by Pippa Grant
“We’re certainly not going for half-assed,” I reply. It’s our pre-flight routine, Boomer and Monkey Butt playing the funnymen to my straight-laced hard-ass.
For the first time in a long time, I wish I could be the funny man.
Funny isn’t something I’ve had time for in… Never mind.
It doesn’t matter.
We’re finishing up the pre-flight checklist when the head of my flight crew steps onto the plane behind the flight deck.
“Got some heavy cargo today.” Nyla’s dark eyes are wide and she’s breathing a little fast. I can’t tell if it’s embarrassment, interest, or something else entirely. Her navy-blue flight suit is clean and pressed, her hands steady as she passes me the manifest, so I give her a lingering look—the everything okay? question that every one of my crew knows is code for No questions if you need to not be on this flight today.
Safety first.
Always.
She gives a smart nod. “Surprised, but I got it under control, boss.” She points halfway down the manifest. “Just wasn’t prepared for that.”
I follow her finger, and are you fucking kidding me?
I must’ve made a noise, because now Nyla, Boomer, and Monkey Butt are all treating me to my own Everything okay? look.
“Medical forms?” I ask Nyla.
“Called and double-checked them myself.”
An unwelcome and poorly-timed tingle of interest flares to life between my thighs. “Make sure they’re on opposite sides of the plane.”
“Already done. And I confiscated four helium balloons from Mr. Richardson.”
“Richardson?” I scan the list and find a John Colbert Richardson.
“The Panther,” Monkey Butt says reverently.
Boomer perks up. “That Panther? We’re taking The Panther weightless?”
I smile, because Panther grew on me yesterday. “Put the balloons on board. If he makes it through the first seven parabolas, give them to the kids and let them taunt him.”
“Speaking of the kids, I had to separate one from the Berger twins. Ma’am, this is one interesting bunch of passengers.”
I scan the list again.
It certainly is.
And for the first time in a long time, I’m looking forward to the post-flight briefing almost more than I’m looking forward to the flight itself.
18
Zeus
This plane is fucking hot, and not just because Joey’s a sexy beast in that dark blue flight suit. I’m strapped in across the aisle from Ares, with that little punk kid from yesterday chewing my ear off about all the mistakes I made in the play-offs last season—like I don’t know them myself—and I can’t stop thinking that Joey’s up there in the cockpit—heh, cock—making us fly.
Before we took off, she and two dudes in matching flight suits came out to welcome us aboard and tell us some technical shit about what to expect from our joyride in the sky today. She was military stiff and professional as a freaking professional professionaler. Like she gets paid to look like the badass mofo in charge.
Like she didn’t remember at all that I bet her a date I won’t get sick in her plane today.
I don’t go for badass chicks who can ignore me. I like ‘em giggly and starry-eyed and eager to get off on a little Zeusitude.
But I cannot get Fireball out of my head.
I’ve been fighting a woody the size of a redwood in this one-piece matching suit they made us all put on—in case of unexpected motion sickness, so you don’t get your clothes dirty, Joey’s head minion had said cheerfully when we checked in. Should be easy to keep the stick in my pants hanging loose with Bailey detailing exactly how it was my fault we lost that last game to the Blackhawks, but nope, that wood’s stubborn and proud and once again asking to tap into the game.
It doesn’t understand patience.
Fuck, I don’t understand patience. This isn’t normal.
But I’m going to prove to her that Zeus Berger doesn’t fuck up without making it right.
Except all I seem to be able to do is fuck up.
“Earth to Zeus,” Bailey says. The kid’s just as badass in her flight suit as Joey is, except in a terrifying eleven-year-old way. “I just said you hold your hockey stick like a toothless llama.”
Her mother cringes.
“I don’t use llamas as sticks,” I grunt.
Bailey dissolves in a fit of laughter. Zeus ten, Bailey seven hundred million. But I’m on the fucking board now.
