Seventeen
The sea pen kept building momentum. Joey spent half his time flying Hollywood people to and from Seattle, and one had even asked if he could “drop him off in LA,” as if it were as easy as popping over a few mountains.
The flights were endless, looping back and forth like the thoughts in his mind. They circled the same thing, the same person. The same set of eyes.
On game night, he was sure Eliza had looked at him a certain way. That her intense gaze had lingered, that there was something behind those mysterious eyes.
He’d braced himself for their trip to Anacortes a few days later, sure she’d betray some sentiment he’d have to shoot down in the interest of their robber search, but bafflingly, she acted completely normal. She had no jealousy when the bank manager tried to flirt with him, going as far as to scoff at the whole thing.
It hit him like a goose getting sucked into a plane’s engine. Eliza hadn’t been looking at him any special way that night. She didn’t feel anything for him.
It was him . He was the one with the feelings.
He was the one with the problem.
Joey flew back and forth, circling this undeniable fact. It should have made him upset, but it made him feel like he was getting away with something.
Spending time with Eliza was a thrill. Every smile, every laugh sent a zing down his spine. He was the proverbial moth near the flame, close without having to risk being sucked in.
The perfect situation – until their last flight, when Eliza told him they should take a break from investigating.
“I feel like we’re not getting anywhere,” she said when they landed. “And I have guests here now and…”
His heart sank. “We can’t give up! We’re getting closer.”
“Not give up,” she said slowly. “Just take a break.”
Eliza opened the plane door and hopped out.
“A break?” Every step she took away from him only pulled him in closer. “I can take a break. Just promise you won’t figure out who the robber is without telling me.”
She flashed a smile over her shoulder. “Yeah, ha. No way.”
Joey had to believe that it was a break and not an end to their search. Otherwise, he’d have no way to get through the dull conversations with Russell’s celebrity friends.
The only person who was excited by all the Hollywood hullabaloo was Cora. She asked to spend a day with him to try to rub elbows with “the rich and fabulous.”
“Maybe I’ll get discovered! That’s what happened to Russell, you know. They just plucked him out of a crowd and voilà!”
That probably wasn’t how it went down, but Joey wasn’t going to say anything. If he could make Cora happy, maybe she’d help at the tea shop again so Eliza could have a day off.
He took her up on a Friday morning. Cora sat in the front and within the first thirty minutes, he had to yell at her four times to keep her hands off the control panel.
Their first trip was flying Russell’s agent back to Seattle. Cora peppered him with questions.
“Who’s the worst person you’ve had to work with?”
He laughed. “Like I’m going to tell you.”
“Good point.” She pointed at him. “Who was the best, then?”
“Russell, obviously.”
She groaned. “You’re no fun.”
“Fun doesn’t pay the bills,” he said.
This seemed to hit Cora and she sat back, quiet for a moment. “You are so right. Fun doesn’t pay the bills.”
They dropped him off before he had a chance to discover Cora and her special talent – whatever that was – and on their flight back, Cora turned to questioning him.
“Tell me, Joey. You seemed to have a pretty developed theory about soulmates. What’s your dating history?”
“My dating history? You want a full rundown or something?”
She waved a hand. “You know what I mean. Your greatest love story, Joey. Don’t jerk me around.”
This was a first. People didn’t normally ask him questions. He was much better with listening. He’d probably make a great podcast host, if he ever found the time. “I had a love story once. A girl I dated in college.”
“Do tell! What was she like? What happened?”
“There’s not much to say. She was perfect. I was madly in love, I messed it up, and that was that.”
“What do you mean, there’s not much to say? You made me think of a hundred more questions.”
“Er, yeah. I should’ve seen that coming.”
She gawked at him, mouth open. “Wait a minute. Are you a Steve?”
Their relationship had ended so badly it had made him fly to the other side of the world. So… “I guess. Yeah, I was a Steve.”
“What! You’re a cheater?” She smacked his arm.
“Ow!” He pulled away, rubbing his shoulder. “No hitting the pilot!”
“Steve status trumps pilot status,” Cora said, eyes narrowed.
“I’m not a cheater! I thought you meant a Steve was a disappointing boyfriend.” He shouldn’t have brought this up. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a podcast host after all. “I don’t think you want to hear this story.”
“More like you don’t want to tell me.”
She wasn’t wrong. He glanced at her, but quickly looked away. “It’s not the best in-air story.”
She leaned in closer. “I don’t care. Tell me.”
