☼ ☾ ✩

𝟕... 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫

☼ ☾ ✩

Matt's thigh is glued to my own, my body naturally gravitating closer to him rather than sitting leg to leg with the fully grown man on my right. Chris, Nick, and the man's wife are in the row of the van behind us, and another three people sit behind them. The driver and a single pilot are in the front of the van, and the remaining pilots are trudging up the mountain in a car behind us.

The van bumps along the mountain road, but I am not paying much attention to my surroundings, instead focusing on setting up the various cameras in my lap. Chris and I will both have a go-pro attached to our helmets to get aerial shots, and each of our pilots will have their own go-pro on tripods and will film us experiencing the flight.

The pilot in the passenger seat, Kurtis, just finished rambling off all the rules and instructions, so we are ready to take to the sky once we get to the take-off point. Nick and Chris are avidly chatting, as are the rest of the people in the car, but Matt is quiet beside me, anxiously chewing on his nails.

"You okay?" I question, my voice loud enough for Matt's ears only.

He avoids my gaze as he nods. "Yup."

I accept his answer and don't push, instead asking him to tell me more about tour. That effectively distracts him for the rest of our fifteen minute drive up the mountain, and soon enough, we are unloading from the van and getting set up on the side of a cliff.

We are each assigned a pilot and given a helmet and an extra jacket, since it can get quite chilly up in the air. While Kurtis, who is flying with Matt and I, sets up the parachute, I help Chris set up my go-pro on his helmet.

"It's already filming, and your pilot will do the rest, so you don't have to worry about anything." I straighten the camera on Chris's helmet before releasing his head from my grasp. "You guys excited?"

"I'm really fucking nervous," Chris admits, glancing at Nick, who nods in agreement.

"Matt looks like he's going to cry." Nick gestures to where Matt is hovering near Kurtis, his gaze fixed on the horizon as he chews on his bottom lip.

My heart clenches, a mixture of anxiety on Matt's behalf and guilt at forcing him to do this washing over me. "I'm going to head back over there. But have so much fun! I promise you guys are going to love it." I grin and wave goodbye at Nick and Chris before jogging back towards Matt, who has just dropped into a crouch, his head in his hands.

"Hey," I crouch down beside him, gently resting my hand on his shoulder. "What's going through your head?"

"I don't like feeling this scared," Matt mumbles, his voice slightly trembling. "And I don't like that you're seeing me like this."

"Remember what I said. You don't ever need to worry about how you portray yourself around me," I remind him, keeping my voice soft like I'm talking to an anxious Mason or a spiralling Vienna. I catch Kurtis' eyes over Matt's shoulder and he gives me a thumbs up to signal that he's ready. I hold up my pointer finger, telling him we will just be a minute. "It's not too late to back out if you really don't feel comfortable doing this, but I think you can do it. You're brave, Matt. You can do this."

Matt nods stiffly, sucking in a slow breath. "I can do this."

I rub his shoulder as he takes a few more deep breaths, and when I hear a warning of incoming, I gently tighten my grip on Matt's shoulder. "Look, here goes the first group."

Matt lifts his head and we both watch as the pilot and married couple run to the edge of the cliff, the parachute streaming out behind them. When they reach the side of the mountain, they all lift their feet, and they're off. Just like that.

"See?" I whisper. "They didn't even waver. It's a steady transition. And I am telling you, you will be shocked at how sturdy it feels once you're in your seat in the air. It seriously feels like you're sitting on a chair on the ground."

Matt nods again before rising to his feet. "I'm ready."

I stand beside him, smiling in encouragement. "You're going to do great."

We head back over to Kurtis to get strapped in. Kurtis is in the back, Matt is in the middle, and I am in the front.

"There go your friends!" Kurtis points, and I grin when I see Nick, Chris and their pilot running for the edge of the cliff to become airborne. "You guys ready?"

Matt and I both chime yes, and while Kurtis yells to the others that we're about to go, I look over my shoulder at Matt. "Deep breaths." I meet his eyes and offer him a bright smile. "I'll be right here."

Kurtis hands me his tripod to hold to film our take-off, since he needs both hands. "Alright, when I say go, we will start running. And when I say now, lift your feet and sit down. Ready? Go!"

The three of us start awkwardly running across the trodden grass beneath us, not moving very fast since we are all strapped together. But I hear the parachute fly up behind us, and a giddy smile blooms across my face. Fuck, yeah.

