Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(2)
The Strip had seemed like a good idea four hours ago, but I was tired and now I just wanted to collapse in the suite we’d booked at the Venetian. I’d flown four sorties leading up to today, each one more demanding than the last. Today’s double turn had topped me out at six flights this week, and my body definitely felt it. I was tired, my schedule screwed six ways to Sunday, and right now I was far less concerned with getting laid than I was with getting more than five hours of sleep.
Our commander, Joker, was on my ass for the squadron to perform well at Red Flag—our international mock war held at Nellis Air Force Base in Vegas. As the squadron’s weapons officer, it was my job to make sure we were tactically the shit. Babysitting F-16 pilots with a hard-on for trouble? Not in my job description. It was really sad when I was the voice of reason.
Sending a bunch of fighter pilots to Vegas for work was basically like putting a diabetic kid in a candy store. We got as much training done as we got tits and ass. And considering we pulled fourteen-hour workdays? That said something.
“It’s a bachelorette party,” I ground out, the subject already hitting way too close to home.
The flash of pain in Easy’s eyes was a punch to the nuts. Shit. It was worse than I’d thought.
“Screwing around isn’t going to change things,” I added, trying to keep any judgment or sympathy out of my tone.
If it were anyone else, I would have minded my own business; but it wasn’t anyone else, it was Easy. He’d been my roommate at the Academy, gotten me through pilot training when I’d struggled, flown out to Vegas when I’d somehow graduated from weapons school.
Easy threw back the rest of his drink. “Be my wingman for ten minutes. I won’t go after the bride. Then you can leave.”
I’d been ready to leave an hour ago.
“You owe me for the twins in San Antonio,” he reminded me.
Shit, I did.
“Ten minutes.”
He nodded.
I turned my attention to the group of girls dancing; they looked young and already well on their way to drunk. I was definitely calling in my marker at a later time.
At thirty-three, I was getting too old for this shit. Most of the squadron was either married or divorced, Easy and I among the few single holdouts left.
It wasn’t that I was opposed to marriage. I’d thought about how it would feel to land after a deployment to a girl who’d throw her arms around me and kiss me like she never wanted to let go, instead of landing to my bros carrying a case of beer. Hell, I saw the way guys climbed out of their jets, their kids running toward them on stubby legs, looking like it was Christmas, their birthday, and a trip to Disney World all rolled into one.
Even a f*cker like me teared up.
I wasn’t Easy; I wasn’t trying to screw my way through life. I wanted a family, a wife. But I’d learned the hard way that not many girls were willing to stick around waiting for a guy who was gone more than he was around, who missed holidays and birthdays, who came home for dinner some nights at 11 p.m., and other nights not at all. It was hard to agree to moving every couple years, to deployments that stretched on and on, to remote assignments, and Sorry, honey, this one’s a year, and you can’t come.
I got it. It was a shit life. The kind of life that sliced you clean, that took and took, stretching you out ’til there was nothing left but fumes. But then there were moments. That moment when I sat in the cockpit, when I was in the air, up in the clouds, feeling like a god. When the afterburner roared. The times when we were called to do more, when the trips to the desert meant something, when we supported the mission on the ground. The times when we marked a lost brother with a piano burn and a song. I couldn’t blame Easy for needing to let off steam, the edge was there in all of us, our faithful companion every time we went up in the air and took our lives in our hands.
We flew because we f*cking loved it. So I guessed I already had a wife, and she was an expensive, unforgiving bitch—
Fortysomething million dollars of alloy, fuel, and lube that could f*ck you over at any given time and felt so good when you were inside her that she always kept you coming back for more.
JORDAN
As the soberest one in the group, I noticed them first. To be fair, they were pretty hard to miss.
A loud and more than slightly obnoxious bachelorette, we’d run into our share of guys tonight—preppy polos and leather shoes with tassels—some single, some married, all looking like they’d served a stint in suburban prison and were now out in the yard for good behavior. They had that wide-eyed overeager look, as though they couldn’t believe their luck—Look at the shiny lights on the sign. Did you see the ass on that girl?—and Vegas was their chance to make memories that would keep them company when they were coaching Little League or out buying tampons for their wives.
These two were something else entirely.
They walked toward us, and I stopped dancing to enjoy the show. They didn’t look like anyone had let them out for good behavior, or like Vegas was their grown-up amusement park. They looked like this was their world, and they carried themselves like f*cking kings.
One was tall and lean, his face—well, f*ck, there was no other word for it—he was beautiful. Tan skin, full mouth, blue eyes. Dark blond hair that begged for a woman to run her fingers through. Great hair. Perfect hair.
I admired him for two point five seconds, and then he ceased to exist.