Below me, the Côte d’Azur unfolded like a postcard. The famous hotels of Nice gleamed white against the shoreline, their windows catching the afternoon sun. Palm trees lined the Promenade des Anglais, and I could make out tiny figures of people walking, jogging, cycling—all of them bound to the earth while I soared above it all.
This is what Ray feels,I thought suddenly.This is what he’s been chasing all these years.
For the first time, I understood his need for physical challenges, his restless pursuit of new experiences. It wasn’t just about proving his masculinity or fighting age—it was about thisfeeling, this sense of being fully alive, fully present in your own body and the moment.
I thought about all the times I’d rolled my eyes at his training schedules, his expensive gear, his weekend races. I’d seen them as selfish indulgences, ways of avoiding the mundane responsibilities of our shared life. But floating here, suspended between sea and sky, I realized they were something else entirely—Ray’s way of touching something transcendent, of remembering that he was more than just a husband and father and provider.
The wind shifted, and I swayed to the left, my body instinctively adjusting to maintain balance. Below me, the speedboat looked like a toy, cutting a white wake through the blue water. Ray was still watching, one hand gripping the rail. Even from this height, I could read the tension in his posture.
He’s afraid,I realized. Not of the height or the equipment or the possibility of mechanical failure—Ray trusted machines and physics and his own physical capabilities. He was afraid of losing me. The way he said he felt at the bungee jump.
The boat began to slow, and I felt the parasail start to descend. The water rushed up to meet me faster than I’d expected, and I had a moment of panic before my feet touched the surface. The Mediterranean was surprisingly warm, and I was laughing as the crew hauled me back toward the boat.
Ray was there at the gunwale, reaching down to grab my hands as I was pulled from the water. His grip was firm, almost desperate, and when I looked up into his face, I saw something I hadn’t seen in months—absolute, unguarded relief.
“Welcome back to earth,” he said, but his voice was thick with emotion.
As the crew helped me out of the harness, Ray wrapped me in a towel that felt like an embrace. “You did it,” he said, his arms coming around me. “You actually did it.”
“I can’t believe I just did that,” I gasped, adrenaline still coursing through my system. “That was... that was incredible.”
“You looked amazing up there,” Ray said, his hands rubbing my shoulders through the towel. “Like you were born for it.”
But there was something else in his voice, and while his smile was genuine, his eyes held shadows I was only beginning to recognize.
“Ray?” I prompted. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head quickly. “Nothing’s wrong. That was perfect. You were perfect.”
“Tell me,” I said softly.
Ray glanced around at the crew members who were busy preparing for the next customer, then looked back at me. “When you were up there, I realized that you were enjoying the experience, and that I had to stop protecting you from doing things that challenge you. We’re both the same that way. You usually get your kicks from books and computer code, but there’s no reason why you can’t fly now and then.”
Other tourists chatted and laughed around us, but we existed in our own bubble of heightened awareness.
The boat was heading back toward shore now, the medieval walls of the Old City growing larger as we approached the harbor. Soon we’d be back on solid ground, racing toward the next challenge, caught up again in the competition and strategy of the game.
As we climbed off the boat and collected our next clue, I felt different somehow. Lighter, despite the weight of everything we still had to work through. The parasail had carried me high above the Mediterranean for twenty minutes, but the conversation afterward had lifted something even more important—the possibility that Ray and I might learn to fly together again.
Chapter 26
More Important than Mountains
We picked up our direction card from a display next to the parasail dock. “Head across the street to the ZipGo car rental, and drive to the ski resort of Isola 2000,” it read. “Remember, because this is a Double Drop two teams will be eliminated at the Stop’n’Go.”
“Ski resort,” Ray read. “Awesome.” He looked up at the mountains behind the city. How far is it, though?”
“We’ll get a map at the rental car place,” I said.
It was another stick shift. “Imagine how much trouble the other teams are going to have trouble with all these hills,” Ray said, as he applied the clutch to downshift.
“Good thing you know what you’re doing,” I said.
“I can smell the mountains. God, it’s good to be home.”
I laughed. “We’re actually about five thousand miles from Miami.”
“You know what I mean. I’m a mountain boy at heart.”
