Fly With Me (21 page)

“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.

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 something 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.

Noah had told me that it was typical for the widow to speak last, but they'd wanted to spare her the emotion of listening to the squadron tell stories about her husband and then having to stand in front of over a thousand people and eulogize him. So she would go first and everyone else would follow her lead.

She walked up to the podium, the wing commander at her side, which seemed more for protocol and pretense than anything else considering the space between their bodies.

She'd asked me to find her a dress and I'd pulled some strings through the store to get one sent here so she wouldn't have to deal with buying one herself.

She didn't look like she belonged here in this airplane hangar. She looked like an auburn Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly, like a throwback to another time and place. This, too, was her way of honoring Joker. Even in her grief, she carried herself with poise, and I couldn't help but think that he was beaming down on her with pride.

Another lump grew in my throat, joining the three thousand, four hundred, and twenty-two that were already lodged there.

I squeezed Noah's hand a little tighter.

Dani stopped at the podium, her hands on either side of the frame. She didn't speak for a moment, staring out at the crowd. Her eyes were covered by large black sunglasses, her hair pulled back in a severe bun that made her look even more fragile.

Another lump.

She took a deep breath as though steadying herself and then her voice rang out over the microphone.

“Thank you for coming today to celebrate Michael's life.” Her voice cracked over the words. “Michael was a wonderful husband. He was my best friend. And more than anything, he was a fighter pilot. He loved flying, loved serving with all of you.” Her gaze ran over the crowd. “As hard as this is, as much as I miss him, he wouldn't want me to cry up here. He wouldn't want us all to gather in grief, but to celebrate the tremendous life he led.”

She swallowed, her voice trembling. “He knew the danger every time he flew, knew the price he could pay, but he loved to fly. And anyone who knew him knows that he went out the way he would have wanted to, flying the plane he loved, doing the job he was born to do. Defending the country he loved.”

She paused and the silence stretched on, her hands gripping the edge of the podium as she struggled to continue.

“Michael—” His name came out as a choked sob.

We'd asked her if she wanted anyone to go up with her, but she'd said that it was something she needed to do on her own. We should have insisted, should have realized that no matter how badly she'd wanted to do this on her own, it was too much.

Noah let out an oath beside me.

The wing commander stood off to the side, and even though I doubted he would have done much to comfort Dani, at least it was something. I silently willed him to go stand next to her, to help her get through this, but he didn't fucking move. The silence continued and I waited for her family, for someone, to go help her, and then Dani's gaze jerked to the side, and I caught a flash of blue walking toward the podium.

Easy, wearing his navy blue service dress, his body tense as though poised for flight, strode to the front, his gaze on
Dani the entire time. And then Noah's hand left mine and he stood, walking to the edge of our row, up to the podium. Thor followed.

Easy reached Dani first, his arm going around her waist, looking like he was propping her up. Noah stood next to Easy, Thor on the other side of Dani.

They flanked her, the three men who'd been there for the last moments of Joker's life. Three of his closest friends. They surrounded her like sentries, giving her their protection and support.

“Michael was the love of my life,” Dani continued, her voice stronger now. “And I can't imagine my life without him. But I know he is watching all of us, looking down on us from his place in the sky.” Her voice warbled, the tears there unmistakable. “He's home now.”

There wasn't a dry eye in the hangar.

Dani stepped away from the podium, her arm tucked into Easy's, surrounded by pilots. They walked her to her seat, and then Noah was beside me once again, his hand in mine.

The rest of the service went by in a flood of stories about Joker. Most of the squadron got up and spoke about him, painting a picture of a leader who had been both friend and mentor, who had cared about his people and put them first, even when it meant he had to stick his neck out for them.

When it was Noah's turn, he spoke of the friend he'd lost, and I realized just how difficult this must be for him, and how he fought to keep it together for everyone around him.

I'd never loved him more.

NOAH

The fucking day wouldn't end. It was like that last radio call kept playing over and over in my mind, Joker's voice in my ear, and then . . . nothing. He was just gone.

That was the part I couldn't wrap my brain around, the thing that no matter how many times I told myself, I couldn't make sink in.

Joker was gone.

Fucking gone.

We stood in an open field next to the squadron, all of the Wild Aces in attendance forming a circle around a gleaming piano standing in the grass.