"Now!" Kurtis yells as we approach the edge of the cliff. I lift my feet and sit down, and we are instantly swooping off the edge of the mountain, airborne.

"Holy shit," Matt gasps as Kurtis swoops us to the side to avoid a large cloud.

Unable to retain my bubbly laugh, I stick my free hand behind me, and Matt immediately latches onto it in a death grip. "You're okay, Matt. Look around! Take it in!"

I hand Kurtis back the tripod once he is situated, and immediately take a deep breath of fresh mountain air, a brilliant smile stretched across my face. The sun is streaming through the clouds that spot the blue sky surrounding us. The mountains stretch along our right side, covered in various shades of greenery, and the ocean extends out to our left, whitecaps covering the surface. The wind whistles past, and a slight chill settles over my skin, but the happiness bursting in my chest cannot be dampened by anything. Nothing beats this feeling.

Matt's hand is tightly gripping my own, his fingers interlaced with mine, and I look over my shoulder at him again, grinning when I see the look of awe on his face as he takes in the world around him. "This is incredible," he gapes, his breath flowing steadily.

"I told you." I beam at him before turning back around to continue marvelling at the beautiful creation surrounding me.

"Smile for pictures!" Kurtis calls, and I spin my head to beam at the camera on his tripod. "Do you guys like roller coasters?" he questions.

I know what Kurtis is hinting at since my pilot from the first time I went paragliding offered me the same experience, and a rush of adrenaline rushes through me. Please God, let Matt like roller coasters.

"Yeah," Matt says suspiciously. "Why?"

"I can make our ride feel like a bit of a roller coaster," Kurtis explains. "We can drop a bit and do spins. But only if you're comfortable."

Matt hesitates for a second before agreeing. "Yeah, okay." His grip immediately tightens on my hand, and I squeeze back in hopes of reassuring him.

"Let me know if you want to stop, okay?" Kurtis calls over the wind. "Here we go!"

We immediately drop through the air and my stomach drops to my feet, my heart racing with elation. Kurtis soon levels us out, but he is quick to spin us around in some sharp turns, adding a few drops here and there. I am giggling with glee, and when I hear Matt laugh behind me, my smile grows even wider.

Too soon, Kurtis levels us out again, as we are drawing near the beach where we will be landing. I can already see the married couple on the ground, and Nick and Chris are about to land.

"This is awesome," Matt declares as he squeezes my hand, not unlacing his fingers from my own.

"I told you!" I laugh, my eyes greedily drinking in the beauty around me. I don't want it to end already.

Kurtis circles above the beach once to give Nick and Chris' pilot more time to land, but soon enough, we are coming in fast to the beach. "Once we hit the ground, run a few steps to slow us down!" Kurtis instructs.

Matt releases my hand to prepare for landing as the ground rises up beneath us. My feet hit the ground, but as soon as I take my first step, my ankle buckles and I stumble to the ground, pulling Matt and Kurtis down with me. Matt lands straight on top of me with a groan, but Kurtis manages to catch himself, hovering in an awkward position above mine and Matt's tangled limbs.

"Fuck," I groan, pain flickering up my leg from my ankle.

"Are you okay?" Matt questions frantically, quickly lifting himself off of me and extending his hand to help me to my feet.

"Yeah, I'm good." I inhale a deep breath as I stand, gingerly testing my weight on my ankle. "Sorry, guys. My ankle totally just gave out."

"It's okay, don't worry," Kurtis assures me as his fingers rapidly move to undo his harness. "Are you sure you're alright?"

My ankle lightly throbs when I put my weight on it, causing me to wince and instantly shift my weight to my other leg. "It hurts, but it's not bad."

"Take your harness off and sit, I'll take a peek at it," Kurtis instructs before departing to roll up the parachute.

Matt slides out of his harness and takes off his helmet, running his hand through his hair as he watches me worriedly as I rid myself of my own equipment.

"Matt, I'm fine," I laugh at the concerned young man hovering beside me. "Stop looking at me like I'm going to collapse."

"You literally just collapsed." Matt raises his eyebrows at me, but a tiny grin emerges on his face.

"How did you like paragliding?" I change the subject as I tug off my helmet, careful not to let it catch on my braids. I make quick work of unfastening my go-pro from the helmet, raising the camera to catch Matt's next words.