And the kid deserves a laugh or two. Heard her mother talking to another kid’s dad about grades and lack of funding in their district for help for her learning disabilities. Pisses me off.
As does the lack of a girls’ hockey team in her town.
Across the aisle, Ares smirks at me. Behind him, Chase and Ambrosia are smirking too.
Panther kicks my seat. “Sounds like I’m not the only one who could use a hit of helium.”
“Fairly certain our dear friend Zeus needs something more physical to feel better,” Prince Manning replies cheerfully.
“Can we not talk about that in front of the c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n?” Ambrosia says.
“You know how to make friends?” I say gruffly to Bailey.
She gives me that duh look, like she’s not afraid of me at all. I fucking love this kid.
“Don’t be an ash-hole,” I tell her.
“I learned that when I was four,” she replies. “Along with don’t take shift from bullies.”
Shift.
Heh.
Her mother’s cringing again, but this kid is funny. She’s going places.
One of the crew steps to the front of the seating area, which is overlooking the empty white cavern in the center of the plane where we’re supposed to go weightless. “It’s time. Who’s ready to walk on the moon?”
We all unbuckle. I adjust Mount Woodmore in my pants. Ares tugs his suit out of his ass. They weren’t exactly prepared for us, but we were both grateful there were two suits this big.
And fuck yeah, I want to know what it’s like to walk on the moon. Don’t quite believe it yet—I’m one heavy mofo—but sure, I’ll let Fireball give it the ol’ college try.
We’re split into two groups. Ares and Chase get to go in the front section. I’m told to lay on the floor between Bailey and Manning with Ambrosia behind us. Panther’s whistling something near the center. Bailey’s mother keeps lifting her head to eyeball me, like she’s afraid I’ll squish the kid or something.
“Martian gravity,” a male voice over the intercom says, and holy fuck.
My stomach dips briefly, and then I suddenly feel—like I’m not a gargantuan beast of a man. Not like I’m little, but like part of my weight disappeared.
Bailey shrieks next to me. She climbs to her knees, then her feet, and she jumps. She floats back to the ground—not slow, but not fast either—eyes wide, still shrieking with laughter.
I get to my feet too, and when I jump, I land like—huh. Like a normal guy. I’m not going to shake the whole motherfucking plane out of the sky.
We jump around a few more times before the crew orders us to lie down again. This on-our-backs thing seems pointless. The crew’s up walking around. But I’ll set a good example for Bailey.
For once.
After a minute, the voice comes on the intercom again. “Moon gravity.”
The crew signals us to our feet. Bailey’s shrieking harder. “Ohmygod, Mom! Look! I’m on the moon!”
I jump again, and it’s like half of me wants to float, but I’m still coming back down to the ground.
Like I’m a feather. A gorilla-sized feather. I could be a ballerina. A Zeuserina.
A manly-ass Zeuserina.
“Rather unexpected,” Manning says with a grin while he lifts his legs from beneath him and twists in the air.
“I’m a fu—freaking balloon,” Panther crows.
This is the most fucking awesome feeling short of sex or hockey in the whole fucking universe. My fee
t are still big, but they’re not going to crush anybody’s toes or fingers. My arms are floating like they’re made of air.
I’m light as a fucking fairy princess. And drunk on moon gravity.
And too soon, it’s over.
“Down on your backs,” the short, bossy crew member calls. She’s been watching me the whole trip like she’ll boot my ass out the back without a parachute if I try any monkey business.
Probably shouldn’t have checked in and told her I could fly the fucking airplane in my sleep better than anyone in the room, but it’s so fucking easy to bait these people sometimes.
Bailey’s giggling next to me. “That was so flipping cool,” she whispers. “Joey’s the best.”
I’m about to agree when the plane suddenly feels seven million pounds heavier. I’m not a fairy princess anymore. Now I’m a wooly mammoth getting pulled through the floor.
“Almost two G’s,” the crew lady says with a grin, still standing by the white padded wall and gripping a rope. “Not living until you’re pulling at least four.”
