Page 6 of Shared By the Pilots

Benicio’s Raw Bar appeared on my Google Maps search. The place Luke had recommended. I started to continue scrolling, but then went back to it. The reviews were good. And it wasn’t too far away.

If it will make Dex happy…

4

Taylor

Even though I was barely scratching my mid-thirties, I had one hell of a pilot’s resume.

I was admitted into Naval Flight School as a Student Naval Aviator on my nineteenth birthday, despite not having the required bachelor’s degree. It’s widely believed they waived the requirement after learning that I’d been crop-dusting in Iowa since my family moved there when I was twelve, and was barely tall enough to see over the cockpit instruments. My first week at flight school, I overheard two of my instructors talking about how I was the most promising pilot they had ever received.

But I was bad at taking orders, and washed out before my twentieth birthday. Went back to the Farmer’s Air Force—crop-dusting—for a few years, although they changed the name toaerial applicationfor some reason I don’t understand. After that, I found my way to Alaska, where I became a bush pilot. Spent most of my time flying rich fishermen to remote areas inaccessible except by aircraft. Nobody around for hundreds of miles.

Spent half a decade up there flirting with the Arctic Circle before finding my way down to warmer climates. Now I bounced around the Caribbean islands. If someone wants to visit Samana Bay down in the Dominican Republic, they can fly commercial into Santo Domingo and take a three hour bus ride… or they can hire me to fly them straight to the bay and taxi right on up to their waterfront hotel. It was good work, if you could get it.

It helped that I had a lot of charm with tourists. I dressed the part of an eccentric pilot, dialed up my Texas twang, and gave them the full experience. Tourists ate it up.

Women did, too.

That was my biggest problem, I had come to realize after thirty-four years on this watery marble of a planet. I let women tug me around by the collar. I was impulsive, and made mistakes. That’s why I went back to Iowa after the Navy: I was chasing my high school sweetheart, who was getting her degree in Ames. After we crashed and burned, I followed a marine biologist named Holly up to Alaska. That was two of the best—and worst—years of my life. And hell, the only reason I ended up down in the gulf was because I fell madly in lust with a waitress named Eloise who was on a bachelorette party in Vegas. We eloped after two days, and I gave her a private flight back home to Miami. Somehow, we lasted six months.

But I liked the warmer climate, and had been here six years now.

The good news? I had learned from my Odyssey-like trials and tribulations. I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State, but I did have a degree from the College of Falling For The Wrong Women. I’d come out the other side wiser than most men my age.

Women were trouble. At least, they were trouble for me. Aside from the occasional warm bedmate, I stayed away.

But sometimes it was hard.

Take the woman who was standing in the private terminal at Miami International. These days, flight attendant uniforms weren’t designed to make men’s dicks hard—but she wore her Gulf Airlines uniform like she was the star of an airplane-themed pornographic movie. I’m talkin’ the kind of curves that make a man stop in his tracks andtake notice.

I couldn’t help but dial up my Texas twang when I told her, “I don’t want to sound rude, ma’am, but I think you’re in the wrong place.”

It felt good to flirt a little. Like flexing muscles I hadn’t used in a long time. Besides, it’s not like it meant anything. I was supposed to be wheels-up in fifteen minutes, and she was probably based somewhere far away from Miami.

I grabbed the brown paper bag Freddie had been holding for me and said my goodbye to the fine lady. That just about surprised the pants off her. Clearly she wasn’t used to being flirted with and thennotasked out.

Good to know I can still keep a pretty woman on her toes.

I hopped into my Cessna 172 and headed down to Puerto Rico. It was after dark when I landed. I took a bus into town to my favorite bar, which served the best street tacos in the western hemisphere. It was the kind of place where most of the lights didn’t work, and they advertised three different beers on tap, but I knew they were all hooked up to the same kegs of Medalla Light.

I pulled the wrinkled brown paper bag out of my backpack and set it on the table, then started digging into my plate of tacos.

Ten minutes went by before I heard the rumblings of an old motorbike pull up out front. The front door opened, and a big guy walked in. The kind of guy that looked like he would have been an NFL linebacker if he had been born a thousand miles to the north. By the time he reached the bar, the bartender had already poured him three shots of tequila. He threw back one of them, then carried the other two over to my table.

He sat down and placed one of the shots in front of me.

“Only beer tonight, amigo,” I said. “I’m wheels-up in an hour.”

The man used a sausage-like finger to push the shot a few inches closer to me. His stare was as hard as old leather, his eyes more red than white. Refusing the shot felt like the more dangerous choice.

“What the hell. It’s only my life I’m endangering. I’ll be sober by the time I land in Miami.” I threw back the shot and set the glass down on the table with aclick.

Only then did he pick up the wrinkled paper bag and stand up.

“Hey,” I said, reaching across the table to grab his wrist. “We’re even now. Right?”

He looked down at me and sneered.

---