How many piano burns had I gone to? How many times did we do this? How many times did we lose one of our own? And the irony was that our losses didn't come from enemy fire, they came from routine training. From going to work. As the weapons officer, it was my job to ensure that the squadron was tactically proficient, to keep these guys
safe by teaching them not to get shot down, to fly better than any threat that could come their way. But there were some things you couldn't prepare for. Some things you couldn't train for.

Sometimes fate fucked you over.

Jordan wrapped her arms around my waist, cuddling her body against mine. I kissed her hair, inhaling her scent, steadying myself.

And then Thor walked to the front. As the official mayor of the squadron, it was his job to preside over all of the social functions. His voice rang out over the crowd.

“Tonight the Wild Aces commemorate the life of Michael ‘Joker' Peterson with one of our most closely held traditions—a piano burn. Some of our guests tonight might wonder why we burn a piano. The tradition originated with our British brothers and the Battle of Britain. As legend has it, and I guarantee at least ten percent of this story is true, there was once a British pilot who was the greatest piano player who'd ever lived. He used to fly in combat and then return and play at the O-Club for all to hear. But one fateful day he was killed in action. In their grief, his squadron decided that no one would ever play the piano as well as he did, so they burned it. And so began the tradition of the piano burn.”

There were different variations of the story, and as Thor highlighted, hyperbole was pretty much a fighter pilot standard. But this was without question one of our most revered traditions, one we celebrated at major squadron functions, and no matter how rowdy or drunk the crowd was beforehand, everyone always went silent, their gaze riveted to the flames.

Thor went to get the lighter and Easy broke away from the group, taking his usual place at the piano. Jordan's arms tightened around me. He was the only one in the squadron
who played, and it never failed to surprise me that Easy was capable of making the sounds he did.

His fingers touched the keys and the familiar strands of a Dos Gringos song filled the air—standard fighter pilot fare. Easy played it like he was sitting in some fancy concert hall performing for guys in tuxes and girls wearing big rocks rather than the motley group we were.

Jordan stiffened beside me.

“Whoa. He's amazing.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he is.”

I'd have been lying if I didn't admit that Easy definitely used his musical skills to sweet-talk girls into bed. It was just another arrow in his quiver, another tool to get laid. But no one who'd ever seen him play could miss that he loved it, too.

The squadron broke into song, the lyrics as natural as breathing as the piano caught fire, as Easy played and played, the flames consuming the instrument until they grew too close and he had to walk away. Maybe it wasn't the kind of song you expected to hear sung at a memorial service, but fuck it, it was us, and more than anything, it was definitely what Joker would have wanted.

We sang the shit out of that song.

JORDAN

I was emotionally exhausted by the time we walked into Noah's bedroom. It felt as though we'd packed a lifetime worth of grief and sadness into one afternoon and evening, and if I felt that way, I couldn't imagine how Dani must have felt.

I slid into bed next to Noah, my feet brushing against his legs under the covers. We slipped into our usual routine: he raised his arm so that I could lay my head on his chest, my hair brushing against his bare skin, his arm settling over my body, holding me toward him as though I was something he had to protect. Something he was afraid to let go of.

Today had made me appreciate the fragility of life in a way I never had before. Seeing Dani's loss . . . I shuddered. I wanted to stay like this with Noah forever, wanted to know that he would be safe, because it was impossible for me to imagine a world without him. Impossible for me to imagine my life without him now that I'd found him.

“Thank you for being there today,” he whispered, his lips grazing the top of my head. “I couldn't have gotten through it without you.”

“Of course.”

“You okay?”

I wasn't sure how to answer that one. My emotions were a messy gnarl I couldn't untangle. I felt both empty and full, as though everything had been scraped out of me to make way for the enormous grief that pulsed through my body.

“I don't know.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

My throat tightened, but I figured if we were going to do this, we had to do it right. So I gave him the truth, as much as it pained me.

“I don't want to lose you.”

He sighed, his arms tightening around me.

“You won't.”

It wasn't enough.

“How do you know?”

“I'm safe. Always.”

I believed that. I also knew he was a really good pilot. It still didn't feel like enough.

“Wasn't Joker safe? He'd been flying even longer than you had.”

“Spatial D happens. Especially at night. But I promise you, I'll always be safe. You aren't going to lose me.”

