Hide Your Crazy

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I saw what the hold-up was the moment I got on the tarmac and close enough to the plane.

  The hold-up being a shirtless, beautifully muscled man working on the plane we were literally in the process of boarding.

  “What do you think?” I heard one of the uniformed soldiers ask the shirtless man.

  “I think that y’all should’ve done this before we started loading fuckin’ people onto the plane,” shirtless man said.

  Shit.

  Was there something wrong with the plane?

  A flash of foreboding started to fill my limbs, and I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to enjoy the trip home very much.

  I hadn’t realized I’d stopped right next to the shirtless man, who happened to be standing half under the plane, with bolts and nuts and all kinds of parts on the ground, until he looked over and spotted me.

  That was when I saw his eyes.

  He looked familiar, yet I couldn’t place why.

  And those eyes seemed to penetrate straight into my soul.

  “Don’t worry,” he said teasingly. “I’ll make sure to put it all back together. May take a little duct tape, though.”

  His joke fell flat when I felt my stomach drop out.

  I wasn’t a good flyer.

  In fact, on the flight over here, I’d had to take my valium and say a few thousand prayers.

  The fact that he was teasing about us dying was not a good thing for me.

  Especially since my anxiety was already through the roof, and I hadn’t had time to get a prescription for valium before having to be on the flight.

  There was an emergency at home, and though I was already set to leave in four days, my CO—commanding officer—had given me permission to leave early. I’d taken him up on it. The only problem was that came with no medication.

  So not only was I freaking out about my emergency back home, I was now freaking out about the fact that this man didn’t know what in the hell he was doing.

  Instead of saying a word to him, I chose to board the plane, taking the only seat available, which was scrunched in between a large man that took up a lot more room than he was allotted due to the breadth of his shoulders, and a large box that sat on another seat next to the wall.

  Buckling myself in and stowing my gear underneath the seat, I closed my eyes, crossed my arms, and prayed that I wouldn’t die on the way home.