Page 13 of Forever Flirting

“Enough,” Reaper said bluntly, cutting off Houdini’s paranoid ramblings and looking at Ghost for confirmation. “Glory will set you up with a girl if you want her to. She loves that stuff, and somehow knows everyone in the area – or they know of her.”

“Seriously, Reaper,” Houdini started again, and Alex couldn’t help but grin at Paradox as the man started sputtering nervously. Paradox looked like he was thoroughly enjoying that the spotlight was on someone other than the two of them – and he couldn’t agree more. “I’m going because you said that I should…”

“Houdini, can it – and relax,” Reaper bit out. “Ghost? Why don’t you see if you can fly out with Houdini for a few days, and we can set you up to stay at Flyboys or with one of the retired pilots from our squadron.”

“Really?” Ghost perked up, smiling.

That guy had to be the single most chipper, sunshine-y, naïve guy in the entire world. The man never had a bad day – ever. He liked every meal, would always cut up with the fellas, fell asleep comfortably every night, kept himself occupied, and walked around with this happy-go-lucky, contented smile on his face.

Freak, Alex smirked.

His wingman was either high and hiding the drugs, had a stash of secret moonshine like Caboose, or was just weirdly, freakishly excited to be above ground and breathing – so much so that you couldn’t help but literally love the dude.

His call sign should have been Pollyanna…Alex mused silently, smiling.

“Just give me a head’s up and I’ll reach out to the team,” Reaper offered.

“You sure you want to do this?” X-Ray asked candidly. “Blind dates and being matched up with someone can backfire badly. I went on one blind date one time, and let’s just say it went extremely wrong.”

Ghost shrugged, causing Alex to chuckle as he glanced at Paradox, who was also grinning.

Nothing bothered the guy –ever!

“I’ve been on six blind dates… I can handle myself, and know how this works probably better than anyone,” Ghost admitted, and actually turned a little pink in the face at the admission.

Was the soft-hearted guy…blushing?

“SIX?” Alex blurted out uncontrollably at the same time as Sparky, Ricochet, Paradox, X-Ray, Reaper, Hot Cakes, and Handsy – everyone looking at each other in shock.

That single word yelled by several of them, echoed and bounced off the walls, causing Ghost to cringe – and Alex felt bad for the man.

He wanted to speak up and get the ‘heat’ off of his wingman, because he didn’t want his buddy to change in the slightest. He preferred having someone sunshine-y around, rather than grumpy and moping like he was.

“Let me get this straight,” Alex interjected quietly in the silence, staring at Reaper. “If one of us wants to get away and fly to East Texas? There are former pilots that will let us stay with them, or at someplace called Flyboys?”

“Private air strip in Yonder, just outside of Tyler, Texas,” Hot Cakes volunteered, nodding. “They teach flying lessons.”

“It’s nice,” X-Ray admitted. “I took a Cessna up while I was there and flew out towards Lake Pontchartrain.”

“Yep, I took my wife to Padre Island,” Hot Cakes interjected.

“I know where Yonder is very well,” Alex said quietly, looking shell-shocked. He had no idea the abandoned air strip had reopened. He remembered seeing it when he would go visit his grandmother in Ember Creek.

Yeah, he knew exactly where Yonder was – and Caleb was living not far from there!

“We can go anytime?”

“Anytime you have vacation time available,” Hot Cakes shrugged. “Why? Do you want to be set up too? I don’t know if Reilly will let three of us go at once, and Caboose is still out…”

“I don’t want to be set up with a blind date,” Alex mumbled, feeling slightly sick to his stomach at the idea of dating someone after Mallory. Yeah, that whole experience turned him off of women – and combined with the fact that he still dreamed of that single kiss with Everly.

He was never going to bury that memory, it seemed.

“I’d like to see my kid,” Alex admitted quietly.

“You have a kid?” Sparky blurted out in shock, sitting up and staring at Alex in disbelief.

“He’s two…”

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