“After what happened . . .” Noah’s voice trailed off and then he seemed to gather himself. “I understand if it’s too much. I don’t want to ask you to give up everything, don’t want you to ever be in the position Dani’s in.” His voice trembled. “I love you so much, Jordan. I want to spend my life with you. But I don’t want you to give up your life for me.
“I can’t give you normal. I can’t promise that I’ll be there for every holiday or anniversary. Hell, I probably can promise that I’ll miss Christmases, and birthdays, and so many times when you’ll need me and I won’t be able to be there. We might get a good assignment after Korea; we might get a shitty one. I wish I could promise you that this will be easy, that there won’t be days that you might regret marrying me. I wish I could promise you that I’ll come home to you every day. I can’t.
“I should have thought about that when I asked you to marry me before we left for Alaska. I should have thought more about what I was asking you to give up. I didn’t. So I want you to really think about this and make sure it’s what you want. Because if it isn’t, I understand. It’s a lot to take a chance on. I understand if it’s too much.”
“What can you promise me?” I asked, needing to hear the words, knowing he’d give them to me.
He took a breath as though it pained him. “That I love you. That I’ll always love you. That I will do everything in my power to stay safe, to come home to you. That I will die loving you, whenever that is. That I will do anything I can to make this lifestyle work for us. That if it comes down to a choice I can make, I will always choose you over my career. I’ll give you a family if you want it. I’ll spend my life loving you, working to make you happy.”
I’d wanted absolutes before, guarantees he couldn’t give. I’d wanted an oath signed in blood that this was a risk that would pan out, that I wouldn’t get hurt. I’d wanted a big fucking net at the bottom when I leapt.
What I got instead was love, so much love, and it turned out, that was all I had really needed after all.
I reached out, capturing Noah’s face in my hands, staring into those dark eyes that looked a little bit lost, drowning in them, wanting to spend my entire life looking at him.
“I love you. I want to marry you. I want to go to Korea with you. I’ll go anywhere with you. I don’t need anything else. Just you.”
He groaned, and then the sound disappeared, lost between his mouth and mine.
Noah’s lips devoured me, his kiss both desperate and hopeful, as though we had all we needed to get through this.
My hands found the zipper of his flight suit, dragging it down the rest of the way, and then I pulled away from his mouth and sank to my knees, my fingers working the laces of his boots while he watched me. I removed one, then the other, pulling his socks off.
His flight suit came next, then his worn khaki-colored T-shirt, and finally his boxers, until he sat on the edge of the bed, naked, legs spread.
I settled between his thighs, gripping the base of his semi-hard cock, my hands stroking him as he grew beneath my touch. I dipped my head, licking the tip, and then I took him deep in my mouth as he fell back on the bed, a groan torn from his lips.
I licked and sucked, using every trick I knew to lead him toward orgasm. This wasn’t sex; it was resurrection. My attempt at taking his tired body and putting it back together again. His body quaked beneath my touch as I laid siege to all the stress, and fear, and pain that plagued him. As I brought him closer and closer to release with my tongue, and lips, and hands.
Noah’s hips rocked forward, taking what I gave and wanting more.
He groaned. “So fucking good, babe. I’m going to come.”
I increased the pace of my hands around the base of his cock, my fingers twisting and stroking, my tongue laving the head, sucking him deeper and deeper, harder, faster, until finally I felt him coming, his body shuddering with each thrust. When he finished, his body stilled, his limbs hanging over the edge of the bed.
I got to my feet, pressing a kiss to one of his pecs. Our gazes met, and it seemed like some of the shadows had disappeared from his eyes, as though some of the demons had been chased away.
Maybe blowjobs were a little magic.
I leaned back, but Noah’s hand curled around my wrist and held me in place.
“Straddle me.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
He gave me a knowing look. “It’s been over a month. Straddle me.”
God, yes.
I was already wet, already turned on to the point where little foreplay was needed. It had been a long six weeks, and more than anything, the past few days had been interminable. I needed him in a way I hadn’t needed him before.
Noah moved higher on the bed and I straddled him, taking his cock between my hands—he hadn’t been exaggerating, he was still hard—stroking him from base to tip, once, twice, and then I positioned myself over him and sank down, my body shuddering as he filled me. My head rolled back, my chest arching forward, and for a moment I didn’t move, just enjoyed the feel of him inside me, and then his big hand came down on my hip, his skin just a touch darker than mine, his fingers molding my flesh, and without speaking, he commanded me to ride him.
It was fast. It was hard. And when my orgasm came on like a freight train, I simply shattered, the remnants of my pleasure met by the beginning of Noah’s.
We collapsed together, and before my eyes closed, I prayed that I’d chased away whatever dreams plagued him at night, whatever memories he had of the accident.
I prayed for peace.
NOAH
I awoke to Jordan’s body wrapped around me like a vine. To the scent of her perfume, the smell of her shampoo, the feel of her hair tickling my face.
I hadn’t dreamed.
