Chapter 5
Avery Hunter’s Reporter Notebook: Research Adam's Apple porn market.
I was anything but calm as I pulled into Bonnair Flights thirty minutes early.
I could lie and say it was because I wasn’t sure how bad traffic would be, but this was near Tampa on a Sunday morning.
No one was up and moving around this early except for preachers and sinners.
The preachers and God-fearing folk were on their way to repent at their preferred House of the Lord, while the sinners were on their way home after a night of debauchery at the House of Liquor.
I wasn’t judging a damn thing. I’ve been on both sides of the Sunday shuffle.
My stomach was in knots for another reason. I would soon meet ByTheBook. What if this was it? What if he was everything I’ve been looking for?
What if he wasn’t?
That caused disappointment to wash over me as I parked in the near-empty gravel parking lot.
It was silly to put so much on this blind date. That was a lot of pressure for him. And a lot of room to fall into sadness for me.
There was only one other vehicle in the parking lot.
It had the Bonnair Flights logo on the side, so I figured that wasn’t my Mystery Man.
I pulled down the sun visor and flipped open the mirror.
The light inside the visor flickered before going out.
Shit. One more thing on this car that wasn’t working right.
I checked my lipstick and practiced my surprised and delighted face.
“Well, hello there, stranger,” I tried and winced.
“Come here often?” Ugh. Nope.
I raised an eyebrow at my reflection, puckered my lips, and did my best Marilyn Monroe impression. “Happy birthday, Mr. Pres—” A knock at the window made me scream. I clutched my chest and turned to see who had interrupted my date prep time.
What was he doing here? I frowned.
Warren Atwell looked equally concerned and stepped back to allow me to exit the car.
“Hey, Warren,” I drawled, looking around the parking lot. “What are you doing here?”
Warren patted the top of his head, probably to ensure his perfect black-blue Superman hair remained shellacked down by whatever hairspray and product he used.
The man wore dress slacks and a button-down shirt, minus the tie, but still looked like he could argue a case this Sunday morning.
Even his dress shoes were polished within an inch of their lives.
“Are you in trouble with the law because I could get you off,” Warren said, his eyes going wide.
That surprised me, and I laughed so hard I thought I might pee myself.
His intense green eyes narrowed at me, taking in my outfit of T-shirt, leggings, and running shoes. “I am meeting someone,” he finally answered.
“Huh.” I tilted my head at him. “Me too. Who is it? Client? Friend? One of the many members of your family?”
He delivered a pained smile before saying, “A date, actually.”
My breath caught. “What?”
“A. Date. Actually.” Warren enunciated and said it louder as if I was going deaf today.
“A date,” I repeated, my heart pounding. “No.”
“Yes. As I previously said. A date. Should you perhaps make an appointment for your hearing loss?” Warren suggested.
A laugh bubbled up inside me, but I was afraid to let it out because I was sure it would keep coming and someone would send me to a “camp” for exhaustion. There was no way, on God’s green earth, that Warren Atwell was ByTheBook.
“Should I alert a medical professional? Are you in distress?” Warren reached for my forehead like he would take my temperature with his hand.
I swatted him away and took a second look at him. “Are you… uh… by chance… ByTheBook?”
He blinked twice, and his eyes widened. “MsWrite?”
The laughter I worked so hard to hold at bay could no longer be contained. It barked out of me. I slapped him on the back. “Holy shit! This is amazeballs! Thorn is not going to believe this.”
Horror washed over Warren’s face, and he reached for my arm. “No. You cannot tell him about this. You cannot tell anyone about this!”
“And why not?”
“This was a mistake,” Warren whispered.
I sucked in a breath. “What the hell?”
His eyes were full of disappointment as he scanned me from head to toe.
“Oh. I see. I see how this is. Not who you were expecting. Got it. Okay then. Bye.” I grabbed my purse out of the car and headed toward the building.
Footsteps crunched in the gravel as Warren followed. “That is not what I meant, Avery.”
“Sounded like it. Don’t worry. I won’t say a word. I told my friends I liked the guy I was meeting today. That he respected me, or at least I thought so. Your secret is safe with me. You can go back to Pleasure Point now.”
The hangar, located at the edge of the regional airport, reflected Chet Bonnair’s approach to life: less wasn’t more; it was less than less.
It was a glorified Quonset hut with corrugated metal curved walls that had dulled to a weathered gray, their surfaces adorned with faded photographs capturing the carefree bliss of freefalls and joyful landings, each frame a snapshot of adventurous souls escaping the constraints of gravity.
The air smelled faintly of oil, gasoline, and burnt coffee.
The painted concrete floor, which bore the scuffs and stains of countless years in business, led to a chipped counter that should have been put to sleep in the 1980s.
The once vibrant blue paint had peeled away in patches, revealing the raw wood underneath, and the counter was littered with relics of a bygone era: dusty and yellowed pilot manuals, part of a Cessna propeller, and a coffee mug that hadn’t been washed since the late 1900s.
Chet Bonnair, the 64-year-old head skydive instructor and pilot, banged away with two fingers on a computer that should be in a museum. Occasionally, he paused and dug into his ear with a pen. The ear had as much gray hair growing out of it as he had on his head.
“Hey, Chet.” I approached the counter. “I’m here for my dive.”