She was inches from his face, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.
He flinched, pressing his body against the door. “All right! We were dating for a year and I was madly in love. I took her up for a flight, planning to propose.”
She gasped. “A year!”
“Yes. I was that young and dumb.”
“Romantic,” she corrected.
Yeah, right. Romantic. He shook his head. “I really wanted to do it on our one-year anniversary, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. I shouldn’t have taken her up, but I was too stubborn to change my plans. We got into the air and within five minutes, we were back down. Crashed into a forest.”
“You killed her, Joey? Are you kidding me! You are way worse than a Steve!”
“I didn’t kill her!” He sighed. He couldn’t even talk without her jumping down his throat. “She survived. She’s fine.”
Cora frowned. “Oh.”
Maybe telling stories wasn’t his forte after all. It’d been so long since he’d shared this particular story with anyone. He should’ve kept it that way.
It was too late now. He went on. “I never lost consciousness, but she did. I crawled out of the wreckage to get help. When she woke up, I wasn’t there.”
Joey took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The image of that dark afternoon flashed in his mind, the rumble of the storm, the smell of burning plastic, and the cool, wet ground of the forest.
“She woke up and thought I’d abandoned her. Never forgave me.”
Cora was quiet. “But she survived?”
“Yeah.”
“Was she hurt?”
Other than thinking her boyfriend had abandoned her in the wreckage of his own mistakes?
Because he had. Even if it was only for a moment, he’d left her there. His first thought should have been to pull her out, check her breathing.
“Fractured arm and clavicle.”
“What about you?” Cora put her hand on his shoulder. “Other than your broken heart?”
A pit opened in his stomach. This was taking a turn, one he had no interest in.
Joey pulled his shoulder away from her grasp. “I’m sorry. This isn’t personal, but I’m not interested in anything. You know, between us.”
Her mouth popped open. “Ew, I’m not interested in you! Get over yourself!”
“I’m sorry!” He put his hands up. “You just touched me, and I wanted to be clear.”
“I would never do that to Eliza.”
Joey stopped and turned to look at her. “Eliza?”
She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“What does you touching me have to do with Eliza?”
A smile crept onto his face. He’d been wrong after all.
Was she playing hard to get? Or was she that focused on finding the robber?
Cora sighed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t play dumb.”
“Are you saying…she likes me?”
“I didn’t say that!” she snapped. “You and Eliza clearly have a thing going on, and I’d never do that to my best friend.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So…she has a crush on me.”
“Are you really that dense? Do you not have eyes?”
A laugh sputtered out of him. “I don’t normally stick around long enough to have women interested in me, to be honest.”
“Just the one you almost got killed.”
He winced. Cora was sharper than he’d given her credit for. “Actually, yeah. She was the last one.”
“The last one you ever loved?”
“The only one I ever loved.”
Cora put the back of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, how could you ever love again after that?”
And she was more annoying than he’d realized. “It’s just – you don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do.” She laughed. “I see right through you.” She raised a hand and flicked him in the ear.
“Ow!” He recoiled. “What did I say about hitting the pilot?”
“You’re not a Steve. Not at all. You believe in soulmates and ill-advised proposals.”
“One could argue Steve’s proposal was ill-advised. For Mackenzie.”
Cora made a face. “True.”
Joey didn’t like talking about this as much as he’d thought he would. Time to change the subject.
“What about you? Who was your one true love?”
“One?” She shook her head. “Where do I begin?”
It worked like a charm. Cora talked about herself for the rest of the flight while Joey got to sit and listen.
Still, his listening was impaired. His mind kept drifting to what Cora had said about Eliza.
Technically, she’d never outright said Eliza was interested in him. She told him to use his eyes.
What did he see when he looked at Eliza? Someone who had no interest in spending time with him. Someone who had put their search on hold.
Eliza didn’t like him. She couldn’t. Even if she did, it wouldn’t matter. The contract Joey had signed with Russell was only for a few weeks. He had the option to renew, but why should he? He’d made enough money to go lay on the beach in Bali, or dive into the thermal baths in Budapest, or get an apartment with a view of the Seine.
Joey had a great love once, yes. That had been all it was – a one-time thing. It taught him a lot, mainly that he wasn’t the type to love. He was the type to go out and take the world for all it was worth. He was happy with that. Comfortable with it.
They approached San Juan Island from above. He tried to drown out Cora’s babbling and focus on the plane’s gauges instead of the fact that when he pictured Eliza’s smile, his heart jumped.