I kissed her shoulder, rolling out of her embrace, my feet hitting the floor with a wince. The flight back from Alaska had been a tense one and my body ached from sitting cramped in the cockpit, from looking over my shoulder.
I headed to the kitchen, needing coffee, food, and a moment to get my shit together. I walked past Easy’s open door, more than a little worried to see his bed made, no sign that he’d come home last night. Easy out all night wasn’t a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination, but considering it was his first night back from being gone for over a month, I was surprised he hadn’t gotten settled in. Maybe he had wanted to give me some space with Jordan. More likely he was out with some girl. Casual sex wasn’t new with him, either, and I didn’t blame him; hell, I hadn’t been a Boy Scout, but the edge with Easy and the look I’d seen in his eyes did worry me. The whole squadron felt broken, and I had no fucking clue how to piece it back together again. Especially when I was hemorrhaging myself.
I started the coffee, noticing that Jordan had it all set up and waiting for us. And that the kitchen gleamed. As did the rest of the house.
I was definitely getting the better end of the deal here.
The front door opened. I walked out of the kitchen and came face to face with Easy, still dressed in his flight suit from the day before.
He nodded in greeting.
“Do you want coffee?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
He followed me to the kitchen.
I poured us two cups, then turned to face him.
“You okay?”
“Are you?” he returned.
Neither one of us spoke, which I figured was answer enough.
“I’m planning the memorial. We thought it would be good if everyone in the squadron said something about Joker. Nothing too long. Just a few words about him. Can you do that?”
Easy’s knuckles tightened against the coffee mug.
I hesitated. “I think it would mean a lot to his family.” Her name hung unspoken between us.
It will mean a lot to Dani.
“I can’t.�
�
My eyes narrowed.
“I just can’t.”
“You were one of his closest friends.”
Easy’s gaze met mine, panic in his eyes. “I can’t.”
Fuck.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He jerked back like I’d hit him.
“It wasn’t any of our fault,” I continued. “They’ll do the accident investigation.” They’d already questioned all of us. “But you and I know it was an accident.”
We wouldn’t know for sure until the final report came out—which wouldn’t be for a while—but we’d all been flying long enough to know what had happened to Joker.
We called it spatial D, also known as spatial disorientation. It could happen to anyone. And when it did, you couldn’t gauge where you were in the air, often until it was too late.
“I love his wife.” Easy said the words like he’d confessed to murder, as though the existence of them was his most shameful secret. They tore through the silent kitchen, stunning me.
I knew, of course, and he knew I knew, and still, I’d never heard them spoken aloud.
“I’ve dreamed of his wife. Wanted his wife. Loved her for a fucking year. And he died. I heard him die. And she hugged me yesterday. I came home and he didn’t. It should have been his arms around his wife. Not mine.”
“So what, you think you’re somehow responsible for his death? That because you wanted Dani, you somehow wished it?”
He didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
He fucking thought that.
“That’s bullshit.”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“We can’t change what happened. You know that better than anyone. He was a good pilot. But what happened to him could have happened to anyone. You didn’t fucking will it to happen. We take our lives into our hands every single time we fly; you’re too good of a pilot to not know that, too good of a pilot to blame yourself. The younger guys in the squadron look up to you. Everyone looks up to you. Dani needs you.”
He staggered back like I’d hit him as soon as her name left my lips.
“Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way you do, but she cares about you, relies on you. You guys have a friendship that matters to her. She just lost her husband. She needs you right now. We all do. You don’t get to fall apart, not when she’s holding it together.”
“You don’t think I know that? That I don’t want to be there for her? I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it should have been me,” he shouted. “I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. I would have done anything to give her that. For him to have come home.”
I’d known it was bad, but somehow I didn’t realize it was this bad. We all felt guilty for surviving when Joker didn’t; it cloaked us. But to hear Easy admit that he wished he’d died was too much. I’d thought that if I could just talk to him, I’d help him see that he needed to be strong for the squadron and Dani. But now I realized I’d underestimated how much this had fucked him up.
“If you love her, you’ll step up and forget this shit. If you really do love her, then you’ll be there for her when she needs a friend to lean on. You can’t change the past, and wishing yourself dead isn’t going to bring Joker back. All you can do is be there for his widow. We owe him that. He would want us to take care of Dani.”
“If he’d known . . .” Easy’s voice broke off. “If he’d known, he wouldn’t have wanted me to take care of Dani. He was my friend and I dreamed of fucking his wife.”
I didn’t know what to say anymore. I’d tried, but I was barely held together myself, and I lacked the cohesion to fix Easy.
“Are you coming to the memorial service, at least?”
“I don’t know.”
I made a sound of disgust, unable to hold it in anymore. I left him standing in the kitchen, dragged down by his guilt.
TWENTY-SIX
JORDAN
We huddled into one of the giant airplane hangars, seated on metal folding chairs, staring up at a projection screen that showed a video with pictures of Joker’s life. Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” played in the background. I’d never cried so much in my entire life.
