In the next scene they were speeding down an empty highway, and Eddie was filming from the back of Billie’s bike as Dare pulled his legs up, crouching on the seat, and swung his feet up and over the handlebars. A few seconds later, he pulled his legs back and kicked them out behind him, his body flying above the bike, parallel to the road, doing the Superman stunt. From there he sat back down and did a wheelie, and then he brought his feet up and stood on the seat, flying down the highway on one wheel.
Billie’s hands were sweating, a mixture of anxiety and excitement coursing through her.
The movie went to her last professional motocross race. She was decked out in her racing outfit and holding her helmet as Eddie announced, “You haven’t seen a race until you’ve witnessed the one and only Billie ‘Badass’ Mancini, the fiercest woman to ever ride—”
“Person to ever ride,” Billie corrected him on-screen.
“She’s right, folks,” Eddie said with a laugh. “Mancini is the fiercest, and most beautiful, motocross racer the sport has ever seen, and she’s going to walk away with the trophy.”
Dare’s face appeared over Billie’s shoulder, and he said, “Damn right she is!”
The camera zoomed in on Billie, and off camera, Eddie said, “What are you waiting for, Billie? Get out there and show the world what you’ve got.” He cut to the race, and as she watched, Billie could still feel the adrenaline rushing through her, still hear the roar of her engine and the pounding of blood in her ears. She was neck and neck with two other racers, and as they neared the finish line, she crouched lower, giving it everything she had as she flew past them, taking the win. The camera panned to Dare, fists shooting up as he hollered, “Way to go, Mancini!” and took off running toward the track. Eddie was on his heels, filming and cheering, “That’s our girl!” as Billie climbed off her bike and whipped off her helmet, shouting, “Daredevils rule!” Dare swept her into his arms and spun her around. She beamed at the camera, waving Eddie over as Dare shouted, “Get in here, Daredevil!” Eddie filmed the three of them from arm’s length, hugging and laughing, their faces going in and out of the camera as he pressed his lips to hers and said, “Congratulations, baby!”
Tears slid down Billie’s cheeks, and Dare held her tight as Eddie said, “Not all stunts went as planned, but that’s the risk you take when you’re a daredevil.”
Outtakes played in rapid succession: Billie falling off her bike after a jump, doing a flip off a rope and landing in a belly flop in the lake, and stealing Dare’s cowboy hat and sprinting away, only to trip on a rock and land with her face in a puddle.
Billie laughed. It was just like Eddie to inject humor at the perfect time.
She watched Dare skydiving into a tree, trying to do a trick on a horse and falling on his ass, and being chased across the grass by Doc and Cowboy for Lord only knew what. Eddie had caught her and Dare dancing on the Roadhouse bar, laughing hysterically as her father fumed at them to get down. There were clips of Eddie waving his hands, backing away from a cliff where Dare and Billie were going to BASE jump and twisting his ankle on a rut in the dirt, and one of him losing his balance over a ski jump, sending him flailing in the air and landing in a heap in the snow, and another of him walking away from a party at Billie’s parents’ house, talking from behind the camera as he panned the yard. “Where have those two Daredevils gotten off to?” Billie and Dare ran into the camera’s line of sight about thirty feet away from Eddie, heading for Dare’s Chevelle.
Oh my God, Eddie. No. She squeezed Dare’s hand.
“There they are,” Eddie said. “Let’s go see what kind of trouble they’re getting into.” Just as Eddie said it, Cowboy stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks, and blocking the camera with his hand. “Dude, come on!” Eddie complained, wrestling the camera away and turning it on Cowboy’s stoic face, as Cowboy’s deep voice vibrated off the screen. “We need you in the backyard with that thing. Someone’s doing a flip off the roof.” The camera shook as Eddie said, “What? Someone’s crazier than Dare?” He turned the camera on himself as he hurried away and said, “Mission aborted. We’ll catch up with those two troublemakers later. Hopefully they won’t get in over their heads.”
Billie watched in stunned silence as the song “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” came on. The movie faded back to Eddie swaggering onto the screen at the old dirt bike trails where the movie had begun, and he said, “Legend has it, if you pinkie swear in a barn on a hot summer’s day, you’re friends for life. I was lucky enough to have been near the right barn at the right time, so here’s a piece of advice. If a pretty, smart-assed girl and a tough, big-mouthed boy tug you into a barn and say, You’re gonna be our best friend, take the risk and say okay. It doesn’t matter if you’re an only child from a quiet household and you have no idea how you’ll keep up, because once you pinkie swear, those ballsy kids will always have your back. This movie is dedicated to the two daredevils who have always had mine.” As lyrics rang out about collecting memories and something unpredictable being right, his expression turned thoughtful. “While you’re out there thinking about the tattoo we never got and the stunts yet to come, make the most of every minute, because as you two taught me, we can never get them back. Be happy, mad, ridiculous, sad. Be whatever you need to be, and never stop having the time of your lives. I know I am, thanks to the two of you.” He patted his chest over his heart, and his fist shot up toward the sky as he hollered, “Daredevils rule!”
Tears flowed down Billie’s cheeks, and she swiped at them as the credits rolled, naming Eddie Baker as the writer, director, and producer, followed by a note that said, THERE ARE NO ACTORS TO NAME, BECAUSE NONE OF US WERE ACTING. Beneath that was UNFORGETTABLE DAREDEVILS: BILLIE “BADASS” MANCINI AND DEVLIN “DARE” WHISKEY.
Dare turned off the movie and reached up to wipe her tears. “You hate crying.”
“No shit,” she mumbled to try to thwart her emotions. “Ever since you dropped out of the sky and into my life, it seems like all I do is cry.” She sighed heavily and rested her head on his shoulder. “What are you doing to me, Whiskey? That was…”
“Emotional overload?”
She nodded. “I feel so much, and everything conflicts.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” She grabbed an Oreo and bit into it. “It’s just that back then, there were times when I was nervous when we did stunts, but it was more heightened anticipation than fear. But did you see the things we did?”
“I’ve watched it a hundred times.”
“We were reckless.”
“We were fearless,” he countered as she finished her cookie and snagged another.
“They go hand in hand. I wish we could go back and start over so Eddie was still here, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want to have missed any of that, except…” Eddie’s accident. “Well, you know. We had the greatest time. We always thought we were invincible. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Eddie thought he’d go out there and do that flip on the bike and maybe come out with an inflated ego or a broken arm.”