Epilogue Tea #2
That smirk. "Quite right." It didn't reach his eyes, though—those were calculating, assessing, not quite cold but not exactly nice or warm. "I'm looking for more than just a pilot, Commander."
"Oh?"
"I travel a lot. I have ventures in some remote places—research stations in the Arctic, satellites in the jungle, office buildings in Dubai, server farms in the desert, that sort of thing.
I don't trust just anyone, however, so when I hire a pilot, he or she is not just flying my Gulfstream from airport to airport.
My pilot must be willing and able to fly in all conditions.
Fixed-wing and helicopters. Sandstorms, windstorms, blizzards.
I might get a call at four in the morning and have to fly from Seattle to Nome on a moment's notice. "
"Sounds like an adventure," I said, honestly.
"I've been in three crashes, Commander. The first was a hard landing in a puddle jumper in the Caribbean, just got a little jostled when the landing gear gave out.
I went down in a helicopter during a freak sandstorm in Africa, and then, most recently, a very bad landing during a blizzard in Siberia.
Chances are I'll crash again, and I need to know my pilot will keep me alive. "
I kept my face blank. "I make no promises, sir. Flight is dynamic. We think we're in control, but we aren't. But if survival is possible, I'll make it happen. I’ve been through a few myself, sir."
"A few, eh?"
"I've been flying since I was a little girl and soloing before it was strictly legal.
I've put down hard plenty of times in all manner of aircraft.
I've ditched at sea, crash-landed behind enemy lines, bailed out, skidded off runways.
" I shrugged. "I can land a C-2 on an aircraft carrier, sir.
I can keep a helo hovering over a pitching deck.
I can handle whatever you care to throw at me, sir. "
This got me a long stare. "Crash-landed behind enemy lines?"
"Details are classified, sir,” I said. “I wasn't the only survivor of the landing, but I was the only one who made it back—through no fault of my own, I feel compelled to point out.”
He flipped through my file again. “So you've flown in combat?"
"Yes, sir.” I gestured at the file on the desk. "Not everything is in there, sir. I was attached to some heavily classified ops."
"Juicy."
I frowned. "Pardon?"
"I said that's juicy."
"Juicy." I tried to process what this could mean in this context and didn't quite make it.
He grinned. "So you've got some great stories to tell, but you're not allowed to tell them."
"Correct, sir."
He nodded, standing up and turning away from me.
"I have two children, Commander Tiernan.
A son who is, in a word, a wastrel. Charming, fascinating, and immensely cool, but a wastrel, currently.
He can charm the pants off a nun, Commander.
The other is a daughter who's getting married soon.
She has, for reasons I cannot fathom, chosen to have a destination wedding and honeymoon in Ketchikan fucking Alaska, of all places.
Now, I like Alaska. I've got a research station up in Nome.
But I wouldn't get married there. Helena, however, is…
unique, and she's my baby, so I spoil her. "
"I see." The man liked his non sequiturs.
“Gunnar, however, my son…I worry about him.
More to the point, I worry about his influence on my employees.
He has slept his way through my secretary pool, twice, and several of my PAs.
That's why I hired Albert, there." He pointed at the skinny kid who'd brought me in.
"He's…what are you, again? I'll remember, eventually. "
"Abrosexual, Mr. Thorvaldsen."
I frowned. "I don't know what that is."
"Fluid, essentially," Albert answered. "Who I'm interested in is…changeable, depending on a variety of factors, but I tend to be more interested in men than women.”
Thorvaldsen grinned. "See? It's foolproof! My son is very firmly heterosexual, and likes his conquests with a lot of silicone and not a lot of brains."
"Well, sir, he won't be interested in me, then." If he saw me in a bikini, that might change, but that wasn't happening. "You can consider my pants firmly up and me immune to his charms."
This got me a nod. “You're single?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you drink?"
“Seldom, and never within twelve hours of flying."
"I take my privacy more seriously than even my business."
"I have Top secret security clearance. Or, had. I’m very good at keeping secrets.”
Silence.
"You're hired.”
I blinked. "Excellent, sir. When do I start?"
