Page 51 of Flyboy

“Did she call you?” Colton asked.

“Yeah. Well, she called Amanda.”

“And? Did she say why?”

“She’s trying to decide if she still wants to be a part of Top Flight.”

Colton whistled. “I really did a number on her.”

“You know about her brother?”

“Yeah.”

“Give her some time.”

“So I think we are good down here without a third. But it is helpful to have another person in the classroom now and then.”

“Do you want me to send someone?”

“Is Ivy really not coming back?”

“She didn’t indicate she was. You’d be the best one to guess at that.”

“I’ve got nothing. The woman is more a mystery to me now than ever. Right when things were getting good. Right when I thought we might go someplace . . . she takes off at the first sign of danger. Ace, dude. We’re fighter jet pilots. This has never been a safe job.”

“Do you love her?”

He let out a huge breath, slowly. “I think so?” The thought hit him. His own words echoed around in his brain. “I miss her.” He laughed. “Omar is great, but it’s not the same.”

Ace laughed. “Go visit. When you’re finished down there, take a few weeks in Boston or wherever she ends up.”

“Good call. Maybe don’t put me on the next round of assignments. I’ll take the last half of the year off.”

“You’re coming back, though, right?”

“Of course, dude. What else would I do?”

“Get married and stay safe so your wife can feel comfortable.”

He didn’t deny the thought had occurred to him. But he couldn’t imagine a life without Top Flight, even if only on a smaller scale. And honestly, he couldn’t imagine Ivy would ever want to marry him.

They’d set it up so that more people could head missions. The board could relax a bit more. Ivy was one they relied on for that. They’d been talking about sending her on her own next. “Dude, sorry I might have wrecked our best pilot.”

“You didn’t wreck her. She’s got some things to work through. You just pushed them to the surface. Unless she figures this out, she’s more of a danger than you are.”

They hung up. He sent another text to Ivy and then turned off his phone.

Workingwith the pilots was now easier than ever. They were excited. They learned quickly. They studied harder. Colton and Omar pushed them through the whole next month without showing them any more advanced moves. Colton found it more rewarding than ever. And if Ivy had been there, this would be his favorite assignment of all of them. But her absence burned a hole in his peace of mind.

He still checked his phone every day for any news from Ivy. She’d texted him one time. “I explained everything in my letter. I need to think through some things. Good luck on the rest of the training.”

In her letter, she’d basically told him what he already knew. She had been majorly triggered by his spin out. Living through that moment in real time, thinking she might lose someone she cared about, had brought a lot of things home to her, and she had emotionally cracked. She hoped to heal enough to figure out her place in the piloting world. She wanted to be a part of Top Flight, and she was thankful for their patience. Mostly it was an impersonal letter about her job. But at the end, she said something that gave him a sliver of hope. “We have something special. I don’t want to lose that. But I’m not sure how to keep it.”

That made sense to him. But he didn’t know how to keep things either, not if she was going to be living in fear of his work.

He and Omar worked well together. He’d be recommending that the man lead his own team soon. Maybe in a few more missions. He’d wait to hear what the others thought of him.

The remaining months went by faster than he thought they would. When they were at last finishing up, Colton wasn’t sure where to go. He had an apartment near Ace’s in Arlington, Virginia. He had his parents’ place in Texas where he could ride his horse, or . . . he could go track down Ivy in Boston.

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