Chapter 6 - Carissa
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Carissa
The wonderful thing about flying miles above the world was that it made all of your problems seem small by comparison.
After the game, and leaving Henry in the care of three hockey stars hopped up on adrenaline after their recent win, I dipped out of the house for the evening to visit my dad.
After a long drive and an even longer catch-up, we were up in his chopper, soaring over the Las Vegas strip while the sun dipped low on the horizon.
The city was a riot of neon lights, like someone had scattered glitter across the desert.
My father handled the controls with the comfort of a veteran, one hand relaxed on his knee while the other guided the whirlybird steady across the sky.
Watching him fly had always been inspiring.
Ever since I was little, I wanted to be capable of the same effortless grace, capable of flying on my own one day.
“So,” he spoke to me through the headset, flashing a grin under his graying mustache. “You ready for a quiz?”
I groaned and dropped my head back. “I came to clear my head. I didn’t think there’d be a test.”
“You’re the one who insisted that I grill you on this, kiddo.” The old man’s chuckle was staticky through the headset. “Walk me through some emergency procedures. What do I do if my engine flames out at altitude?”
I cursed the me from a few weeks ago, who refused to ever give herself a break. “Fine. You would want to lower the collective, maintain your rotor RPM, and pick a landing site…” I bit my lip as my mind kicked back into gear. “Preferably into the wind.”
“And…?” Dad tilted his head to the side.
“Don’t panic?” I offered with a flap of my hand. “Though that’s usually the hardest part.”
“Well, yes. But that’s what training is for.” He glanced over at me. “You’re ready, Carissa. You’ve been ready for a while now.”
I looked out the window, drinking in the view.
It still seemed utterly impossible that I was this close to reaching my dreams. I’d grown up around airport hangars.
Hell, I’d even had diapers changed in the cockpit when dad had no choice but to bring his baby girl to work.
Flying on my own as a fully licensed pilot seemed like a faraway fantasy, not a reality waiting right around the next corner.
“I guess I’m just nervous,” I admitted quietly. “What if all the studying, all the money we’ve put into this, what if it’s all for nothing? What if I get out there and I just…” I flopped my hands into my lap. “Fail.”
“You’re not going to fail, Whirlybird,” Dad nudged me with his elbow. “You’re too hard on yourself. You want to fly, and so you’re going to fly. It’s as simple as that.”
“I hope so,” I sighed, staring out over the fading horizon.
I fell in love with flying at first, for the view.
Then again, when I realized how easy it was to think clearly up there.
Flying helped me set my thoughts in order and look at my problems from a new point of view.
And at that very moment, I had quite a few problems. Some—if not all—of my own making.
“How are things going with the nanny job?” Dad asked, easing the chopper over a few bumpy air pockets. “Those boys treating you well?”
I grimaced, grateful he couldn’t see my face in the dark. “It’s good. Henry is sweet, and the guys are great.”
There was a ‘but’ I couldn’t add to that sentence, not in front of my father. Henry was sweet, and the guys were great. Even Gage had his rare moments where he didn’t seem to entirely loathe my company. But I worried I’d gotten myself a little too tangled up between Boone and Dawson.
Boone had been a flirt from the beginning, but I suspected my flirting back had somehow raised the stakes.
Caught up in the moment, I had acted unprofessionally, and God knows I’d never be able to get another nannying job if that behavior ended up on my resumé.
Sleeping with Boone would be a terrible idea, I knew that.
Unprofessional, irrational, and yet… the thought didn’t entirely repel me.
My real concern was Dawson.
The night he brought me tea, he’d been sweet.
Tempting in a way I wasn't even sure he was aware of. And though I couldn’t be certain, I could have sworn he was flirting with me just a little.
Worse still, I wasn’t sure if I’d been flirting back.
He’d barely spoken a word to me since, and I worried I’d upset some unspoken balance between him and Boone.
Liking both brothers was a thought so scandalous I was hesitant to even consider it. So instead, I put it away, shoving it to the very back of my mind and reminding myself to focus.
“You alright there, kiddo? You’re spacing out.”
I blinked myself back to the present, shooting my dad a wary smile. “Yep! Just daydreaming.”
“Not much day left by the looks of it,” he jutted a chin out at the horizon, where the last few rays of sunlight were quickly fading from view. “Best be heading down soon. I don’t want you driving late into the night.”
“Yeah,” I took a second to soak in the beautiful sight, savoring the skyline for just a few moments more, before exhaling with a lengthy sigh. “Yeah, okay. I’m ready.”
*
By the time I made it back to Dawson’s massive home, I was practically dead on my feet. The sun had long set, and the driveway was dark, but it seemed every light in the house was turned on for some reason.