He turned to me, grinning. "No nonsense, I like that. But I wouldn't hate it if you loosened up a bit. Tell a joke. Banter a bit. In time, I suppose.” He turned to Albert. "Get her processed, paperwork, all that mess." To me, then. "Can you fly me to Ketchikan tomorrow?"
"Ketchikan?"
"It's in Alaska."
"I know where Ketchikan is."
"Does it matter why I'm going there?"
"No, sir. Just curious."
"I'm interviewing a candidate for a special project, and he lives in Ketchikan.
He doesn't know I'm coming. I've been putting him through several rounds of interviews with various subordinates, and now I need to meet him in person.
It's a surprise. I'm unconventional, you see.” A pause.
“I also have wedding details to iron out in person.”
"I'm noticing that, sir."
He sighed. "How long will it take you to stop saying 'sir' every time you address me, Commander Tiernan?"
"As long as it takes for you to call me Tea." I glared at Albert as I pronounced my name: TAY-uh.
He winced, avoiding my gaze.
He rounded the desk and stuck his hand out to me. "Call me Linus, for now. If we decide we like each other and get along, you might eventually end up calling me Mags, which is what my inner circle calls me." He glanced at Albert. "The candidate, Albert. I've forgotten his name."
"Jax Badd, Mr. Thorvaldsen." TORE-vahld-son.
"Right, right. Jax. Jax. Jax." He glanced at me. "I'm great with faces but not so much with names sans faces." A shrug. "Anyway. Welcome to LMT, Tea."
Jax Badd? Really? He's probably a douchebag.
I shook Thorvaldsen's hand, putting the odd name out of my mind—I'd fallen into a weird name portal, clearly, and I was used to being the one with the weird name, so I wasn’t sure how to feel. "Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to flying for you, Linus."
He glanced at me. “Would you like to know when I knew I'd hire you?"
I nodded. "Sure."
"When you corrected me."
I wasn't expecting this. "Really?"
He nodded. "Yup. I made that same, simple addition error in every interview. No one corrected me. You did. You're not afraid to speak your mind, to tell me if I'm wrong. I need that in the people closest to me." He sat behind the desk. "You'll drive for me, too, as needed. Is that an issue?"
"I can handle that. I don't have a defensive driving cert, but I could get it easily."
He laughed. "You're very serious, aren't you, Tea?"
"Except when I'm not, Linus."
Another laugh. Despite everything, I was starting to like this guy. He was weird. I like weird. He didn't take himself seriously, but he also did. Not sure how to explain that any better, but it felt true.
"Albert will onboard you, introduce you to the relevant people, show you the office and garage, and introduce you to my aircraft. We're wheels up for Ketchikan tomorrow morning."
"Time?"
"Eight…ish. I’m not the most punctual man, you’ll find.”
I was, but no need to mention that. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Linus."
"See you tomorrow, Tea."
I waited until I was alone in the back of the Uber on the way to my hotel to do a self-congratulatory fist pump—I'd gotten the job: Private, personal pilot for Linus Magnus Thorvaldsen, billionaire and professional weird guy.
I'd get to fly to cool places, and, if the rumors about his fleet were true, I'd get to fly some of the most cutting-edge aircraft on the planet.
If he had a Roth jet, I'd shit my pants.
I'd read that Thorvaldsen had a personal relationship with Valentine Roth, who designed the very best luxury jets money could buy—each one was bespoke, hypersonic, invisible to radar, some with VTOL capability…
I was salivating to get my little mitts on the controls of one.
And rumor had it, Thorvaldsen had three.
I hadn't been this excited in a long, long time. I'd needed a change of life after what happened, and this was definitely that. No more arrogant superiors, no more saluting and all that shit, no more bullshit orders from out-of-touch brass.
No more watching entire fireteams get mowed down.
No more SAR missions that went horribly, horribly wrong.
Hopefully, this would be interesting and fun and challenging but not traumatizing.
See the world, fly cool shit, make bank.
Fuck yeah.
The dog tags hanging between my breasts felt cold for a moment—I had two sets. Mine and…his.
Not going there.
