Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
HEART ACHE
Gordain
“The problem with helicopters is that they don’t want to fly.
They aren’t like planes, happily soaring along.
A ’copter wants to plummet to the ground.
Every bit of that hunk of metal is trying to obey the laws of gravity and smash it and you to pieces.
Your job, kid, is a fight from takeoff to set down.
And it’s much, much worse on a dark rainy night. ”
“Mhmm,” I hummed, only half listening to Leonard as I waited for our manager to return. Of the fifteen pilots on rota at Sky’s the Limit, my new employer, Leonard, had decided to take me under his wing.
Lucky me.
I’d been on a tour with the RAF, countless missions—both training and actual rescues—been shot at, ran a team, got stuck in a crashed heli in hostile territory, aced my civvy training, and I was getting lectured by Leonard. A man who didn’t like flying at night.
How life had changed.
“You’ve got to have big balls, mate. Great big hairy balls. Do you know what I’m talking about?” Leonard eyed my locker. The picture taped to the inside of the door.
“No problem there.” I slammed the locker shut and dragged on my leather jacket, the problem of my balls ever on my mind.
They were blue as the fucking sea I’d flown over this morning.
Evan, the manager, returned. “All arranged,” he told me, handing over a clipboard and pen. “You know you’re the youngest pilot ever to work for us, let alone take the North Sea flights.”
“Suits me. I’ve got no commitments.” I signed off his form, committing myself to the most challenging assignment our team had, then bid my colleagues goodbye and strode out of the small office and into the cold December afternoon.
The twins were on their way to meet me. I hadn’t seen any of my family for months, sticking my head down and focusing on work, work, work.
I had a rare night off ahead of starting the six-week turn on the oil rigs the company served.
I’d be isolated and cut off, but that was fine.
My aim each day was to be tired enough so I could sleep without going over and over Ella’s kiss.
Having her in my bed.
Her fucking proposal.
“That your girl? In your locker?” Leonard traipsed alongside me.
The picture was of Ella on stage, her violin under her chin and a fierce look on her face as she played.
Ally had sent it to me, and I used it as a good luck talisman, checking in with her before each trip then again before I clocked off.
Not that she’d ever find out. She was out there, living her dream life.
She was winning, from what I could tell. I hoped she was happy.
“No,” I replied, harder than I meant. Then I relented, because today was a good day, and I needed to relax for once. I lifted my chin at Leonard, and we crossed the tarmac to my bike and his car. “Got to have something to keep you going.”
“I hear that. You’re pushing yourself too hard. I mean what I said about the job being a dangerous one. Stay safe up on those rigs.” Leonard popped his door then called a farewell.
I got on my dangerous bike, leaving behind my dangerous job, and went to meet my kin.
The twins arrived at my apartment—a functional space with little by way of decoration—that I shared with two other pilots.
Our shift patterns meant there was generally someone sleeping or filling up on food at any one time.
The next two days, though, had both men away on overnighters, so the twins could use their rooms even without me there.
They launched through the door, crashing into me in giant bear hugs.
“Christ, who’s been hitting the gym?” I held Ally at arm’s length then grappled his biceps. He’d put on muscle tone. Wasp, too, when I turned to look at him.
The boys grinned at me and commenced overlapping tales of all I’d missed in the months since I’d moved down south. Mathilda was huge—the twins we now knew she was expecting two months off being born. Callum was beside himself, hovering over his wife twenty-four seven.
My heart ached over Wasp’s description of work Callum and Lachlan had jointly commissioned on border land between the two estates. I pictured the site as plain as day—Ella and I had run through it.
Wasp took himself off to the bathroom. Ally waited for him to be out of earshot, then his eyes gleamed, and he came back to me. “Go ahead, ask.”
“Ask ye what?” I ran my thumb over a jagged fingernail, worrying at it.
“How she’s doing.”
I grimaced. “I don’t want to know.” He meant Ella, obviously. Knowing real details would make me involved in her life, and I was trying to be anything but.
“Liar. You’re in the same city as her. You must have flown over her or driven past her a hundred times.”
That was true. Manchester was my new home.
I had a vague idea of where Ella went to university—hard to avoid knowing the city when I flew people in and out in my glorified taxi service.
But I didn’t know where she lived or where she hung out.
I’d never sought her out and nor would I.
The job here just happened to be the better one of the three cities I was offered. “Wouldn’t know it if I did.”
Ally eyed me. “She dyed her hair blue.”
“What?” I stared.
“Ha! Look at you, all not bothered. Give it up.”
I rolled my shoulders, pulling my t-shirt tight across my chest, then glanced to the window like the nonexistent view could save me from the scrutiny.
“What the actual fuck.” Ally pounced on me, his hands on my left pec. He poked at the metal bar under my shirt. “What’s this? Oh my God. You got a piercing?” He whooped with laughter.
I shoved him off. “Aye, I did.”
“Let me see.”
“No!”
“If you don’t, I’ll just assume it’s a kinky version with a spiked end.”
We stared at one another.
“And,” he added with an evil grin, “I’ll tell everyone we know.”
“For Christ’s sake.” I relented and dragged up my shirt, displaying my chest. Being five years older than the twins, I was used to being climbed on and teased.
I’d taught them to drive and I’d trained them to be strong and how to fight.
Being an older brother was a responsibility I didn’t take lightly.
There were limits, though.
“Why?” He made a face of disgust, eyeballing the plain titanium barbell.
“I was going to get another tattoo.” Of a fucking lion, of all things, right over my heart. The stencil had looked like the Fitzroy lion. It had been a dark day, and I’d been miserable, craving release by the addictive pain of a tattoo gun. Thank fuck I hadn’t done it.
“I changed my mind at the last minute and got the piercing instead.”
“Was the tattoo going to say ‘I love Ella Fitzroy’?”
Fucker. “No. It said Alasdair Maddock McRae is a pain in my arse.”
He dropped back on the couch, laughing it up. Wasp joined us again, and Ally sobered. “Come see her play.”
“Who, Ella? Aye, do!” Wasp leapt on the idea. “You said you weren’t working. Got a better plan? We’ve come all this way, and it’ll suck if you aren’t with us. You’ve only got one night before you go.”
“I don’t—” I started, but my brother continued.
“She’s got some problem with a guy in her group, Tay told me about it. He’s acting strange with her.”
“Strange how?” My hackles rose.
“Nae sure. Taylor said she thought he was flirting, but aggressively.”
“Is… Is Ella seeing him?” I hated asking. Hated that I’d one day hear of her boyfriend. Her happiness.
“No. She doesnae like him. We should go and put on the heavies. Three of us will be more menacing than two.”
I’d had no intention of going to Ella’s performance. The twins were meant to spend an afternoon with me then the weekend with Ella and Taylor, coming back to my place to sleep.
But the thought of some guy giving Ella grief… “Who is he?”
Ally grinned an idiotic wide-mouth grin. “Better come with us and find out.”
I couldn’t ignore Ella in need, but even if I had to see her, she didn’t have to suffer seeing me.