The Spiral Down (The Fall Up #2)(16)

He wasn’t mad. That was just how we worked.

The other way we worked was that I knew with an absolute certainty he’d ensure Evan Roth was added to my payroll no matter the cost.





“’SUP, MAN!” SCOTT said, clasping my hand then pulling me in for a one-armed hug.

I closed my front door behind him. “Not a whole lot. Want a beer?”

He looked around my house. “Where’s Nikki?”

Good f*cking question.

We hadn’t spoken since our fight two days earlier. Was that a fight? Breakup was more like it. I wasn’t ready to admit that yet. I’d called her at least a dozen times, but I’d only allowed myself to leave six messages. Clearly, that was the magical number that toed the line between concerned ex-boyfriend and stalker douchebag ex-boyfriend. She would probably disagree as she deleted them all without even listening though.

Her stuff was still at my apartment. Bobby pins still strewn over my sink and her toothbrush still sat cozied in a cup next to mine. The pajamas I’d stripped off her during our last night together were still in my laundry hamper and the book she’d been reading was still on the nightstand. She hadn’t been back while I was gone, and a part of me was almost relieved. I hated it though. I wanted to talk to her, but I had resigned myself to accept that that conversation wasn’t going to have some grand outcome. It was still going to end with her being gone and hopefully moving on with her life. Leaving me alone with the impossible task of finally figuring my own out.

“Nikki and I broke up.” There. I’d said it. And it’d sucked every bit as much as I’d anticipated.

Scott blew out a low whistle. “Was that mutual or more of a crash and burn?”

I swayed my head from side to side. “Debatable. Honestly, the whole relationship was a crash and burn from the start.”

“What? I thought you guys were good together.” He settled on a barstool. “She was a cool chick. And one hell of a cook.” He moaned and rolled his eyes back in his head. “That bacon cream cheese shit she made last time I was here. Damn. I’m gonna come just thinking about it. Hey. Can I get her number?” he joked.

I made my way to my fridge to retrieve a couple of beers. “Shut the f*ck up, dickhead. I made that bacon cream cheese shit.” I twisted the top off, passed him a bottle, and then propped my hip against the counter next to him. “You want my number? I’ll slather that shit all over my balls for you.”

“Fucker.” He clinked the bottom of his beer on the mouth of mine, causing it to foam out of control.

I quickly moved it to the sink. “Come on, man. Seriously?”

“Don’t joke when it comes to food.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right.”

“So, now that you’re single, I think it’s only fitting we hit the bars.”

Scott’s desire to go out had nothing to do with my relationship status. Regardless if I was with a woman or not, his visits always consisted of the two of us going out, getting wasted, and then grabbing a cab home. He’d crash in my guest room until we’d slept the booze off, and then we’d spend the following day miserable while our bodies reminded us that we were in fact thirty-one and not twenty-one anymore.

However, minus the hangover, it’d pretty much been the same thing we’d done when we had been twenty-one.

I’d met Scott Dalton my first day at the Air Force Academy. He hadn’t changed much since then. He was bigger than the eighteen-year-old kid he’d been when we’d met. And the tattoos covering his arms were definitely additions, but besides that, he was still that same guy with the buzzed, brown hair and a wicked glimmer in his pale, green eyes. We’d been close at school. But we were closer now. He was one of the few who’d kept in touch with me after I’d left the Academy the summer before my junior year.

Eventually, we’d been stationed together at Travis Air Force Base and picked right back up where we’d left off. He was a pilot too, but unlike me, he was a lifer. The Air Force was going to have to force him into retirement before he’d ever agree to take the uniform off.

During the first few months after I’d gotten out of the service, Scott had made the ninety-minute trek from Travis to visit me nearly every weekend. He’d never admit it, but I think he was secretly worried about my transition into the civilian world. He’d seen how hard it had been for me almost a decade earlier when I’d transferred from the Air Force Academy to the University of California. I appreciated the fact that he cared enough to check up on me. I didn’t need it though. My decision to get out of the Air Force wasn’t even remotely similar to when I’d left the Academy.

This time, it had been my decision.

I’d spent months planning every last step to make it as smooth of a transition as possible. I’d taken my VA loan out, bought a house, and threw myself into making sure all of my licenses were up to date. It wasn’t long before I’d lined up a job with an airline. With as fickle as the economy was, it was a dream come true.

And short-lived.

Three days before I was released from the Air Force, the airline went belly-up.

I scrambled, but it was as though I were drowning in quicksand. The harder I fought, the more impossible finding a job became. There were more than enough desperate pilots searching for work without adding me into the mix. Scott was the only one who saw the hell I was going through. His answer was to ply me with alcohol every weekend to keep me distracted. That’s what best friends do. Even *s like Scott Dalton.