I didn't want to keep picking at him, didn't want to turn into an annoying nag, but I could feel myself hovering on the edge there. It would be so easy to give in to the anxiety, so easy to tell him that I couldn't do it, that the danger of his job was too much to bear. That I didn't want to spend my days and nights fearing the ring of the phone or the knock at the door. That I didn't want to watch him walk out the door every day for work with dread in my heart, wondering if it would be the day he wouldn't come home.

I wanted to be stronger, wanted to let it go, but I clutched that fear tight in my palm, my fingers wrapped around it, unable to relax and release it. Unable to move past the image of Dani at the podium. And then, just like her image filled my mind, her words came to me:

You'll have to be strong for him. Stronger than you think you can be. Because at the end of the day, his mind can't be on a fight you had that morning or on whatever problems you might be dealing with at home. It has to be on the mission. On coming home safely. Because in their line of work the smallest mistake can be the difference between life and death.

I unfurled my hand and opened my palm.

It wasn't some magical, heightened awareness. It wasn't like I suddenly became zen and equipped to deal with the shit that would come my way. My heart would always clench a bit when the phone rang. And I'd never see the words “
F-16 crash”
and not feel as though the loss was personal.

I didn't want to marry a hero or a symbol; I wanted to marry a man. A man I would grow old with, have children with, spoil grandchildren with. I wanted forever, and because I was me, and I'd been thrust into a world I didn't really understand and probably wasn't equipped to deal with, I wanted guarantees on forever.

But life just didn't work like that.

I'd fallen for the man that night in Vegas. But he wasn't just Noah. I'd recognized it that first moment I saw him in the nightclub, even if I hadn't known exactly what
it
was. He carried himself a little differently than the guys I'd known before him. As though there was a weight on his shoulders—responsibility, dedication, sacrifice. And I couldn't love one part of him and not love it all. So maybe I hadn't wanted to marry a hero or a symbol, but I'd fallen in love with a fighter pilot, so as much as he would always just be Noah to me, I had to accept that there might be a time in our future when it would be his picture in the paper next to a jet, or my name entangled in the phrase “survived by his wife.”

And I got it.

As much as I knew Dani suffered right now, as great as her grief was, she endured. She loved her husband. She loved her husband and she wanted him to be happy, wanted him to live his dream. And at the end of the day, that was all we could do. I didn't want Noah to worry about me, didn't want him to be focused on doing anything other than the job he needed to do so he could come home to me.

So I shut it down.

I wrapped my arms around his waist, burrowing my body against his, cuddling into his warmth.

“I love you,” I whispered, the words more a vow than an endearment.

I love you. I will always love you.

“I love you, too.”

I heard the promise there; felt it in the way he held me, like he would do everything he could to protect me from harm. Like I was his everything the same way he was mine.

Noah was silent for a while, his hand stroking my back in lazy strokes. My eyelids fluttered as I struggled to stay awake.

“Do you want a big wedding?”

That
woke me up.

“What do you mean?”

“I was just wondering if you wanted a wedding like your sister's. And how much time you would need to plan.”

I shrugged. “I don't know. Honestly, I haven't really thought about it. And with everything going on right now, I figured a wedding was pretty low priority.”

Noah shifted so we were both on our sides, facing each other. His hand skimmed my hip in a habit I doubted he was even aware of.

“Our wedding is definitely not low priority. I know the timing sucks. I hate that I didn't give you the big proposal and that the memory of losing one of my closest friends will forever be linked with the memory of us getting engaged. I'm sorry for how complicated all of this is. But no matter how difficult our lifestyle is, I definitely want to marry you and I want you to have the kind of wedding you deserve.”

I thought about this for a moment, wondering what kind of wedding I even wanted. I wasn't kidding; right now things like weddings didn't seem all that important. The marriage, yes. But the rest of it? He was scheduled to report to Korea in a little over a month. I wanted to spend my time with him, not obsessing over seating charts, and menus, and arguing with my mother over the color scheme and whether the invitations were elegant enough.

“I want to marry you. I don't care how, or where, or when. As long as it's you and me promising forever, the rest is just details.”

“I thought those details were important to girls.”

“They can be. But after everything that's happened, it's hard for me to care.”

“I don't want you to regret—”

I silenced him with a kiss, and then inspiration struck.

“Can you get leave for next weekend?”

“To get married?”

I nodded, excitement bubbling up, threatening to spill over. It was the perfect place for us to get married. Romantic, and meaningful, and absolutely perfect.

“Where are we getting married?”

I beamed back at him.

“Vegas.”