Come Fly with Me: A Collection

by Whitney G.

I looked down at the paper, noticing the red lined change: I, Jake Weston, have never, and will never engage in a relationship with any employee of Elite Airways, in any department or extension of Elite Airways. I also am in compliance with the original non-fraternization policy below.

  Picking up a pen, I signed my name and he took the paper from me. I stood up and headed for the door, but he called after me.

  “Yes?” I looked over my shoulder.

  “Um, you left something in your chair.” He pointed to a crumpled pair of black, lace panties.

  “Thank you.” I picked them up and returned them to my pocket, not letting him ask whatever the hell he was tempted to ask. I stepped out of the room and into the terminal at Honolulu International, in no rush to spend my next four off days on the island.

  Years ago, I would’ve relished the idea of spending countless hours near the beaches and fucking as many women as possible, but for some reason, that idea wasn’t as appealing right now.

  I pulled out my phone and looked over Gillian’s line. She was currently in Orlando en route via a red eye flight to Seattle. From there she had a trip to Los Angeles with a three day stopover.

  I calculated the math in my head: Los Angeles was only a five hour flight away from Hawaii, with a three hour time zone difference. Seattle was six hours away from Orlando, so she’d land there within the next couple of hours for a short flight to Los—

  I immediately stopped my train of thought.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  I shook my head and headed down to the ground transportation dock, hailing the first available cab. I needed to get to the hotel ASAP before I could entertain that reckless thought any further.

  Gate B21

  Gillian

  Orlando (MCO) --> Seattle (SEA) --> Los Angeles (LAX)

  * * *

  I winced as I made another pot of coffee for the first class cabin. The muscles in my arms were weak and heavy—worn out from holding onto a closet doorframe while Jake bent low on his knees and pleasured my pussy with his mouth.

  I was still waiting for a time when the sex wouldn’t be so spectacular, an instance where it would only be ‘good,’ or maybe even average, but it was getting more intense every time.

  Making sure the coffee was hot enough, I turned it on low, ready to start breakfast service. I opened the compartment where we kept the placemats, but Miss Connors stepped in front of me and slammed it shut.

  “How are you on this lovely day today, Miss Taylor?” she asked, smiling.

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “I’m amazing.” Her smile didn’t waver. “I didn’t see you on the crew shuttle this morning, so I was quite surprised that you beat me to the airport for a change. Imagine my surprise when I arrived this morning and saw you already waiting patiently at the gate.”

  “Yes, well…” I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “On time is late, and early is on time. I caught the shuttle right before yours.”

  “Oh, really?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. “You know, that’s quite interesting because there was no shuttle before mine. Even if there was, I would’ve seen you catch it because I was in the lobby having coffee and a book at five this morning. If you came down, there’s no way I would’ve missed you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Furthermore,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “I actually went to your room at seven to make sure you were coming, so imagine how shocked I was when a housekeeping associate told me you never actually checked into your room the other day.”

  I felt my face turning red, but I still didn’t say anything.

  “So, I started thinking to myself. Well, Miss Taylor is definitely incompetent at times, and although I did see her argue with someone familiar at the gala weeks ago, there’s no way this young woman would risk her career over a pilot’s cock.” She shook her head. “There’s no way the front desk agent had the same girl in mind when he told me you turned in your room key shortly after checking in and was picked up by some ‘pilot guy.’ There’s no way, is there, Miss Taylor?”

  I swallowed, unable to meet her gaze anymore.

  “End it.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “End it today. I don’t care what type of stupid system of lust the two of you have going on, but if it continues past today, I’ll have you fired.”

  “Miss Connors, I’m—”

  She held up her hand. “I expected more from you. You can do much better than a goddamn pilot,” She rolled her eyes and walked away without another word, leaving me completely embarrassed.

  Seconds after checking into my Los Angeles hotel, I got the hell away from Miss Connors and locked myself in my room. I plugged my laptop into the wall and sat at the desk, forcing myself to temporarily forget about her threats.

  I googled “Flight Attendants Fired for Breaking Employee Fraternization Policy,” and several pages of results popped up. I clicked on each of the links, my heart sinking with each and every article. Of the twenty I read, eighteen of the incidents were from Elite Airways, but they were several years old. The more current articles were all quotes from executives, all of them saying a variation of, “That’s why our safety record is so high. Our flight employees are pure professionals. No other airline in the world has a policy like ours, but the proof is in the policy.”

  Shit…

  I closed all the browser windows and leaned back in my chair. I was going to have to find a way to end this; losing my job over sex wasn’t worth it, no matter how amazing it was.

  Sighing, I got up and took a long shower—thinking through the past few months, tallying up all of our meet-ups. No matter how badly I wanted to believe that this could turn into something more, the only thing that improved between us was the sex. Our conversations were still on his terms, still unbalanced and tilted in favor of my reveals and his conceals. And the longer I continued to deny the fact that deep down, I did want more, the longer I would drag this out and potentially get hurt.

  I stepped out of the shower and immediately scrolled down to Jake’s name in my phone. I typed my email and hastily hit send, not giving myself a chance to change my mind.

