Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(71)

There were images of Joker when he was little—clearly his airplane fascination had started young because some showed him wearing pajamas decorated with red and blue biplanes, others with a slightly older, but still adorable Joker, running around his parents’ backyard with his arms out like he was flying. Next came the high school years, a boy in a basketball uniform, wearing a tuxedo at prom. Pictures of Joker at the Air Force Academy, going through pilot training, surrounded by friends who had come now for the memorial service. And then came Dani.

They looked so happy in every single one of their photos. So in love. They looked like the world lay before them, theirs for the taking. We watched as their wedding flashed by, interspersed with photos of Joker landing, arms outstretched for Dani. Some were clearly after deployments if the sand-colored flight suit was any indication, others from TDYs, trips like his last one to Alaska. It almost seemed to highlight the one homecoming that was missing.

There were pictures of him as he took over command of the Wild Aces, picture after picture of him surrounded by Noah, Thor, and Easy. It was clear that the four had been even closer than perhaps I’d realized. My heart clenched at the picture of all of them in Vegas, me on the fringes of the photo, my body tucked against Noah’s, a smile on my face. It felt like a lifetime ago.

The last image flickered on the screen, a shot of Joker from behind, walking out to a waiting F-16, the sun setting behind him, his helmet bag thrown over his shoulder. It froze there, the image of Joker heading to the sky for one last flight settling over the crowd. And then it disappeared, and it was as though the life had been sucked out of the room.

Noah’s hand clutched mine, our fingers twined together, giving each other strength. We sat near the front, two rows away from Dani and her family, in a sea of blue, the squadron wearing their service dress, family members sprinkled throughout.

I hadn’t seen Easy.

The video ended and the wing commander rose, heading toward the makeshift podium that had been set up. I’d never met him, but I’d heard enough talk from the guys to know he wasn’t well liked. Noah had described him as a “careerist *,” which I figured was his way of saying that the guy was more concerned with getting ahead than with his people. To hear him speak now, Joker had been his brother, soul mate, and best friend all rolled into one. I caught a few shuffles and barely muffled snorts from the guys, giving the impression that Joker had shared Noah’s opinion.

And then he was finished, his speech, which had read like an emotional Mad Libs—insert name here—already forgotten.

There were people here who’d known Joker, who’d loved him, people who felt his loss like an ache in their chest. But that loss almost felt overwhelmed by the other side of this—the part of his death that was more about what he’d done than who he was. Joker had become a clip on the evening news, a post on social media with a picture of the American flag and a comment about how he’d died a hero. And he was a hero. But he was also a man. A friend, a son, a husband. And somewhere in the ceremony of all this, it seemed like that essence of him was overshadowed by his job. I knew people meant well, knew they were proud, but it was strange to see him as a sound bite or a post on social media, to hear others talk about him as though they knew him. To claim his loss as their own. It was the strange dichotomy of being in a world where your life was private and yet it wasn’t, really. In a way it felt like his death, like his life, was the military’s, too.

And somewhere in all of that, mentioned as a line in articles—he is survived by his wife—was Dani. As if this was something she could survive. As if losing the person you loved the most, the person your entire life revolved around, was something you survived.

And for the first time since we’d gotten the news, I realized I was angry. So f*cking angry. It bubbled up inside me like a scream pushing to escape my lungs as I sat there surrounded by service members and their families, knowing we’d do this again.

My anger wasn’t rational. There wasn’t a bad guy here, a villain I could blame or direct my rage at. But it was still here, choking me. It was an accident. A f*cking accident. Seconds. Seconds that made the difference between life and death. Seconds that made the difference between lying in bed listening to the sound of your man breathing, the rhythmic song lulling you to sleep, and reaching across an empty bed, the distance feeling like a mile, the silence deafening, stretching on and on into years.

There weren’t any words that could make this okay. Nothing could make this okay. And I knew that whatever Dani clung to now, whatever got her through this horrible day, was wrung from the depths of her soul.

How many times throughout the course of my relationship with Noah would this scene repeat itself? How many times would I sit here, my ass cold against the metal, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible? I knew someone had to do to it. Knew that freedom came at a price and that all these men and women surrounding me paid it. Their families paid it. Their children paid it. And the fear that I would pay it, too, that one day I would sit in the seat Dani sat in, was nearly too much to bear. I felt selfish for thinking it. Like the worst person in the world for the part of me that clutched Noah’s hand a little tighter, grateful for the warmth of his palm in mine. I wanted to wrap him up in a protective bubble. Wanted to shield him from harm. I didn’t care if he was a badass; he was my badass. Had become my world. And the idea of losing that . . .

I couldn’t.