Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(70)

I started the coffee, noticing that Jordan had it all set up and waiting for us. And that the kitchen gleamed. As did the rest of the house.

I was definitely getting the better end of the deal here.

The front door opened. I walked out of the kitchen and came face to face with Easy, still dressed in his flight suit from the day before.

He nodded in greeting.

“Do you want coffee?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

He followed me to the kitchen.

I poured us two cups, then turned to face him.

“You okay?”

“Are you?” he returned.

Neither one of us spoke, which I figured was answer enough.

“I’m planning the memorial. We thought it would be good if everyone in the squadron said something about Joker. Nothing too long. Just a few words about him. Can you do that?”

Easy’s knuckles tightened against the coffee mug.

I hesitated. “I think it would mean a lot to his family.” Her name hung unspoken between us.

It will mean a lot to Dani.

“I can’t.”

My eyes narrowed.

“I just can’t.”

“You were one of his closest friends.”

Easy’s gaze met mine, panic in his eyes. “I can’t.”

Fuck.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He jerked back like I’d hit him.

“It wasn’t any of our fault,” I continued. “They’ll do the accident investigation.” They’d already questioned all of us. “But you and I know it was an accident.”

We wouldn’t know for sure until the final report came out—which wouldn’t be for a while—but we’d all been flying long enough to know what had happened to Joker.

We called it spatial D, also known as spatial disorientation. It could happen to anyone. And when it did, you couldn’t gauge where you were in the air, often until it was too late.

“I love his wife.” Easy said the words like he’d confessed to murder, as though the existence of them was his most shameful secret. They tore through the silent kitchen, stunning me.

I knew, of course, and he knew I knew, and still, I’d never heard them spoken aloud.

“I’ve dreamed of his wife. Wanted his wife. Loved her for a f*cking year. And he died. I heard him die. And she hugged me yesterday. I came home and he didn’t. It should have been his arms around his wife. Not mine.”

“So what, you think you’re somehow responsible for his death? That because you wanted Dani, you somehow wished it?”

He didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

He f*cking thought that.

“That’s bullshit.”

He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“We can’t change what happened. You know that better than anyone. He was a good pilot. But what happened to him could have happened to anyone. You didn’t f*cking will it to happen. We take our lives into our hands every single time we fly; you’re too good of a pilot to not know that, too good of a pilot to blame yourself. The younger guys in the squadron look up to you. Everyone looks up to you. Dani needs you.”

He staggered back like I’d hit him as soon as her name left my lips.

“Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way you do, but she cares about you, relies on you. You guys have a friendship that matters to her. She just lost her husband. She needs you right now. We all do. You don’t get to fall apart, not when she’s holding it together.”

“You don’t think I know that? That I don’t want to be there for her? I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it should have been me,” he shouted. “I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. I would have done anything to give her that. For him to have come home.”

I’d known it was bad, but somehow I didn’t realize it was this bad. We all felt guilty for surviving when Joker didn’t; it cloaked us. But to hear Easy admit that he wished he’d died was too much. I’d thought that if I could just talk to him, I’d help him see that he needed to be strong for the squadron and Dani. But now I realized I’d underestimated how much this had f*cked him up.

“If you love her, you’ll step up and forget this shit. If you really do love her, then you’ll be there for her when she needs a friend to lean on. You can’t change the past, and wishing yourself dead isn’t going to bring Joker back. All you can do is be there for his widow. We owe him that. He would want us to take care of Dani.”

“If he’d known . . .” Easy’s voice broke off. “If he’d known, he wouldn’t have wanted me to take care of Dani. He was my friend and I dreamed of f*cking his wife.”

I didn’t know what to say anymore. I’d tried, but I was barely held together myself, and I lacked the cohesion to fix Easy.

“Are you coming to the memorial service, at least?”

“I don’t know.”

I made a sound of disgust, unable to hold it in anymore. I left him standing in the kitchen, dragged down by his guilt.





TWENTY-SIX




JORDAN

We huddled into one of the giant airplane hangars, seated on metal folding chairs, staring up at a projection screen that showed a video with pictures of Joker’s life. Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” played in the background. I’d never cried so much in my entire life.