  Gillian: We need to end this. Now. I’m sorry…

  He didn’t respond.

  An entire hour passed before I stopped staring at the screen and realized he wasn’t going to. Figuring silence was his easy way of accepting things, I opened my laptop once more and opened up a few new tabs.

  Since I’d managed to go several weeks without giving in to my curiosity about Jake’s family, and we were now practically over, I had to know what he meant by Evan being his brother. Why he said it in a way that looked as if he hated to admit the fact.

  I typed in “Evan Pearson” in one tab and “Elite Airways CEO Nathaniel Pearson” in another.

  I clicked on the best picture of Nathaniel and enlarged it, raising my eyebrow as I noticed the similarities between him and his son, Evan. Then I pulled up a picture of Jake.

  At first glance, there wasn’t much to compare—Nathaniel’s features were far softer and his hair in his younger years was a dark brown that complemented his full mustache. But his eyes—those bright blue and stunning irises were damn near identical to Jake’s.

  So he couldn’t have been adopted…

  I stared at the two of them for at least five minutes, wondering how the hell something like this had gone undiscovered for so long, how some opportunistic reporter hadn’t already spun the story to the tabloids at least. I was certain ‘family-oriented CEO fathered a secret son’ would’ve fetched a high price.

  I made a cup of cheap hotel coffee and started to read over the short biography on his father’s ‘About the CEO’ page. Everything was exactly how I’d remembered it years before, all standing still in its fairy tale glory:

  At six years old, Nathaniel Pearson was a young boy who only dreamed of being a pilot. Growing up poor, his parents were unable to afford lessons at the local glider school, so he learned
how to build planes instead. After dropping out of high school at age fourteen, Pearson worked two jobs to help support his family, and eventually enrolled himself into flight school and became one of our country’s most decorated pilots.

  After decades of service, he started Elite Airways, with the inaugural flight of a plane he helped design. However, the very first flight ended in fatality—killing his own wife, Sarah Irene, and severely injuring his only son, Evan.

  Although Evan healed completely, Sarah succumbed to her injuries, forcing Nathaniel into years of depression. Amidst his heartache, Nathaniel vowed to make his airline the safest in the world and Elite has had no fatal crashes since.

  He hopes to see this record continue.

  I clicked on Evan’s profile, but his biography was far shorter, far less informational. It was simply a rehash of his university years and his love for flying. His picture was an older one of him in a navy blue pilot uniform.

  Frustrated, I leaned back and played a YouTube video of him being interviewed several years ago. As the questions were asked and answered plainly, I started to think that whatever ties Jake had to him were maybe long lost, or that maybe he was the product of infidelity the family wanted to keep hidden. I read a few more articles and prepared to turn off the interview, but I heard Evan say something that caught me off guard.

  “Yes,” he said. “I only spent a few years in the flight academy. I graduated with honors. I still have the uniform.” Then a faded, younger picture of him in his grey academy uniform appeared onscreen.

  I paused the video and rewound it—replaying that small part again and again, watching as the interviewer moved to the next question with ease.

  I searched through my email and pulled up the notes I’d written years ago, looking for the direct quote that never made it into the article, but one I knew I’d marked down: “I went to the flight academy, but I struggled to make it. I finished, not with honors, but the experience was worth it. I still have the uniform.”

  Out of an old researching habit, I rewound the YouTube clip to his flight academy picture, zooming in on the faint grey digits etched in the side of the photo—his student ID. Then I searched for the number of The Flight Academy—dialing the listed extension the second it hit my screen.

  “Admissions Department,” a male voice said after two rings. “How may I help you?”

  “I’m—” I cleared my throat. “I’m doing some research for The Times. We’re doing a profile on a graduate of your academy.”

  “Oh, great.” He sounded honored. “We love seeing those. What do you need from me?”

  “I’m just fact-checking, want to be sure I have the right background for our person.”

  “I got it.” The sound of keyboard keys clacking was in his background. “You can never be too sure these days, huh? One second…” More typing. “Per our policy, I can only confirm or deny based on a student ID number you give me first. Do you have that?”

  “Yes. Five, four, eight, nine, seven.” I stared at the photo. “One, zero, zero, nine.”

  “Got it. What do you need to know?”

  “Did this student graduate with honors?”

  “High honors. Won every damn award in the goddamn book.” He laughed. “Looks like we even made one up for him his senior year.”

  “Can you confirm the name?”

  “Only after you give it to me first.”

  “Right…Um, Pearson. Evan Pearson.”

  “No, Miss. That’s not the name in our records. Perhaps you mixed up the—”

  “No, I’m sorry.” I cut him off. “I was looking at the wrong sheet. Weston. Jake Weston.”

  “That’s him. Jake C. Weston.” He paused. “He agreed to be profiled?”

  “Took a lot of convincing.” I started to hang up, but I thought of one last thing. “Do you have a yearbook by chance? A digital copy?”

  “I can send you an access code for it that’ll expire in an hour. You don’t have permission to use any of the images for your paper, though.”