There were images of Joker when he was little—clearly his airplane fascination had started young because some showed him wearing pajamas decorated with red and blue biplanes, others with a slightly older, but still adorable Joker, running around his parents’ backyard with his arms out like he was flying. Next came the high school years, a boy in a basketball uniform, wearing a tuxedo at prom. Pictures of Joker at the Air Force Academy, going through pilot training, surrounded by friends who had come now for the memorial service. And then came Dani.
They looked so happy in every single one of their photos. So in love. They looked like the world lay before them, theirs for the taking. We watched as their wedding flashed by, interspersed with photos of Joker landing, arms outstretched for Dani. Some were clearly after deployments if the sand-colored flight suit was any indication, others from TDYs, trips like his last one to Alaska. It almost seemed to highlight the one homecoming that was missing.
There were pictures of him as he took over command of the Wild Aces, picture after picture of him surrounded by Noah, Thor, and Easy. It was clear that the four had been even closer than perhaps I’d realized. My heart clenched at the picture of all of them in Vegas, me on the fringes of the photo, my body tucked against Noah’s, a smile on my face. It felt like a lifetime ago.
The last image flickered on the screen, a shot of Joker from behind, walking out to a waiting F-16, the sun setting behind him, his helmet bag thrown over his shoulder. It froze there, the image of Joker heading to the sky for one last flight settling over the crowd. And then it disappeared, and it was as though the life had been sucked out of the room.
Noah’s hand clutched mine, our fingers twined together, giving each other strength. We sat near the front, two rows away from Dani and her family, in a sea of blue, the squadron wearing their service dress, family members sprinkled throughout.
I hadn’t seen Easy.
The video ended and the wing commander rose, heading toward the makeshift podium that had been set up. I’d never met him, but I’d heard enough talk from the guys to know he wasn’t well liked. Noah had described him as a “careerist asshole,” which I figured was his way of saying that the guy was more concerned with getting ahead than with his people. To hear him speak now, Joker had been his brother, soul mate, and best friend all rolled into one. I caught a few shuffles and barely muffled snorts from the guys, giving the impression that Joker had shared Noah’s opinion.
And then he was finished, his speech, which had read like an emotional Mad Libs—insert name here—already forgotten.
There were people here who’d known Joker, who’d loved him, people who felt his loss like an ache in their chest. But that loss almost felt overwhelmed by the other side of this—the part of his death that was more about what he’d done than who he was. Joker had become a clip on the evening news, a post on social media with a picture of the American flag and a comment about how he’d died a hero. And he was a hero. But he was also a man. A friend, a son, a husband. And somewhere in the ceremony of all this, it seemed like that essence of him was overshadowed by his job. I knew people meant well, knew they were proud, but it was strange to see him as a sound bite or a post on social media, to hear others talk about him as though they knew him. To claim his loss as their own. It was the strange dichotomy of being in a world where your life was private and yet it wasn’t, really. In a way it felt like his death, like his life, was the military’s, too.
And somewhere in all of that, mentioned as a line in articles—he is survived by his wife—was Dani. As if this was something she could survive. As if losing the person you loved the most, the person your entire life revolved around, was somet
hing you survived.
And for the first time since we’d gotten the news, I realized I was angry. So fucking angry. It bubbled up inside me like a scream pushing to escape my lungs as I sat there surrounded by service members and their families, knowing we’d do this again.
My anger wasn’t rational. There wasn’t a bad guy here, a villain I could blame or direct my rage at. But it was still here, choking me. It was an accident. A fucking accident. Seconds. Seconds that made the difference between life and death. Seconds that made the difference between lying in bed listening to the sound of your man breathing, the rhythmic song lulling you to sleep, and reaching across an empty bed, the distance feeling like a mile, the silence deafening, stretching on and on into years.
There weren’t any words that could make this okay. Nothing could make this okay. And I knew that whatever Dani clung to now, whatever got her through this horrible day, was wrung from the depths of her soul.
How many times throughout the course of my relationship with Noah would this scene repeat itself? How many times would I sit here, my ass cold against the metal, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible? I knew someone had to do to it. Knew that freedom came at a price and that all these men and women surrounding me paid it. Their families paid it. Their children paid it. And the fear that I would pay it, too, that one day I would sit in the seat Dani sat in, was nearly too much to bear. I felt selfish for thinking it. Like the worst person in the world for the part of me that clutched Noah’s hand a little tighter, grateful for the warmth of his palm in mine. I wanted to wrap him up in a protective bubble. Wanted to shield him from harm. I didn’t care if he was a badass; he was my badass. Had become my world. And the idea of losing that . . .
I couldn’t.
I gripped his hand more tightly, holding on to Noah with everything I had, as though the connection between us would keep him safe as waves of protectiveness crashed over me like I’d never experienced before.
And then the room got so quiet you could have heard a pin drop, as we all watched Dani rise from her seat and walk to the front of the room.
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