Yes, even with the loud buzzing it was so peaceful.
“All right, Jiya. We’ve reached our cruising altitude,” came Rick’s voice in her headset, after they’d been flying for ten minutes, him talking her through his every action. “I’m going to switch control to you now.”
“I’m ready.”
Another layer of vibration beneath her fingertips was Jiya’s only confirmation that she was now piloting an aircraft. Sure, she was merely holding the wheel but the control was in her hands. The euphoria that wound through her bloodstream wasn’t subtle. It was rich and beautiful and it stole her breath. This was where she belonged. It became obvious in a heartbeat. She belonged in the clouds with the world down below. She’d stepped into a cool, crisp lake, the water surrounding her. Welcoming her.
Since her pre-teens, she’d looked up at the sky and felt an affinity with planes. But now she knew that admiration had been for the pilots. To take control of a metal bird and direct it where to go. To assess the risk and make the choice to take it. That was power.
That was bravery.
She’d never really doubted her own bravery, but the moment she gained control of the aircraft, that courage multiplied and became an obvious part of her. One she wanted to nurture.
Jiya felt Rick watching her out of the corner of her eye.
“What’s the verdict?” came his voice crackling over the headset.
She expelled a breath. “Do we have enough fuel to stay up here forever?”
His chuckle made her smile. “That’s what I thought.”
Jiya went through the seven stages of grief when Rick took back control a few minutes later. They executed what he called a bank angle turn and headed back toward the airfield, Jiya hanging on every word of Rick talking her through the landing. Even though she was no longer steering the plane, she followed his movements on the co-pilot instruments while exhilaration continued to flap inside her like angel wings.
Her legs were shaking as she climbed out of the plane and said goodbye to Rick, assuring him she’d be on time for next week’s lesson.
Then she walked out of the hangar and burst into tears.
Not wanting Rick to see or hear her gulping sobs, she took out her ponytail so her hair would curtain her face and she speed walked to the office. Where Andrew was waiting. She didn’t think about how their relationship was on unstable ground. Or how it could shift more dramatically in the near future. She just needed him. And as if he’d been waiting at the window for her to return, Andrew stepped out of the office and met her halfway, his smile dropping the closer he came to reaching her, replacing itself with alarm.
“What happened, sweetheart?” He held out his arms and she didn’t hesitate to walk straight into him, smooshing her tear-covered face to his hard chest. She was too choked with emotion to speak and it didn’t help matters when his arms closed around her like a safety net. “If you tell me the instructor gave you shit for being late, I’m going to go—”
“No. Nothing like that. He was wonderful. Like Santa’s brother or something.” She mumbled into his pecs, before leaning back and looking up into his concerned face. “I flew the plane, Andrew. I flew.”
The lines slowly cleared from his forehead. “These are happy tears?”
“Yes.”
Briefly, his head fell back and he heaved a relieved exhale up at the sky, before brushing a thumb beneath her leaking eye. Then he pulled her back into his embrace and rocked them right to left, right to left. “How did it feel?”
“Like it’s what I’m supposed to do. Is that crazy?”
“No.”
“Yes it is, Andrew. I’m a twenty-nine-year-old waitress. I can’t just up and become a pilot.”
“Says who?” he scoffed. “You can do anything.”
Jiya pulled away a touch, but kept her arms locked around his neck. “I’d need to like, really commit to this,” she whispered. “And there’s so much happening right now…so many changes…”
Their gazes touched briefly, miserably.
A few beats of silence ticked by, before Andrew lifted her chin up with a finger. “Hey, you’re still paid up for four more lessons. You don’t have to figure out the next step today, all right? But I’m not going to let you talk yourself out of continuing.”
“It’s going to be too expensive—”
“Hey. Jesus Christ. You just flew a plane, badass.” He gave her a lopsided smile that made her stomach flip flop. “Let yourself enjoy it for one day, would you?”
