We are parked on the grass, so I just get out to make sure there aren’t any gopher holes or puddles or surprise cliffs or anything. Chelsea emerges, shielding her eyes with her hand. She lets out a low whistle.
“Okay, I was not expecting that,” she admits.
The driver hands me a blanket, that I hand to her. She searches my face, smiling in disbelief.
“Oh, I was totally expecting this,” Jack boasts.
The field is enormous, bordered by woods that are probably a quarter mile away in any direction. Hot air balloons are placed strategically in quadrants, with their baskets on the ground, tethered by ropes. We head for a pink balloon, decorated with a giant rose. The captain waves to us over his head as we approach. I keep an eye on Chelsea out of the corner of my eye, happy to see that she is breathless and excited.
“Captain Murdoch, good to see you,” I announce, shaking his hand.
He smiles at all of us, his cheeks permanently sunburned, his sky-blue eyes squinted and full of laughter. Before he leaves the gondola, he hits the engine one more time, sending a blast of flame into the balloon above us, filling it with hot air. The basket rocks against the earth, ready to take off.
“Oh my God, this is amazing,” Chelsea sighs as she boards the gondola, her hand trailing along the top of the basket, holding on.
“Well, now that you have overcome your fear of flying…”
She gasps, slightly embarrassed by the memory. Her eyes flicker toward the captain, who obviously doesn’t know what we’re talking about.
Captain Murdoch latches the basket behind us, offering me a smart salute before turning around and walking back across the field to the tethers, undoing the first two with efficient snaps of his wrists.
Chelsea shakes her head, gripping the supports. Jack leans in the corner with his arms folded across his chest and his ankles crossed nonchalantly. His smile is twisted in a diagonal smirk.
“Um, you guys?” Chelsea asks nervously as she hangs on. “Are we… Um, is the captain coming back?”
I lean in close, supporting the back of her neck as I close my mouth over hers, equally turned on by her mingled smells of desire and mild terror. With a smirk, I pull away and then get on the engine lever again, sending another roar of flame upward.
“Chance!” she exclaims, clawing at my chest urgently. “What are you doing? Wait for the captain!”
“I am the captain,” I smile, tremendously pleased with myself, if I am being honest.
“Wh-What??” she stammers, and now her fingers are actually digging into my flesh, like, dangerously so.
“Chance is licensed as a hot air balloon captain,” Jack laughs from the other side of the gondola. “Cool surprise, huh?”
“You’re what?” she gasps, but her fingers loosen as she reads the expression on my face. “Seriously? You seriously know what you’re doing??”
“Take a look, Princess,” I shrug, jerking my chin to the space beyond us.
Practically quaking in her sandals, she forces herself to pivot toward the outside. I hear her gasp, and it just fills me with pride.
“Oh, oh my God,” she says, awestruck as we rise above the field, propelled by the air in the balloon. “Oh, this is amazing!”
“Well, let me know if you get too chilly,” I smile.
“What? No… I’m just… seriously, Chance, I’m totally gobsmacked!”
“Gobsmacked? Is that a word?” Jack chuckles, stepping behind her and caging her hands against the rail. He dips his head to double the exposed part of her neck and shoulder and she arches into him, sighing.
“Can you think of a better word?” she asks softly.
The pastoral beauty of the landscape sways beneath us as I pilot us straight up, keeping an eye on the altimeter. I don’t have to worry about wandering too far off course since there is no real wind today. But I do want to get us to a nice, convenient altitude.
“Well, we did promise you a weekend of rich-kid fun, didn’t we?” I ask.
She smiles brilliantly, holding her hair to the side with one hand.
“You never disappoint, Chance!”