Curious, I parked and made my way to the front door, and the sound of raised voices greeted me the moment I pushed it open. Brushing aside the brief moment of déjà vu, I hurried down the hall, exhaustion evaporating as concern rushed in to replace it.
As it turned out, chaos had erupted in the few short hours I’d been absent; Dawson, Boone, and Gage were all yelling at each other in the living room.
“All I said was no!” Dawson stood in the center of the fray, disheveled in gray sweatpants and hoodie. “He’s seven, Boone. He can’t be watching that kind of thing.”
“It’s just a movie,” Boone, in an equal state of disarray and yanking at his collar, shot back. “We were watching scary movies at that age, what's the problem?!”
“The problem is those movies kept you up for weeks,” Dawson pinched his brow, clearly fatigued by the entire conversation. “Or have you forgotten sneaking into my room because little baby Boone was afraid of monsters?”
“Whatever!” Boone cut that intriguing little story short and turned his anger on Gage instead. “Look, he wouldn’t have gotten so worked up in the first place if somebody hadn’t snapped at him!”
“I didn’t snap,” Gage, clearly fuming, snapped back. “I just told him not to whine, God. I didn’t know he was going to cry about it.”
“HEY!” My shrill, sudden holler had all three of them looking my way. I looked between each of them, working myself up to a boiling point too. “Where is Henry?!”
That took the wind out of their sails quickly enough, and all eyes turned to Dawson.
The team captain looked back at me, plain horror written on his face. “We fucked up. Henry’s locked himself in the bathroom, and he won’t come out.”
“What?” I dumped my bag on the floor, already storming down the hallway as I yelled over my shoulder. “Why!? What happened? How long has he been in there?”
“Going on an hour.” Dawson jogged to keep up with me, and Boone and Gage trailed along behind us. “It all spiraled out of control so quickly, I didn’t know what to do.”
“He’s been in there for an hour?!” I whisper-hissed as I approached the bathroom door. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“We tried. Several times,” Boone chimed in, looking more distraught than I’d ever seen him, not even when Gage drank the last of his orange juice. “Your phone’s off, or dead. Or I don’t know, we thought maybe you were ignoring us.”
“Why would I—?” I cut myself off, shooing him out of the way as I leaned my ear toward the door. “Henry, love, are you in there?”
The faintest sounds of sniffing and sniveling reached me through the wood. I glanced back at Dawson, whose face had gone white. Gage, behind him, looked equally pale, and all three guys stood there dumbfounded, completely at a loss on how to handle the situation.
I would have rolled my eyes at their blank expressions had the circumstances not been so dire. Turning, I knocked gently on the door again, listening with an ear near the keyhole. “Henry? It’s Carissa. Do you want to come out?”
Another sniff, followed by a pitiful: “Go away.”
“Okay.” I straightened up and put a hand on my hip, running the other one through my hair. I looked at Dawson. “Tell me, from the top. What happened?”
The three of them exchanged glances, then Dawson cleared his throat. “Things were fine after you left. Henry was still hopped up on sugar, but he was playing helicopter, and we were all hanging out in the living room.”
His pause went on a second too long, and I windmilled my hand to speed him up. “And then?”
“And then Henry wanted to watch a movie,” Boone piped up, folding his arms and leaning against the wall in a huff. He shot an accusatory look back at Dawson. “Which was fine.”
“It was fine,” Dawson said through his teeth. “But the movie he picked was some B-list horror movie, and the rating was thirteen and up.”
“So you told him no, and he threw a tantrum?” I raised a brow. That didn’t sound like Henry. Sure, the kid got temperamental occasionally, but it was usually because he was struggling to communicate how he was feeling, not because he wasn’t allowed to do something.
“No, not exactly.” Dawson threw a brief glance in Gage’s direction. “Henry was just pretty insistent, and he kept going on about how he was big enough to watch the movie, and Boone wasn’t helping—”
“Oh, come on,” Boone rolled his eyes. “I just said it wasn’t a big deal. If he wants to watch the movie, he can watch the movie.”
“Boone, shut up.” I pointed a finger at him, still keeping my eyes on Dawson. “Go on.”
“And then Gage chimed in and told him to stop whining.” Dawson finished in a rush. “Henry teared up after that and ran to the bathroom. He’s been refusing to come out ever since.”
In the corner of my eye, I caught Gage’s shoulders stiffening, but the guy looked away when I glanced at him.
“Okay.” I blew out a breath, running a hand over my face and wondering how the hell three grown men were laid low by one solitary seven-year-old. “This is not as much of a disaster as you think it is. I think I know why he’s upset.”
“Can you get him to come out?” Dawson’s eyes were stricken and pleading. In fact, all three of them were silently begging for help, pleading in their own special ways.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” I waved aside their puppy-dog eyes and stepped up to do my job. “I can fix this.”