I pushed memories aside as I followed Albert around the building into a private little office where I filled out reams of paperwork, signed releases and a viciously ironclad NDA, received the badge that would get me where I needed to go, and then was shown the rest of the office, the garage—filled with Rolls Royces and Mercedes-Maybachs and Rezvanis—and then I was taken to the LMT private hangar.
Roth jets—three of them! Sexy and sleek, they made my blood race.
A Roth helo—stealth, silent, and faster than anything the military could put out, according to the scuttlebutt.
There are more prosaic craft as well—Cessnas, Gulfstreams, regular private helicopters, a replica WW1 biplane, a genuine Spitfire…oh, man.
I was in heaven.
We approached Ketchikan, and I radioed the tower, got permission to land.
It was an easy, smooth touchdown. I taxied the Gulfstream, parked it, and ran through my post-flight checklist while my new employer did whatever he was doing back there.I was driving him around as well, so once I was done, I met the courier who had driven Linus's Range Rover up here from Seattle.
We took a ferry, which was weird but kinda fun.
I expected our destination to be a fancy hotel, or, barring that, a high-end Airbnb.
"Badd's Bar and Grille, Tea," Linus told me, once we'd left the ferry.
I put the destination into the GPS. We arrived a few minutes later.
I eyed the place. "Linus? You sure this is where you wanna go, sir?"
He laughed. "Yes, Tea. We're meeting my possible hire here."
"Should I circle the block? Park?"
"Park and come in with me. It's dinnertime, after all."
This was feeling more and more like I was an additional PA who just happened to also be a pilot…
and a driver. Considering how many zeros were in my contract, I was fine with this arrangement, as long as I didn’t have to cook, clean, pick up dry cleaning, or anything gross, like clip toenails; my sister had moonlighted as a PA for a low-level exec in Silicon Valley right out of college, and she'd had to clip her bosses toenails. Fuck that.
We entered the bar—it was early afternoon, so it was mostly empty. He'd told me eight this morning, but we hadn't actually been wheels up until almost noon—his delay. There were a few regulars at the bar, a few tourists at tables, and a young man by himself in a booth near the kitchen.
Linus consulted his phone—a one-off he'd designed and was testing out, apparently—and then looked at the young man.
I followed a few feet behind Linus as he approached the guy—not a kid, just younger than me by five or so years.
"Jax Badd?" Linus said.
Jax held up a finger and went back to typing. “Yeah, one sec. Just gotta…" he trailed off, frowning at his laptop, tracing a line of code with his finger. “A-ha! Got you, little fucker." He entered a single keystroke, triumphantly, and shut the laptop. "Sorry, sorry. I'm Jax."
He stood up and turned to us.
Jesus…Jesus.
He was…
His eyes were—and his jawline? Fuck me.
The eyes—so brown, so warm, filled with humor and curiosity and kindness.
His mouth? His jaw?
His shoulders?
I was dry-mouthed and clammy-handed just looking at him.
And then he looked past Linus, directly at me.
Grinned.
To say my underwear combusted would not be an understatement. They combusted and went wet at the same time.
Good thing I was just the pilot, because if I had to talk to this guy, I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn't jump his bones.
People talk about dry spells?
I wasn't in a dry spell, I was in a drought.
A long, long drought.
And this guy?
He was a tall, sexy, hunky drink of water.
And I was very, very thirsty.
They'd been talking while I was daydreaming.
"Tea?" Linus's voice. "TEA!"
I startled. "Sorry, sorry. Yes, I'm...yes. What?"
Linus laughed. "I just wanted you to meet my newest acquisition—Jax Badd."
His hand was rough—not a computer nerd's hand. His eyes sparkled, twinkled. "Tea. Nice to meet you."
"Yes." It was all I could manage.
He grinned. "I hear we're gonna get to know each other, soon."
"Excuse me?" I almost choked on my spit. "What?"
Linus was grinning at me knowingly; I was caught. "You're flying Jax to my project. You'll be in close quarters with him for the next few days while I deal with wedding plans here."
Oh.
Oh god.
Good thing I have an indomitable will and iron self-control.
Right?