Chapter 7 #2
One eyebrow lifts. “Once or twice.”
“Once or…? You’re not serious, are you? This is a joke. There’s a real pilot somewhere, right?”
“A real pilot?” His voice drops. “I’ve been flying for fifteen years.”
“Oh! I didn’t mean—I wasn’t suggesting you’re incompetent or a terrible pilot or anything. I’m just completely blindsided here! Jake never mentioned this.”
I’m furious, though I can’t pinpoint exactly why.
At HR for not warning me?
At Jake for keeping this terrifying detail secret?
At Patrick for wanting to do things that could kill us both?
He ignores my meltdown and checks his watch. He shuts my door, circles the nose of the helicopter, and climbs into the cockpit.
I am not okay with this. I’m the person who reads airline safety cards three times and memorizes the brace position. I don’t do surprise helicopter rides with CEOs who picked up flying as a hobby.
“But wait,” I blurt. “What if something happens to you mid-flight?”
He doesn’t even glance over. Just keeps flicking switches. “Such as?”
“I don’t know… you could swallow your tongue.”
His hands pause mid-switch flip. “The odds of that happening are extremely low.”
“But not zero!” I lean forward as far as the harness allows, eyes wide. “Not. Zero.”
That finally gets his attention. He turns, giving me the full weight of his gaze. The look says I’ve flown through worse storms than you, sweetheart, and you’re still not in my top ten most dramatic passengers.
Oh, the audacity of this man.
“You think I’m going to spontaneously self-destruct at four thousand feet?”
Somewhere between his bulletproof confidence and my looming obituary, my self-preservation instinct finally shoves my people-pleasing tendencies aside.
“But you lost a toe on one of your adventures!” The accusation bursts from me. “You can’t tell me you’re invincible. You have fewer toes than you started with. That’s concrete evidence that you do have accidents.”
An unguarded laugh rumbles out of his chest and fills the entire cabin. It’s the first time in my life I’ve made Patrick laugh, and instead of basking in it, I’m busy calculating the odds of us plummeting into a loch.
“I’ve got nine left. And it was only the tip.”
For reasons unhelpful to the situation, my brain immediately thinks about his penis tip, which has nothing to do with aviation safety.
“I’ll have that engraved on my tombstone,” I mutter, trying to shove thoughts of Patrick’s cock out of my mind. “‘Pilot still had nine toes remaining.’”
He shakes his head, studying me. “How are you and Jake even related?”
It’s not meant as an insult, just a casual observation, but it stings.
Jake is fearless. I am… not.
“I’m about to go up in a helicopter for the first time in my life,” I say, trying to inject some dignity into my tone. “I think a bit of healthy caution is perfectly reasonable.”
His expression softens, like he’s realized he might be coming across as harsh. “Look, I get a full medical every six months. I’ve logged over a thousand hours. I know this route well.”
“Right, sure, maybe you’re in phenomenal physical condition.” I wave a hand at his chest. “But what if there’s a system failure? Or a bird flies into the engine? Or—”
“There won’t be a system failure.”
The sheer confidence in his voice is almost offensive. Like gravity itself takes orders from him.
Because this is nothing to him. This is a man who climbs frozen waterfalls for fun, dives wrecks in Arctic waters, and treats near-death experiences like good stories for the pub.
I’ve seen the GoPro footage Jake shows, and I’ve seen the bruises. I constantly worry about Jake. My brother and Patrick exist in some sort of testosterone-fueled dimension where fear is optional and death is just another risk assessment.
And Patrick assumes the rest of us are wired the same way.
“There are bugs in every system,” I say, my voice tight with panic.
“Helicopters aren’t exempt from physics or human error.
Statistically, they have a significantly higher accident rate per flight hour than commercial aviation.
The complexity of rotorcraft mechanics means more potential points of failure, and—”
He turns completely in his seat, and the look he fixes on me makes my mouth snap shut mid-sentence.
“How the hell do you know about helicopter accident statistics?”
“University module on reliability engineering. When you’re designing any complex system, you have to calculate your acceptable failure threshold.
