Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(73)

Fucking gone.

We stood in an open field next to the squadron, all of the Wild Aces in attendance forming a circle around a gleaming piano standing in the grass.

How many piano burns had I gone to? How many times did we do this? How many times did we lose one of our own? And the irony was that our losses didn’t come from enemy fire, they came from routine training. From going to work. As the weapons officer, it was my job to ensure that the squadron was tactically proficient, to keep these guys safe by teaching them not to get shot down, to fly better than any threat that could come their way. But there were some things you couldn’t prepare for. Some things you couldn’t train for.

Sometimes fate f*cked you over.

Jordan wrapped her arms around my waist, cuddling her body against mine. I kissed her hair, inhaling her scent, steadying myself.

And then Thor walked to the front. As the official mayor of the squadron, it was his job to preside over all of the social functions. His voice rang out over the crowd.

“Tonight the Wild Aces commemorate the life of Michael ‘Joker’ Peterson with one of our most closely held traditions—a piano burn. Some of our guests tonight might wonder why we burn a piano. The tradition originated with our British brothers and the Battle of Britain. As legend has it, and I guarantee at least ten percent of this story is true, there was once a British pilot who was the greatest piano player who’d ever lived. He used to fly in combat and then return and play at the O-Club for all to hear. But one fateful day he was killed in action. In their grief, his squadron decided that no one would ever play the piano as well as he did, so they burned it. And so began the tradition of the piano burn.”

There were different variations of the story, and as Thor highlighted, hyperbole was pretty much a fighter pilot standard. But this was without question one of our most revered traditions, one we celebrated at major squadron functions, and no matter how rowdy or drunk the crowd was beforehand, everyone always went silent, their gaze riveted to the flames.

Thor went to get the lighter and Easy broke away from the group, taking his usual place at the piano. Jordan’s arms tightened around me. He was the only one in the squadron who played, and it never failed to surprise me that Easy was capable of making the sounds he did.

His fingers touched the keys and the familiar strands of a Dos Gringos song filled the air—standard fighter pilot fare. Easy played it like he was sitting in some fancy concert hall performing for guys in tuxes and girls wearing big rocks rather than the motley group we were.

Jordan stiffened beside me.

“Whoa. He’s amazing.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he is.”

I’d have been lying if I didn’t admit that Easy definitely used his musical skills to sweet-talk girls into bed. It was just another arrow in his quiver, another tool to get laid. But no one who’d ever seen him play could miss that he loved it, too.

The squadron broke into song, the lyrics as natural as breathing as the piano caught fire, as Easy played and played, the flames consuming the instrument until they grew too close and he had to walk away. Maybe it wasn’t the kind of song you expected to hear sung at a memorial service, but f*ck it, it was us, and more than anything, it was definitely what Joker would have wanted.

We sang the shit out of that song.



JORDAN

I was emotionally exhausted by the time we walked into Noah’s bedroom. It felt as though we’d packed a lifetime worth of grief and sadness into one afternoon and evening, and if I felt that way, I couldn’t imagine how Dani must have felt.

I slid into bed next to Noah, my feet brushing against his legs under the covers. We slipped into our usual routine: he raised his arm so that I could lay my head on his chest, my hair brushing against his bare skin, his arm settling over my body, holding me toward him as though I was something he had to protect. Something he was afraid to let go of.

Today had made me appreciate the fragility of life in a way I never had before. Seeing Dani’s loss . . . I shuddered. I wanted to stay like this with Noah forever, wanted to know that he would be safe, because it was impossible for me to imagine a world without him. Impossible for me to imagine my life without him now that I’d found him.

“Thank you for being there today,” he whispered, his lips grazing the top of my head. “I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”

“Of course.”

“You okay?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that one. My emotions were a messy gnarl I couldn’t untangle. I felt both empty and full, as though everything had been scraped out of me to make way for the enormous grief that pulsed through my body.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

My throat tightened, but I figured if we were going to do this, we had to do it right. So I gave him the truth, as much as it pained me.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

He sighed, his arms tightening around me.

“You won’t.”

It wasn’t enough.

“How do you know?”

“I’m safe. Always.”

I believed that. I also knew he was a really good pilot. It still didn’t feel like enough.

“Wasn’t Joker safe? He’d been flying even longer than you had.”

“Spatial D happens. Especially at night. But I promise you, I’ll always be safe. You aren’t going to lose me.”