Slowly, the smile came back to her face and Andrew took his turn growing serious. His Adam’s apple bobbed while he gazed down at her, using his fingers to loosen hairs that had gotten stuck to her cheeks using tears as glue. In a move he’d only done one other time—once when she’d gotten sick with the flu—Andrew trailed his fingers down her arm and retrieved the scrunchie from around her wrist. Eyes locked on her, he gathered her hair in careful hands and secured it in its customary ponytail.
“There,” he said hoarsely. “All better.”
Before she realized it, her hands were trailing down the front of his torso, traveling over ridges and valleys, her fingers twisting in the material covering his abdomen—but she stopped just short of pulling him closer. Andrew pulled his lower lip through his teeth, his hands settling on her hips. Shaping them. There might have been an inch separating their lower bodies, but that’s not how it felt. They might as well have been locked together, the way they’d been on the beach.
Speaking of which, she would have signed over a limb to have her legs around his waist.
She could feel how much he wanted her.
The evidence was wedged between them, stiff and ready.
But she could also sense him trying to find the willpower to stop what they’d set in motion. And she didn’t think she could take the rejection today, when her emotions were already being held together by a string. So she eased out of his hold with a smile—one that couldn’t have been more forced or unnatural—and she tugged his arm. Let it drop.
“Come on. Let’s get you to work.”
“Jiya…” he rasped behind her.
She kept walking, though, and they once again rode in silence.
CHAPTER TEN
In the basement of the Castle Gate, Andrew tapped the clipboard against his thigh. Papers containing the next two weeks of shift schedules flapped quietly. Above his head, he could hear the scraping of chairs, the buzzy din of music and conversation, the bell dinging in the kitchen. He was needed behind the bar because the rush would begin momentarily, but he’d gotten a text from Handler while serving drinks and needed a moment to process it. Away from his perceptive brothers, preferably, who would pounce all over him if he appeared as unsettled as he felt.
Wedging the clipboard beneath his arm, he pulled up the text again on his cell. The fact that Handler had his phone number at all when Andrew didn’t provide it was threatening enough. But the picture he’d sent of Andrew locking up the Castle Gate late last night was alarming as fuck. It said I’m watching you without a single accompanying word. On the dark boardwalk, no less, where no witnesses were present. Making matters worse, Andrew hadn’t even noticed anything out of the ordinary.
He supposed he should be grateful it wasn’t a picture of Jiya. Or Rory or Jamie.
Good. Focus on me.
That’s what he wanted, but the picture made him feel vulnerable and he hated that with a passion. He’d been vulnerable before. Too many times to count.
The stacked boxes on the far end of the space absorbed his attention, not for the first time.
Words were written on the sides in thick, black Sharpie, his father’s blunt lettering to match the man’s harsh personality. Every time Andrew came down to the basement, he stopped to stare at the boxes, knowing he needed to go through them at some point, if only just to throw everything away. To get rid of any reminder of the man who’d terrorized him until he couldn’t anymore. Something always stopped Andrew, though.
>
A finger of guilt dragged up the back of his neck, leaving ice in its wake. Disturbing the boxes felt a little bit too personal. Made the man a little bit too present.
A beat-up metal desk was situated in the corner of the basement, a reading lamp from Staples still bent over the center where it used to illuminate their father’s money counting or paperwork. Andrew never used the desk now, preferring to count money upstairs, but there were many times when he had, as a teenager. He could still feel the crisp bills in his hand, the sounds of his father snoring nearby after a bender. The way those snores had ceased abruptly, sour breath wafting over the side of his face.
“How much?” The question was slurred.
“Four hundred and fifty-two.”
A vile curse. “Count it again, you little shit. There’s got to be more.”
Andrew inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I’ve counted three times.”
He’d prepared himself for the backhand, but it still stung like a son of a bitch. Still created starburst patterns in front of his eyes. The second time was worse because his father’s fist was closed and the force sent the chair crashing into the concrete wall. “If you’re stealing from me, I’ll kill you,” his father growled. “Empty your pockets.”
