26. Grand Gesture
TWENTY-SIX
GRAND GESTURE
Ian
“Get your ass out of bed and make some calls.”
A TSA agent gives me a surprised look. There aren’t many people at the airport right now, and my voice echoes in the cavernous security area. I managed to catch a seat on a flight heading to L.A. with a layover in Houston. But it leaves in ten minutes.
“What?” Mitchell’s voice sounds like he swallowed gravel.
I weave around a young couple with large backpacks hiked up on their shoulders and stride toward the gates. “Trish has been arrested, and for every minute she spends in that cell I will add another zero to how much I’m going to sue you for.”
“How’d she get arrested?”
A weird visual montage of strippers and supervillains brawling in a vortex of glitter flits through my mind before I shake it off. “Doesn’t matter. Get on it.”
“Kincaid.” He sighs. “It’s two-thirty in the morning. No one is going to be up.”
“Then wake them up.” I bypass a guy in a sweatsuit wearing headphones almost as large as his head and continue jogging down toward my gate. “You just cost yourself a zero.”
“Hey, wait?—”
I hang up, jogging to the gate where one lone airline employee is waiting to close the door. “Just made it, huh?”
I give him a tight smile and hold up my phone so he can scan my electronic ticket.
I hustle down the gangway only to stop short at the plane door. My racing heart and the cold sweat popping up on my brow have nothing to do with physical exertion.
The flight attendant, just inside, who’s serving drinks to first class passengers, smiles at me. “Come on in. We’ll be taking off shortly.”
My feet stay planted. My breath comes faster.
“Sir?”
Gritting my teeth, I take one awkward Frankenstein-like step into the plane. Then another. Then another.
I managed to secure a first-class ticket, so I don’t have far to go. But even so, having to turn sideways to walk down the aisle only ratchets up my growing panic.
I pause to slide my laptop out of my bag, thinking doing work will help keep my mind off the cramped quarters, and then stuff my duffle overhead. Taking a deep breath, I finally sit, the oversized leather chair feeling child-sized.
My hand vibrates. Taking a deep breath and unclenching my fingers from the phone, I answer.
“Tell me you’re using your millions to bail Trish out of jail.” Jules’ voice can be heard across the cabin.
I let my frustration funnel through me, overriding my panic. “So now you remember how to use your phone?”
“Stop having a man-fit, Kincaid. We have bigger problems.”
“Yes, problems I could’ve solved without Trish being arrested, if you hadn’t taken me off the damn list.”
The flight attendant’s smile fades at my tone as she walks past my seat to make sure everyone’s seats and tray tables are in their fully upright and locked positions. “Sir, phones need to be shut off or put in airplane mode during take-off.”
“Are you on a plane ?” Jules’ pitch has me pulling the phone from my ear.
“Yes, and I’ll land in two hours and twenty-five minutes. Talk to you then.” I hang up, feeling a perverse sense of pride at finally having the last word.
Until they close the cabin door.
Fuck. I look up and down the plane, rubbing my hands on my thighs. No one else seems bothered. The man across the aisle from me puts in his ear buds.
A different flight attendant comes on the PA system, reminding everyone to not use larger electronics until after take-off.
So much for working.
I take long, slow, deep breaths through the rest of the safety speech and all through taxiing and take-off, pretending I don’t feel like the curved walls of the plane are squeezing in on me like a fist crushing a soda can.
My leg bounces a mile a minute.
“Nervous flyer?” The man across the aisle takes out one of his ear buds.
“I, uh ...” I clear my throat and sit up. “Sort of.”
He nods reassuringly. “No shame in that. I was too, once.”
Taking in the older man’s calm demeanor, I have a hard time believing him. “You were?”
“Yep. Even went into the Army thinking the whole on land thing would work in my favor.” He snorts, running a hand through his salt and pepper crew cut.
“Uncle Sam still made me jump from a plane during training.” He shakes like the memory gives him chills.
“Threw up all over myself during take-off.”
My nose wrinkles at the thought, and I hope that doesn’t happen to me. “How many times did it take until you were able to jump?”
“Just that once.” He shoots me a sardonic look. “It’s the Army, son, they weren’t there to hold my hand. They just threw me out at one thousand, two hundred and fifty feet.” He claps his hands together. “Mission complete.”
Jesus. I don’t know if listening to him is helpful or detrimental. “Well, you’re flying now, so it must have cured you. Face your fears and all that.” Even I can hear the sad, hopeful note in my voice.