"I loved it," Matt admits shyly. "It was incredible."

"I told you!" I beam at him, overjoyed that he liked it so much.

"Logan! Matt!" Nick shouts as him and Chris trod across the sand to join us.

"That was fucking awesome!" Chris hoots, launching onto Matt, who barely catches himself from falling over.

"It was incredible," Nick agrees, beaming at me. "Thanks for forcing us to do this."

"Of course!" I grin, pleased that all the boys had a good time.

"Logan! Sit!" Kurtis barks, walking back towards us. Matt takes the camera from my hands and passes it off to Nick to film as I get my ankle checked.

"Why are you sitting?" Chris questions as I drop my equipment in the bag that Kurtis brings over before hobbling a couple feet away to plop down in the sand.

"She ate it on the landing," Matt chuckles, his worry apparently having faded now that he's realized I'm fine.

"Of course you did," Nick snorts. "I'm surprised you didn't spontaneously combust in the air."

"That is a crazy thing to say." I roll my eyes as I tug off my hiking boot so Kurtis can inspect my ankle. "I do not always get in accidents."

"Yes, you do," all three boys reply simultaneously.

"I hate you all," I grumble, fixing my gaze on Kurtis as he gently pokes my ankle, answering him when he asks where it hurts and allowing him to move it in a few rotations.

"I think it will be fine," he shrugs, straightening back up to his full height. "Just seems like you twisted it. I would suggest staying off it for a couple days. No big movements, and maybe avoid driving if you can."

My brow instantly furrows in a frown. Staying off my feet and not driving is impossible. "But-"

"Sounds good, thank you so much Kurtis," Matt interrupts, reaching down to help pull me to my feet. "We had a great time today."

I grumble at being cut off, but I grab Matt's hands to let him help me up. I balance my weight on my left leg, gritting my teeth at the growing pain in my right ankle.

"Of course!" Kurtis smiles at us. "If you just walk across this strip of beach, the building where you checked in earlier is right over there. You can get your shoes and any other stuff you left, plus the videos off my go-pro."

"Thanks, Kurtis! Have a good day!" I wave goodbye as he leaves to finish packing up, and Nick, Chris, Matt, and I head in the other direction off the beach. Nick passes me both of my go-pros, pausing filming for the time being.

"I can drive back," Matt states, clearly not voicing it as a question.

"I'm fine!" I groan, trying to disguise my limp. Fuck, my ankle hurts. "It's not that bad."

"Girl, you're literally limping." Nick laughs when I flip him off.

"It's like you're a pirate with a bum leg." Chris dramatically imitates my walk, hobbling in front of us and laughing at himself.

"Let me help you." Matt's low voice meets my ears, his words not loud enough to reach his brothers.

"I don't need help." I brush him off, continuing to limp forward. We have reached the end of the beach, and I can see the paragliding centre a couple minutes down the road. The beach parking lot is spotted with a handful of cars, but we don't run into anyone as we head down the path.

"Logan." Matt gently grabs my elbow, pulling me to a stop. Nick and Chris don't notice, continuing down the path engaged in a heated conversation.

"Yes?" I resist the urge to sigh. I just want to get to the car and sit down.

Matt turns me to face him, his eyes searching my own. "Why won't you let me help you? And don't give me a bullshit answer about not needing help. I can see that you're in pain."

I don't hold back my sigh this time, my gaze shifting away from Matt to look at the waves crashing onto the beach. "I'm not used to people helping me," I answer stiffly. Fuck me for telling Matt something I shouldn't be again, but as much as it physically pains me to share about anything even remotely related to my family, part of me wants to talk to him about things I shouldn't. "I'm good at taking care of others. But having others take care of me is..." I trail off, uncertain of how to end my sentence. Letting others take care of me just feels wrong. I'm supposed to be the brave one, the steady presence for others to lean on. I have to be able to hold myself up.

"I get it." Matt's voice draws my attention back to his face. "But remember what you said to me about not needing to worry about how I present myself? The same goes for you. Relationships are about give and take. You can't just give all the time. You helped me up on the mountain, so let me help you now." When I hesitate, Matt narrows his eyes at me, the arrogant, full of himself Matt that I first met emerging. "I'm not asking, Logan. I'm going to help you get to the car, and I'm going to drive home. Okay?"

