Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(64)

“I’m sorry I couldn’t call you earlier. We aren’t allowed to make any calls when these things happen.” He paused, and then he broke my heart. “I was flying.”

Pain lanced me.

“Noah.”

His voice broke. “I was number three. Joker was leading.”

There was a lump in my throat that I couldn’t get past. He’d been flying when his friend had died. They’d been flying together. It could have just as easily been Noah. And even though he had come back safely this time, how did one even come back from something like that? How would he come back from something like that?

“What do you need from me? What can I do?”

He paused for another moment, and I got the feeling he was gathering his strength, that he was held together by strings, too.

“Have you seen Dani yet?”

“I’m at her house now.”

I didn’t tell him the rest, couldn’t tell him the rest. I couldn’t say the words, couldn’t explain that I hadn’t known if it was him, that I’d been here waiting to hear if the man I loved would come home to me, only to watch as my friend, someone I respected and cared about, lost her husband.

Our conversation was more about what we didn’t say, than what we did. He seemed hesitant to talk about the accident, like if he did, he’d simply shatter. And I wasn’t ready to share the fear that had lodged its way into my heart the second I’d heard Meg say those fateful words:

There’s been a crash.

“She’s sleeping. One of the flight docs came and gave her a sleeping pill.”

It was almost a minute before Noah spoke.

“Can you stay with her?”

“Yes. Her parents are coming out soon. Joker’s, too. I promised I’d stay with her as long as she needed.”

“There will be funeral arrangements that need to be made. We’ll start working on it. And getting the body home.” His voice cracked. “We should be returning to Bryer in a couple days. We’re trying to figure out the plan now.”

I wanted him home. I wanted to put my arms around him, to feel that he was real, that he was whole, that he was safe. And at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel the pang of guilt at the fact that I would get my homecoming, that I would get to see him again when Dani would never have that same chance with Joker.

“Okay. Just let me know what you need.”

“I will.”

Silence filled the line again, the emotion throbbing between us making it almost impossible to speak. It was strange; I’d expected to feel differently. You would think that the fear of almost having lost him would have made me want to tell him how much I loved him, would make me want to say all the things that I might have never had a chance to say. But it didn’t. I didn’t know if it was the grief of watching Dani lose Joker, or the exhaustion of the day, or the fact that this moment felt almost too sacred to profane with words. There was nothing I could say that felt adequate, nothing that would describe the pain in my breast or the panic coursing through my body. There were no words you could give to this kind of loss.

So we stayed on the phone with each other for an hour, not really even speaking. I sat on Dani’s bathroom floor, listening to the sound of Noah’s breath, that reassuring whoosh of air that told me that all was right in my world, that as long as he inhaled and exhaled, I would not come undone. I learned to count time in breaths, that my life could be measured by the flow of air from his lips to mine.

And with each breath, I felt revived.



NOAH

I got off the phone with Jordan, feeling like I’d just come out of surgery, my battered body patched back together with the unique brand of magic only she possessed.

I was so f*cking tired.

So f*cking empty.

Held together by a girl thousands of miles away.

I headed toward the O-Club, not quite ready for the scene that would greet me when I got there, but somehow needing it just the same.

The entire squadron was at the bar, minus the most important member. It was a gathering like all the ones I’d been to hundreds of times, but this one was completely different. There was a pall over the crowd, as visible as if we’d all been dressed in black.

We’d come to honor one of our own.

I took the shot of Jeremiah Weed that one of the lieutenants handed me, my gaze running over the crowd, searching for Easy and Thor. They stood together yet apart from the group, the grief on their faces a punch to the gut. Thor looked green, as if he would throw up at any moment, his expression ragged. Easy looked destroyed, a version of my best friend I’d never seen before and never wanted to see again.

I headed over to them, my feet lead, my body protesting. I didn’t want to be a part of this club, didn’t want a piece of the memory we all shared.

We were the three who returned, when it should have been four.

We didn’t speak, the feeling too raw. Instead we stood next to each other, shot glasses in hand. I looked down, watching as the liquid trembled in the hollowed-out Gatling gun shell that had been cleaned and fashioned into a shot glass. A gift from Dani and Joker last Christmas. And then I realized the tremor was coming from me. The hand that had always been so steady at the stick shook like a f*cking leaf, my knuckles white.

Someone led off a song. One I’d heard sung at piano burn after piano burn, when we all came together to honor those who had made the ultimate sacrifice to the sky. Those moments had always resonated with me. The reality of our jobs, the knowledge that even though we flew as if we were gods, untouchable, we were all too mortal. But now . . .