“That’s a bunch of hippie bullshit. All it did was air out my uniform of vomit.” He scrolls through his phone. From what I can see across the way, it looks like he’s scrolling through a list of audiobooks. “Not that it mattered much as I just threw up again once I landed.”
I swallow. “No offense, but if you were trying for a pep talk, you really missed the mark.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m not what you’d call a feelings guy.” He shrugs. “That’s what the first wife said, anyway.”
Someone brushes past me walking to the bathroom. I watch as a woman opens the tiny closet restroom and shuts herself inside.
My breath hitches.
“So how did you get comfortable flying?” My voice reaches a higher octave than usual.
“Mind over matter.” He points his phone at me. “Beat your fear into submission.”
I rub my hands on my pants again and try to take a calming breath. “And how do you do that?”
Flight attendants begin the beverage service, their large metal cart blocking the aisle, cutting off access to the door. Black dots float around my vision.
“You got to go to your happy place.”
I’m so freaked out I want to laugh. But when I finally focus on him and see how serious he is, and also how jacked he is under his fitted polo and khakis, I don’t have the nerve. “Like in Happy Gilmore?”
“What’s that?”
I shake my head, trying to clear the dots. “Nothing.”
He narrows his eyes at me, then taps his temple with his finger. “The happy place is where you train your mind to go. Like meditation.”
“Did they train you to meditate in the Army?”
He snorts. “Fuck no. My second wife taught me that.”
“I see.”
“The Army just threw me out of a plane a few more times in the name of exposure therapy and called it a success when I stopped vomiting.” He snorts. “But really I’d just learned not to eat twenty-four hours before a jump.”
“I’ve done that before.” Trish’s hands sliding down the backside of my pants. Her knees sinking to the floor. I shift in my seat. “Exposure therapy.”
“Yeah. That takes a while. So while you wait for that to work— go to your happy place. Visualize yourself not on a plane. Some place warm.”
The reminder of Trish’s dedication to my exposure therapy homework puts a genuine smile on my face.
“Yeah.” Crew Cut nods at me. “Whatever it is you’re thinking about now, keep thinking about it. Make it your happy place.”
I nod back, then close my eyes. Trish. Trish is my happy place.
Trish in a bikini by the pool. Her wet skin glistening in the sun. Her pink painted toenails curled in orgasm.
I pull at the denim at my knees, trying to give my tightening crotch more room.
“I guess that’s one way to do it.”
Jarred from my fantasy, I open my eyes. The Army guy smirks, nodding toward my lap.
I flush like a teenager caught whacking off by his parents.
“Please.” He waves away my embarrassment. “I’m Army. Ain’t nothing I haven’t seen in the barracks.”
The flight attendant chooses that moment to wheel her cart between us. I snag the in-flight magazine from my seat back and place it over my lap.
“Anything for you gentlemen?” the man asks, smiling once more.
“Give that boy a stiff drink. I’m buying.” Crew Cut chuckles. “On second thought, better mix it. He’s stiff enough already.”
My ears feel like they’re going to explode.
But I take the drink. And go back to my happy place.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please ready for landing, making sure your trays and seat backs are in their upright and locked positions and all larger electronics are put away.”
I’m soaked. Absolutely drenched in sweat.
And I have a raging case of blue balls.
But I made it.
Without throwing up on myself.
All things considered, I’m calling this a win.
“Well done, son.” Crew Cut smiles at me. “Knew you could do it.”
Looking away from the window, where cars and people are getting larger the more the plane descends, I smile at the old guy. “Thanks, I—” I catch sight of his phone screen.
He follows my gaze “Oh. That.” He chuckles.
“Third wife. Wants me to be more romantic.” He snorts.
“I never really considered myself an old dog, and yet here I am learning new tricks.” He holds out his phone to me and taps the audiobook’s cover image.
“You ever heard of Audrey Cole? The covers may have half-naked men on them, but the stories are actually pretty good.”
“I do know her.”
“Yeah?” He brightens, some of his constant, hard-ass look leaving him. “Which book was your favorite?”
“Ah, no. I mean I know her . Audrey Cole.”
His jaw drops, and the shocked expression on his serious face is comical. “Get out.”
“No, really, I do.” I sit up, thankful that my hard-on has subsided. Only took two hours. “In fact, that’s who I’m flying to see.”
“No shit.” He looks up and down the plane, then leans forward like he’s about to impart national secrets. “Any chance you could get me an autographed copy of one of her books?” He holds my gaze, his brows rising. “It would go a long way in the romance department with the missus.”