"Okay," I mumble reluctantly. "But I'm not happy about it."

"Didn't say you had to be." Matt snakes his arm around my waist, supporting some of my weight to make hobbling back to the car easier.

His grip is firm on my waist, and despite fighting so hard to avoid his help, I find myself willingly leaning into him. "Thank you," I whisper, my heart stuttering nervously.

"Anytime," Matt grins at me before guiding us the rest of the way to my car. Nick and Chris disappeared inside the paragliding centre already, but I am more than happy to sit and wait.

"Give me your boots and I'll get your shoes," Matt instructs once I am settled in the passenger seat.

A sense of disgust with myself for needing to rely on Matt settles over me, and I pull off the paragliding company's boots, silently handing them to Matt.

"I can see that you're beating yourself up. Stop it," Matt huffs as he takes the boots.

I gape at him, my stomach fluttering with butterflies. "How the hell do you seem to always know what I'm thinking?"

Matt smirks, walking backwards away from the car. "It's my superpower."

"Well, I fucking hate it!" I call after him.

"Good!" Matt winks at me before spinning around and heading inside the building.

"Fucking asshole," I mutter under my breath as I slam the car door shut and pop my foot up on the dashboard to elevate it. I wince at the sight of the swollen ankle and quickly avert my gaze out my window. I shouldn't even be surprised; it seems like the universe is just having a ball of a time making me repeatedly embarrass myself in front of Matt. Yay me.

The triplets soon return to the car, Chris having obtained the go-pro footage from the pilots, and Matt carrying my sneakers. I scowl when Matt smugly climbs into the driver's seat, even going as far to flip me off after I give him the keys.

"Before we go, I need an outro." I lean forward to set up my regular vlog camera on the dash, and once it starts filming, I turn as best as I can with my foot still elevated to look at Nick and Chris in the back. "What did you think?"

"It was actually incredible!" Nick exclaims. "I seriously was not expecting to enjoy it so much."

"You were right about it feeling super sturdy once you're in the air." Chris fist bumps me, a wide grin stretched across his face.

"It was beautiful to see the world like that," Matt joins the conversation. "Whatever shit he did to imitate a roller coaster was awesome."

"Our pilot started to do it, but Chris immediately flipped out and demanded he stop," Nick sniggers.

"Shut up!" Chris wacks Nick across the chest, smirking when Nick swears in pain. "I heard you stop breathing after that first drop."

"But good experience overall?" I question, my gaze shifting to Matt.

"One hundred percent," Matt says instantly, his brothers agreeing with him. "However, it would've been better if you hadn't fucked up your ankle on landing."

"You should have seen it coming, let's be so for real." I raise my eyebrows at him before turning to grin at the camera, quickly outroing the video. Once I shut the camera off, I slump back in my seat. "I need food," I announce, my stomach rumbling loudly.

"Fuck, yes!" Chris agrees.

"There's a McDonald's nearby," Nick reads off his phone.

"McDonald's it is." Matt starts the car and eases it out of the parking lot.

"If you crash my car, I'll kill you," I warn him, watching carefully as he turns onto the main road.

"Noted," Matt rolls his eyes, paying me little attention as he focuses on the road.

I grumble in annoyance, but continue to watch him as he drives. The first time I was in his car, I was rather distracted by the absurdity of the situation, but now that I am comfortable around Matt, I can recognize how fucking attractive he looks when he is driving. And shame me on me for being attracted to a man who is doing something for me, but fuck, it's hot.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Matt quips, shooting me a quick smirk.

I immediately groan, Nick and Chris both sniggering in the backseat before resuming their own conversation. "That line is so overused. And I'm only watching to make sure you don't ruin my car."

"Keep telling yourself that, Sunshine." Matt's gaze lingers on me for a heartbeat, his smirk reflecting in his eyes, before he looks back to the road.

"You're annoying as fuck," I mutter, tugging my phone out of my glove box where I left it while paragliding.

"Better get used to it," Matt's voice drips with confidence. "You're stuck with me now."

Fuck my life.

ミ 𝗂𝗇𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗀𝗋𝖺𝗆 彡

logancastillo has added to their story!

cara's obsession ♡︎

i am CRUSHING school right now. seriously killing it. i am a champion. here's to hopefully passing all my classes💪🏼 (for once i'm not being sarcastic, big shocker i know)

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