Fuck, there’s a pressure in my gut that’s not happy cotton candy. More like sour milk.
I’ve taken plenty of hits on the ice. Taken some pucks in some unfortunate places. Been sat on by some beefy dudes once or twice. But this—this is new.
Uncomfortable. Not like that bra and coconuts and girdle were uncomfortable the other night. More like so this is what it feels like to be squished to death by an elephant uncomfortable.
I try to peer at the next section to see how Ares is doing, but lifting my head makes it swim.
Fuck.
I close my eyes and breathe until the deep voice comes over the intercom again. “Zero gravity. We’re weightless.”
Fuck, yeah, we are. My ass is suddenly floating.
Floating.
“Holy fuck,” I sputter.
Bailey smacks me in the arm. “Watch your mouth and don’t talk like that in front of my mother.” She giggles, and the little turd-monkey flips.
In midair.
Hair floating. Completely impervious to gravity.
“Whheeeeeee!” she crows.
I’m looking for some kind of balance, but holy fucking shit. It’s like swimming in the ocean without any water. Like—like I’m a fucking astronaut. I float to the top of the plane and bump the ceiling. Not because I’m too tall, but because I don’t weigh a single fucking ounce.
Me.
Zeus Berger.
The biggest dude ever to play hockey—except maybe Ares, depending on which of us took a shit last—and I’m floating like I’m no bigger than a fucking oxygen molecule.
Ambrosia’s shrieking with laughter and pushing herself from one side of the plane to the other.
Ares grins at me from the front of the plane. He’s floating too. Floating with his hands behind his head like he’s in a fucking hammock.
Fuck yeah, that grin says. Life doesn’t suck, that grin says.
We’re two lucky motherfuckers, I grin back.
Chase gives my sister a look I pretend I don’t see and that makes me glad the crew knew to separate those two.
Horny fuckers.
“On your backs,” the crew calls.
Gravity starts to kick in. We get settled back on the ground, and in about thirty seconds, we go from floating to having something sitting on our chests again. This G business isn’t a joke. I wonder how Joey’s feeling in the cockpit. Does she get to float? How intense is it?
If I was flying this thing, I’d have a nonstop hard-on. Killing gravity?
That’s fucking hardcore.
After a minute or two, the pressure on my chest eases, though my stomach’s still twitching and my head’s floating off-center, and suddenly gravity disappears again.
And I’m floating. Again.
Shit, I could live like this all the time. I’m not an ape up here. Not an ogre. Not too big or too heavy or too anything.
I’m just a dude who’s fucking defying gravity.
“Hey, your royal assssss—ah, highness, you’re getting shown up by a girl,” I holler at Manning, who’s chatting with my sister about how much Willow, his stepsister and one of Ambrosia’s best friends, will be jealous to have missed this while they both float like we’re in outer space.
He spins in the air—more of a barrel roll than a somersault—and still manages to show me his ass. “Eat this, Berger,” he says cheerfully.
I flex and wiggle—muscle ain’t doing shit for helping me move without the gravity to fight against—and I manage to look like a hippo trying to lick its own ass in space before we’re ordered back on our backs.
This is weird shit—floating like a speck of dust one minute, and weighing eight hundred pounds with all that extra force pushing down the next. How many times are we going? Twelve? Fifteen? Fuck, I didn’t pay attention.
I was too busy sending brain signals out to the plane, telling Joey all the places I’m going to take her and all the different ways I’m going to make her scream my name when I win our bet and we’re back on the ground.
But I don’t want to eat right now.
Not food. Not pussy either. Fuck, it’s hot in here. And there’s a friggin’ elephant sitting on my chest.
But I’m not going to fucking puke.
No fucking way.
I’m taking a badass pilot out to dinner and then for a special brand of Zeus Berger—oh, fuck.
Fuck fuck FUCK.
It’s hot.
Stomach.
Roll.
Head.
Floating.
