Skye
I was going to lose my religion and my job in the same breath if he kept it up.
“It’s too early for this, JD.”
The sun was barely up, I had a full flight ahead of me, and this man was standing in my face with his wife’s lipstick on his collar trying to invite me to a freak-off on the clock. He was the exact reason I refused to entertain anything with two legs, two eyes, and two balls.
“Look, I’ve converted three flight attendants on this route alone. Just saying.”
“JD,” I said, as calmly as I could muster up. “I’ve said it nicely. I’ve said it firmly. Please let this time be the last time I say I’m not interested. Single, married, open or closed, you and I will never happen. You got a whole ass wife.”
“Come on now.” He leaned into my space, irritating me further. “Me and my wife got an understanding. She don’t care about none of that. Thirty and single, options getting slim, Skye.”
Lydia slid up beside me like she’d been summoned.
“JD says his wife doesn’t care that he sleeps around with all the flight attendants,” I said. “She a no-limit soldier ain‘t she?”
“Oh, JD,” Lydia added sweetly. “She’s poisoning you. That’s why she doesn’t care.”
I pressed my lips together to stifle my laugh. The laugh slipped out anyway.
He waved us off and muttered something about loyalty before wandering off.
“I give him seven days,” I said.
“Four tops,” Lydia replied. “I’ve seen this movie before.”
The pilot’s voice came over the speaker and cut through our cackling.
“Crew 143, we are almost set for takeoff. Please complete your final checks.”
I reached for my compact. I’d been doing this my whole life at the start of things, but even more now that once I got in the air, making it home was no longer promised. I flipped it open and looked at the photo of smiling toothless faces tucked into the flap.
I touched the photo and smiled before saying my mantra to the woman looking back at me.
“Solid ground is fun. But sky’s the limit.”
My mother used to say it was in my name, and she wasn’t wrong.
Skye Campbell had been built for altitude.
I had known it before I understood what following in someone's footsteps even meant.
Premier Wings had given me the platform to prove it five years ago.
I had shown up for it every single day since.
College hadn’t exactly panned out the way I’d planned, but I didn’t falter or cry about it. I took it as a sign. I withdrew that semester when things got hard in ways I wasn’t ready to talk about, and it took me years to save enough to go back and finish what I started.
I checked my pinned curls, brushed an invisible wrinkle from my uniform, and nodded to myself. Premier Wings didn’t play about dress code or professionalism, and neither did I.
“Private suite still needs a check,” Lydia said, appearing at my elbow. “Can you do it?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I said, snapping the compact shut.
“Thank God. I had Hank’s last flight, and the man was pissy before we landed in Thailand.”
“Pissy Pants Hank.” I shook my head. “I told you, you cut him off early. He’ll fuss, but he’ll get over it. He’s on thin ice.”
Lydia was fairly new to the senior crew, and I had personally taken her under my wing since she moved up.
The more money these men got, the less respect it seemed they had.
It was a gift and a curse to be around such prestigious people.
They tipped, but you earned every damn dime of it after putting up with unsolicited hands, compliments, and innuendos.
“Skye, Ron wants to know if you want Monday and Tuesday.”
“Paid?”
Lydia went back to the phone. “Paid, he appreciates you taking this flight.”
I thanked her and continued through the main cabin, unhurried, making eye contact with the few passengers who wanted it and giving space to those who didn’t. JD caught my eye near the cockpit, and I gave him a look that communicated everything I hadn’t said out loud. The buck was ending with me.
I reached the rear of the aircraft and checked my iPad.
D. S.
New client. Our list was small and carefully kept, and I took pride in knowing every name on it, so D.
S. was either very new money or very well connected to have gotten on without me knowing.
I was hoping for well-connected because new money had a tendency to confuse premier service with personal service, and I was not the one.
Not today. Not with JD already having used up my last nerve before we even left the ground.
The do-not-disturb hanger was face-in, so I was clear to enter. I straightened my gold pin, put on my smile, and pushed the door open.
I stepped further into the suite. The scent stopped me before I made it all the way inside.
I made that cologne. Not picked it out. Made it in a fragrance studio on a random Saturday two months before his birthday, while the woman behind the counter watched me with a smile on her face.
Vetiver.
That was the note I couldn’t let go of. Everything else in the bottle existed to hold that one note in place. I tested strip after strip that could’ve belonged to anybody. I wasn’t looking for anybody. I was looking for Ducane. Unexpected. A little dangerous before he let you in.
I remembered every note.
I remembered him.
How could I forget?
I glanced back at the placard beside the door because the aroma made no sense, and I needed the name to either confirm or release me.
D. S.
My pulse picked up fast, loud enough that I felt it in my throat.
I scanned the suite looking for anything that would tell me I was wrong, some detail that didn’t add up.
Some excuse to close the door and head back to my galley.
But the bathroom door was already moving. I was completely out of time.
I turned to leave, and my earring hit the floor. I froze. I started to turn back for it, then thought better of it. I was not bending over in this man’s suite right now. I was not doing it.
The bathroom door swung open.
“Shit,” I murmured.
Ducane Simmons stepped out, making the decision irrelevant. Dark linen pants, white tee, toothbrush still in his hand. The toothbrush stopped moving.
“Skye.”