“Avery!” Chet set down his ear pen and rounded the corner to hug me. “So good to see you again.” He pulled away and stared at Warren behind me. “You, ah, brought someone with you?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Mr. Disappointment. “I made a reservation for two, but I’m sure Warren isn’t up for skydiving, so it’ll be just me today.”
Warren turned as green as his eyes. “Skydiving?”
“That’s what we do here, sir,” Chet answered and returned to the counter, banging on the computer until he found my reservation. “Have you skydived before?”
Warren’s eyes glazed over, and I worried he was in danger of passing out. I touched his elbow. “Warren? Are you okay?”
He shook his head. That green tinge to his skin was worrisome. “I—” He swallowed thickly. “I do not do well with heights.”
“Have you ever been on a plane?”
“No. I travel by car if I need to go anywhere.” Warren tugged on his shirt collar. “Do you have a water fountain somewhere?”
Chet pointed to the water cooler in the corner. Warren scrambled over to fill a flimsy triangle paper cup with water and then refill it, gulping down the contents in one go. I momentarily forgot to be mad at Warren as I became mesmerized by his Adam’s Apple bobbing.
I shook myself out of it. “Chet, it’ll be just me today. Warren’s not feeling up to it.”
Chet considered Warren at the water cooler. “That’s a shame your young man can’t come with you. Tandem dives are so fun.”
“He’s not my young man,” I hissed. “As Warren says, this was a mistake.”
Warren refilled his paper triangle and returned to the counter.
I couldn’t help but notice how he gracefully stalked across the floor, his eyes locked onto mine.
It took all I had not to turn and see if he was staring at someone behind me.
Then, I remembered the look of horror on his face as he showed up in the parking lot.
Yeah. That was the imaginary cold shower I needed.
“You know the drill, Avery.” Chet slid paperwork across the counter. “Sign the waiver, and we’ll get you suited up.”
I reached for the ear pen before remembering where it had been and grimaced. Then, I opened my purse to find a clean, non-earwax-covered writing instrument. Warren grabbed the paperwork off the counter before I could sign on the dotted line.
“Hey!”
Warren ignored me as his verdant gaze soaked in the document's words. He was so still that you might have thought he was a mannequin parked in the middle of the skydive school. I chuckled at that.
“This is unacceptable.” Warren glared at Chet. “You want Avery to sign away all her rights to jump out of a plane.”
“Hey, man. It’s a standard release form.” Chet held up his hands.
“Where did you obtain this standard release form? Bad Contracts R Us?” Warren shot back.
I snort-laughed. “Good one.”
“No. Our group of skydiving and flight schools share resources. This was a template on their website,” Chet answered.
Warren reached into his shirt pocket for a gold-plated pen because, of course, he carries a gold-plated pen.
Then, my mouth went dry when he pulled a pair of thick, dark glasses out of the other pocket and put them on his face.
They framed his green eyes perfectly, and I swear to all that is holy, they brought out his hair's black and blue highlights.
It was as if I watched the entire scene unfold in slow motion.
The only thing missing was Warren ripping open his shirt to reveal a Superman “S” on his chest.
Or maybe just ripping open his perfect shirt to reveal nothing but his chest underneath.
I wouldn’t hate that.
“Avery?”
I swallowed and shook my head to come back to reality. “Superman?”
He raised an eyebrow.
I laughed. “Kidding. What?”
“Have you read this release?” Warren began marking up the document.
“You can’t do that!” Chet tried to pull the release away from him.
“Sir, this woman is not about to step in your aircraft without the proper legal precautions in the event of an emergency.” Warren leveled his eyes at Chet. “Unless you want me to alert the authorities of your shoddy release forms.”
I wasn’t sure who these authorities were, but damn if that didn’t get my panties a little damp. It was probably the pre-jump adrenaline flooding my system and nothing more.
Warren spent another ten minutes marking the release, frowning over certain pages and shaking his head at others.
Watching him work was entertaining, and I wish I had brought a little popcorn with me.
My lady bits suggested other ways he could entertain us, but I shoved them down into a dark place where we would never talk about them again.
“I don’t have all day, pal,” Chet complained as Warren flipped to another page and began making notes. “We have a window here.”
“Six more minutes, if you please,” Warren said.
I suppressed a grin and watched the clock. At precisely six minutes later, Warren finished marking the release, gave it another quick check, and sighed. “This will have to do. I strongly advise you against this course of action, but somehow, I believe you will do whatever you wish.”
There was that disapproval again. That splashed cold water on my Superman fantasy lusting. My lady bits would have to live with disappointment. I know I have. I snatched the paperwork from him and scribbled my name at the end without looking at a damn thing.
“You should read what you are signing,” Warren stated.
“Maybe I like to live dangerously.” I flipped my hair back. “Well. It’s been something, War. Unless you’re coming with, this is where we part ways.”
I walked away toward the gear lockers in the back of the hangar.
Each step felt heavy, as if I had left a piece of my heart behind, which was ridiculous.
We had shared a few text messages on an app.
I thought we had a lot in common, but apparently, I had been wishful dating.
I hoped things would work but didn’t prepare myself for the worst that could happen.
I turned my attention to the cold metal lockers and tried to shake off the wretched feeling in my stomach.
It’s better to know how he feels now than to move forward dating someone who would only be disappointed in everything.
I didn’t understand why I was even this upset.
It wasn’t like I promised to marry the fool.
That thought made me laugh.
Married to Warren Atwell.
Now, that would be a nightmare.