  “I won’t.” I recited my email address, thanked him, and ended the call. I stared at my inbox, waiting for the message to come through. When it did, ten minutes later, I immediately clicked on the link and scrolled through the scanned pages of the yearbook, stopping in utter shock when I reached the W’s.

  There, at the top of the page, was a fresh-faced Jake, smiling proudly. I pulled up Evan’s interview picture right next to it and realized he’d photo-shopped his face over Jake’s.

  I pulled up a few other photos of Evan from the press—pictures of him playing on the lawn of the academy and standing in front of small planes. And as I continued to scroll through the academy’s yearbooks, I saw that every single one of those photos were photo-shopped, too.

  What the hell…

  I searched for “Sarah Irene Pearson” and images of her pretty face, her smiling with Nathaniel, and her funeral appeared. There were no biography pages for her, only links that circled back to Flight 1872 and pictures of Nathaniel crying, with Evan at his side the day they buried her.

  Jake was nowhere to be found in any of the pictures or files. He wasn’t even briefly mentioned in her public obituary. It was if they’d erased his very existence.

  I immediately shut down my laptop, deciding that I needed to drop this for good. I didn’t need to dig any deeper, I didn’t need to know anymore.

  I lay back on my bed, trying my best to stop wondering about why someone would do that to Jake and why he would let the charade continue to happen for so many years. I rolled over to set an alarm, but there was a knock at my door.

  Confused, I got up and opened the door, coming face to face with Jake.

  “What the—” I stepped back. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Hawaii right now?”

  “What the hell does this text message mean?” he asked, holding his phone in front of my face.

  I blinked, still unable to process that he was standing in front of me right now. Looking absolutely livid, he was dressed in a casual grey T-shirt that clung to his muscles in all the right ways and dark blue jeans that brought out the shining azure jewels in his latest watch.

  “Gillian?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “What the hell does this text message mean?”

  The sound of the elevator doors opening filled the hallway, and I pulled him inside my room.

  Shutting the door, I avoided looking directly at him and cleared my throat. “It’s my attempt at saying goodbye.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit cruel to deny me a goodbye in person?” He tilted my chin up with his fingertips, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You could’ve waited and told me this in New York next week.”

  “Before or after I let you fuck me?”

  “After, preferably.” He smiled. “Is this some type of joke?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I really did want to say goodbye and end this, for me.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I need a reason.”

  “I just gave you one.”

  “Wanting to say goodbye is not a reason.”

  “Fine.” I swallowed as he trailed a finger against my collarbone. “It’s against the rules.”

  “You knew it was against the rules when we started. Try again.”

  “My supervisor knows and threatened to have me fired. I’m not willing to lose my career over sleeping with you.”

  “She’s not going to fire you.” He looked amused. “If she was, she would’ve done it after the gala after she heard me practically say we were fucking.” His hand moved down to my waist. “But now that you’ve brought that up, we need to be far more careful. There was a video of us kissing in the hallway via security camera.”

  My eyes widened. “Do you not hear yourself, Jake? Is that not the perfect reason to end this?”

  “No, and I’m still waiting for you to give me an acceptable one. Are you finished?”

  I was silent for a few seconds. “I’m not attracted to you anymore.”

 
; “A reason that doesn’t insult my intelligence.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Tell me the truth.”

  “I like you.”

  He blinked.

  “And I feel like you don’t and won’t ever feel the same, so on top of the threats from my supervisor, I’d rather cut my losses now.” I stepped back. “That way, I won’t ever be tempted to say the words ‘us’ ‘more’ or—”

  “Relationships.” He finished my sentence and grabbed my wrist, pulling me back to him. “I remember.”

  “So,” I said, looking into his eyes. “I think that’s the end of this.” I waited for him to leave, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood staring at me, his gaze pinning me to the spot.

  “Are you sure you’re not simply confusing infatuation with our sex for liking me?” He slipped an arm around my waist, strumming his fingers against my hips. “That could be the problem.”

  “That’s not the problem.” My voice was a whisper. “I think, regardless of what we agreed to, that you’re going to end up hurting my feelings in the future.”

  “You’re not a fortune-teller, Gillian,” he said. “You have no idea what either of us is going to do, and since you would have to know me to like me, I think it’s just a temporary crush.” He snapped my lips shut with his fingers before I could say something. “A mutual, temporary crush.”

  Without saying anything else, he clasped my hand and pulled me over to the bed. He started running his fingers through my hair with his other hand, looking as if he was going to kiss me, but I shook my head.

  “I don’t have a temporary crush on you, Jake,” I said. “I like you, I actually fucking like you, and I don’t need you to try and convince me that I don’t. As good as sex with you is, I’m not going to continue risking my job over it, or let my feelings get hurt by someone who doesn’t like me back. So, I think you should leave. Now.”

  A confused look etched across his face, but he didn’t say anything. He just stared at me.

  “Why are you here anyway?” I pulled my hand away from him. “You’re supposed to be in Hawaii.”