Barf bag.
I need a fucking barf bag.
19
Joey
After two hours of owning the sky a few miles above our strip of the Atlantic Ocean, Monkey Butt lands us back at the sunny Copper Valley International Airport in the shadow of the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My muscles are all strung taut, and I’m coming down off the adrenaline high that perpetually hums in my veins beside the intense concentration we keep in the cockpit.
None of us break mission talk until we’re parked.
“Nearly perfect on that sixth run,” Monkey Butt says.
I slap him on the shoulder. “Damn right. Beautiful headwind.” I look at Boomer, who’s grinning like a kid on Christmas morning despite the weathered lines deepening by the day on his forehead. “Any casualties?” I ask. As our flight engineer, he monitors all comms with the back of the plane.
“Two of the moms, Panther, and one of the Berger twins.”
Oh, no.
I barely keep from cringing.
If it was Zeus—no. Nope. Doesn’t matter. I’ve already given the man too much thought. Him getting sick—meaning no date, not that I agreed to his terms in the first place—isn’t just the final nail in the coffin, it’s an extra three tons of dirt dumped on the ground to keep that corpse good and buried.
He probably threw up on purpose so he wouldn’t have to follow through.
Except even I can’t convince myself it’s Zeus’s style to continue to embarrass himself for the sake of a woman.
Which means…
Fuck. I don’t know what it means.
“Anyone else?” I ask.
Boomer glances at the closed cockpit door and double-checks that our comms are off. “Nope. And Nyla says Chase Jett and his girlfriend have been looking you up on their phones and whispering ever since we leveled off on our way back.”
Putting an airplane through the kind of acrobatics it takes to simulate zero-gravity is like taking a brain surgery test while running a marathon at ten miles an hour. Boomer, Monkey Butt, and I have been known to clean out the Weightless snack bar and crash out for two hours after any given flight.
Hope Peach has some time for a phone call.
Expanding Weightless, with an investor I can tolerate—fuck, that would be cool.
“Aw, she’s smiling.” Monkey Butt gives me a friendly punch to the bicep. “Isn’t that cute.”
I know, it’s too soon to smile. You don’t grow up dirt floor poor and make the mistake of counting your chickens before the hogs are let loose to trample the chicken coop.
But it was a damn good flight. Shrieks and giggles from the cabin are still coming through the flight deck door, along with deeper chuckles and fast voices. Satisfied customers.
And Jett isn’t stupid. Any man who can make himself a billionaire before he’s thirty—especially a man who started with just as much nothing as I did—will do his homework. Probably already has.
I strap out of my harness and join Boomer and Monkey Butt in leaving the flight deck. I barely step out the door before I’m tackled about the middle.
“Ohmygosh, Joey, this was so flipping fabamazesome. I’m gonna be an astronaut one day, and I’m going to play baseball in space and be a kickaaaa—labama rock star. Can I get a picture? And your autograph again? And one of those cookies with a picture of the plane and one with your picture? I swear I won’t eat your face, but I might eat the plane. If I have a spare.”
How can you not smile at this kid? I pat her back and smile wider at her mother’s what can you do? shrug. “Pictures in the lobby in fifteen,” I tell her. “We’ll have a tablet for ordering cookies too.”
Damn right I pimp my sister’s business.
But not the genital cookies. I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing.
Her mother mouths a thank you, and they depart.
“They didn’t let me have my balloons,” Panther says dryly.
“Maybe skip the haircuts and come back next month,” I reply, and yes, I’m smiling again, because it’s impossible not to smile at a plane full of satisfied customers who’ve just had the experience of their lives.
I fucking love my job.
“Ms. Diamonte, you’ve surpassed my wildest expectations.” Prince Manning bows over my hand and kisses my knuckles as though I’m the royalty on this plane.
“Good. Stay the fuck away from my sister.”
His grin spreads wider when he straightens. “Hope to do it again someday. Might bring my brothers. Did someone say cookies?”