” The familiar ground of technical explanation steadies my voice slightly.
“We studied high-risk systems—aircraft, medical devices, nuclear facilities. How to determine mean time between failure across interdependent components.”
He just… watches me.
Then his mouth twitches. The tiniest micro-expression that could mean anything. “As fascinating as your failure analysis is, at this rate, we’ll still be having this conversation when the sun sets. Would you prefer I arrange a car for you?”
Riri’s voice explodes in my head: Don’t you dare, you daft cow. Stay in the death trap with the gorgeous Northern bastard and his sinful forearms.
Even dead, she’s bullying me into bad decisions.
“No,” I say, before my survival instinct can reassert itself. “Helicopter’s fine.”
“Relax. You’re going to love it.”
He reaches up, retrieves a headset from its hook, and leans across to settle it over my head. His fingers brush through my hair as he adjusts the fit, and I bite my tongue to suppress an embarrassing squeak.
“Comfortable?”
I nod. Speech is beyond me.
“This is the most beautiful flight in the world,” he says, settling back into his seat. “In my humble opinion.”
I try to smile, but my lips just peel back over my teeth.
I’m about to meet Riri six decades ahead of schedule. I’m going to die in a helicopter, sexually frustrated and terrified, with only ninety percent of my pilot’s toes accounted for.
For all I know, Patrick got his license through sheer intimidation. Walked into flight school, fixed them with that stare, and they just stammered, “Here’s your license, sir, please don’t hurt us.”
He adjusts his headset and scans the instrument panel with a casual confidence that suggests he might know what he’s doing.
That’s… something. Maybe he won’t kill us immediately. Maybe we’ll last five minutes before plummeting to our deaths.
A hum crackles through my headphones. Then his voice—low, deep, sliding directly into my ears: “Can you hear me?”
“Uh-huh.” Clearly, I’m at peak conversational performance.
The engine roars to life beneath us, vibrations rattling through my entire skeleton. The rotor blades start their lazy spin, then accelerate into a blur.
My hand instinctively finds Riri’s chain at my throat.
“It’s a bit loud,” he says through the headset. “Sorry about that.”
A bit? It sounds like we’re trapped inside a food processor.
He presses a button. “Inverness Tower, Golf Echo Hotel Charlie Mike, VFR to private site Portree, request taxi.”
I do not have the emotional capacity to process how his professional pilot voice makes my thighs clench.
Someone crackles back through the radio, probably giving us permission to die.
Patrick glances at me and gives a small nod.
Then the world tilts sickeningly wrong. There’s a stomach-lurching sensation of the earth disappearing beneath us.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to fast-forward to the part where we’ve landed and I’m horizontal in a bed, possibly drunk, stress-eating my body weight in crisps while I process this aerial trauma.
“Georgie,” Patrick’s voice slides into my ears again. “Open your eyes.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Georgie.” Firmer now. An order.
I crack one eye open.
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.
Inverness has shrunk to Monopoly board proportions. We’re so high up I’m pretty sure I can see the curve of the fucking earth.
“Oh God,” I breathe. “We’re flying.”
Patrick chuckles in my headset, like he has the nerve to enjoy this. “We are indeed.”
The helicopter tilts, and the Highlands unfold beneath us like something Tolkien dreamed up: rolling hills, deep, endless lochs. No wonder Nessie chose to live here.
“Spectacular,” I whisper, still convinced I’m going to die but maybe fifteen percent enchanted despite myself.
The helicopter dips and I let out a high-pitched squeak. “Was that supposed to happen?”
“Just a bit of turbulence,” Patrick says, all calm and smooth. “Perfectly normal coming over the mountains.”
I blow out a shaky breath and force myself to focus on the stunning mountains rather than the terrifying void below. They really are gorgeous. Probably the last thing I’ll ever see.
But somewhere between the lurches, I realize something: I’m so consumed by the possibility of plummeting to my death that I’ve somehow stopped being terrified of Patrick McLaren.
Huh.
That’s oddly liberating.