I’m glad.”

She snickered.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just don’t believe you.”

“Why?” She could hear the smirk in his question.

“Gee, I don’t know, Dalvin.” Tahli giggled, giddy from her birthday, being in his familiar energy, and weed. Weed didn’t hurt. “A birthday without you. Why would you want me to enjoy that?”

“If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

Tahli pushed out her lips, nodding.

“Wow. So, we’re two for two with generic-ass slogans.” As she spoke, he closed more distance. She tried not to react to his proximity, especially when he pressed his fists into the bench on either side of her. Those tree-trunk arms apparent even through his dress shirt, holding up his broadness.

“Fake it ‘til you make it, right?” Vin quipped, eyes skipping over her face, like he could fuck her on this table if he decided to. Don’t fall in, Tahli. Not into the spell. Not into the well of his eyes . “Are you?”

“What?” She chuckled nervously. Faking it until she made it? Every day.

“Happy,” he clarified, suspending her. “You happy, baby?” Tahli gulped, eyes settling on his. A shiver coiled her spine as the breeze kissed her shoulder.

“I’m getting there,” she murmured. Vin seemed to process it. Then his pensive gaze went off again before he blew out a defeated gust.

“Damn,” barely audible.

“Dalvin, you’re not responsible for my happiness.”

“I don’t even know who the fuck I am if that’s true.”

That vaporized her.

“You’re a dad. A good one.”

“I fucked that up, too. I was supposed to be better than Milo. You know how many issues my father’s infidelities gave me that I didn’t even connect? I was supposed to break patterns. I ain’t break shit.”

“You’re working on it,” she defended. “You’re transparent. Doll told me about your talks. You’re going to therapy. You’re…changing,” Tahli barely admitted.

Tahli ogled him as he drifted, lost in his mind the way he could go.

Dalvin Hayes could have her now. A man so perceptive yet missing the signs.

In this fragile moment, straddling two worlds, suspended in his parachute, he could probably pick her up and carry her out of here, and Tahli wouldn’t protest.

He had it. Always had it. That thing.

Most women were dying to succumb to it. But it was rare. A man who had it, flawed and all, still benefited. A strong woman like Tahli got drunk on it.

Dalvin had it and she’d known it since Jay’s barbecue.

“Hey, young,” Vin called out to a young boy with dreads dressed in a suit, a professional camera hanging from around his neck. Again, missing the clues. The heat from the flames underneath her dress.

“Let me borrow that for a second,” Vin urged. The kid looked nervous.

“Uh…I don’t wanna get in trouble. I got hired for an event.”

“Here.” Vin reached into his pocket. Tahli wasn’t sure how much he counted off, but he handed it over discreetly. “Two minutes,” he bribed.

The kid unhooked the camera from his neck and handed it over, walking off toward the fountain.

“What are you doing?” Tahli asked, but knew because Vin had already lifted the camera and clicked the first photo without even looking through the viewfinder.

“I love you in this dress. And you’ll never wear it again.”

Tahli’s lips parted slightly. “I’ll wear it again.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll say it’s too fancy for unimportant things and then when something important comes, you’ll use it as an excuse to get a new dress.”

She fought off a smirk. “Shit’s gonna be hanging in the back of the closet until the dinosaurs come back.”

“Dinosaurs aren’t coming back, Vin.”

“Yeah, they are. With Jesus,” Vin quipped.

Tahli tried not to laugh. And he snapped another offhand picture without focusing or looking. There was something sexy about him snapping those pictures uncaring how they’d turn out. As if he knew they were winners no matter the angle.

“Let me capture this real quick.”

Tahli squeezed her thighs together. Vin was a real let me man.

‘Let me eat that pussy real quick’ whispered in her ear while friends and family gathered at their Christmas Eve party, and she would sneak off upstairs with him to allow it. More flicks of the camera, one she pretended not to pose for.

“Ah. There she goes. Big Tah-Tah with the light flex.” She giggled, covering her mouth. After a few more snaps, Vin walked the camera back over to the kid.

“Send that to me,” he instructed as Tahli peered through the shadows, watching the kid take down Vin’s information.

Whoever was hosting the upstairs event was of a different crowd, but likely the same generation. Coldplay faded in after the last unrecognizable song, playing from speakers hidden in the vines.

“This is my shit,” Vin said, taking the seat next to her on top of the bench, shocking Tahli with the revelation.

“What?”

“This song. I fuck with it.”

“When have you ever listened to Coldplay Mr. 90s and 2000s hip-hop?”

He chuckled. “You know what? I don’t even remember where I heard it.

But I just know I looked for it one day after I did, and I played that shit in the whip.

Then it became one of those joints you just play while you’re alone, hitting the blunt.

Especially when I would be away from you, just chilling in my hotel room, or something. It always made me think of you.”

Tahli waited for him to admit he was joking. “Shut up,” she drawled, higher than a minute ago. Vin curved his head to her.

“Dead ass. They were all yellow,” he jokingly mouthed along with the lyrics, blowing her mind. Then he stood and extended his hand.

Tahli remained stuck, cemented to the bench in a daze, until he wiggled his fingers. She shook her head.

“I shouldn’t do that.”

“Spare me,” he begged.

She took his hand, and he pulled her to her feet.

“Your skin… Oh, yeah, your skin and bones,” his lips moved with Coldplay’s voice, and Tahli couldn’t believe this. Any of this. Robin Thicke sang at her party. Vin had sent him. But he wasn’t invited. Because they were divorced.

They were divorced.

And they were dancing to Coldplay.

Coldplay, that he knew the words to.

“How did I not know this?”

“You don’t know everything about me, Tahli Hall.”

“You taking it there?” she scoffed, then watched him cringe. She chuckled. So, they could joke about this now? And…he’d called her Hall. They were there?

Now…they were dancing. Gently swaying to the music with Vin’s strong hands on her arms near her shoulders.

“You know I love you so,” he whispered along with Coldplay, his gaze running from her eyes to her lips and back up to her water-filled pupils. She missed him so much. Too much. Needed the world record on missing someone so hers could be documented.

As the song played, she held Vin’s stare, swaying to a beat they’d made up. But still, in sync with the tune. Love wrapped around them.

“Birthday girl. Look how they shine for you,” was the last thing she saw him mouth before shutting her eyes, trapping in the tears.

What a perfect moment. Her birthday. High. Loved. Weightless.

Twinkle lights and mild nights. Mist from a fountain.

Coldplay.

Vin’s rough fingertips tracing her skin.

Tahli soaked in the feeling, swaying in love’s magic…until her brow wrinkled. She wondered when Vin’s touch had turned over to the breeze kissing her skin once more. She parted her lids to beauty, only now with him removed. The fountain, the twinkle lights, even the song remained.

But he was gone.

A deep breath confirmed the lingering weed smoke and his cologne. As Coldplay sang the final notes of Yellow, Tahli stood alone in the garden, holding onto a memory that disappeared as quickly as it came.

And just as quickly, it was missed.

And all the things that you do…