Andrew did as he was told with shaking hands, dropping some gum and his house keys on the table. “I’m not stealing. The bar just isn’t making money. Maybe if we fix the awning or—”
“You telling me how to run my fucking bar?”
“No. I just—”
The next punch made his ears ring. Out went his lights on the final one.
With a hissed breath, Andrew turned from the desk and stacks of boxes, his grip tight on the clipboard on his way back up the stairs.
Almost immediately when Andrew slipped behind the bar, Rory elbowed him in the ribs and nodded toward the entrance. Through the steady Thursday happy hour crowd, they watched Marcus hold the door open for Jamie and whisper something that made Jamie roll his eyes and smile grudgingly, his happiness obvious. No one had seen those two since the wedding, save the odd text to let everyone know they were alive. Andrew, for one, was happy as hell to see them. Not only had he been untethered since the afternoon at the airfield, everywhere he turned these days, he was confronted with memories of his father.
Ribbing the newlyweds would be the perfect distraction.
“Look at these two smug pricks,” Rory said, loud enough to be heard over the music and beating Andrew to the punch. “Walking in here like they didn’t just ditch their own wedding.”
Marcus took a sweeping bow and the bar applauded.
“Yeah, it’s fine, assholes,” Andrew added, waving a bar rag. “We got your shifts covered. No need to worry.”
“Oh, we weren’t,” Jamie called over the applause, giving them a good-natured middle finger. “I knew we could count on a warm welcome back. Thanks, guys.”
Rory saluted. “Any time.”
Jamie left Marcus at the door to resume his job as bouncer and joined his brothers behind the bar. A large group of demanding students came in and made it impossible for them to talk, so they spent the next hour in their usual rhythm, weaving in and out of each other on their way to take orders or run credit cards. Someone played a bunch of Smiths songs on the internet jukebox, giving the whole night kind of a dulled edge, melancholy feel. Or maybe that was just Andrew. With every word he spoke, every movement, every breath, he could still feel Jiya in his arms. Wished he could replay the moment she ran to him over and over again, for the rest of his life.
He might never get the opportunity to comfort her again, so he let the scene happen on a loop in his head, hoping to memorize every nuance. How her hair smelled, the tears perched on her black eyelashes, the way it felt to be the man she confided in.
Stop.
Christ, he needed to stop.
Andrew prepared a round of whiskey shots, served them, then went back and poured his own, firing it back when no one was watching. He looked at Rory and Jamie where they stood near the bar hatch, laughing at something Jamie said, and he felt so…detached. From everything. The bar, his life, even his family. Like he was watching them from the other side of a glass wall, all picture, no sound. This is where I have to be. This is where I’ve landed myself. And his next impulse was a self-destructive one, but he couldn’t seem to help letting it engage.
His brothers were so fucking happy. He wanted them to stay that way.
If they knew what he’d agreed to do, that happiness would be tested. It would disturb the soil they’d cultivated with Olive, with Marcus. Because they wouldn’t let him transport illegal goods alone. They would want to be in it together.
The only way to keep them out of it was to distance himself.
Andrew would be lying if he didn’t acknowledge the part of him that just wanted to hide from their happiness. There was only one way he’d ever be happy and she wasn’t an option. Fuck, he loved his brothers more than anything in the world, but he needed them to go. Before his actions poisoned the lives they’d carved out for themselves.
“Hey,” Andrew said, approaching them, picking up empty glasses and balled up napkins off the bar as he went. “I’ve been thinking about something. Maybe selling the house.”
Rory cut himself off mid-laugh. “What did you say?”
Jamie watched Andrew in stunned silence.
“Come on, you two are barely there as it is.” Andrew shrugged. “Jamie, you’re either going to move in with Marcus or get your own place with him. And Rory, Olive’s apartment is a fucking palace.” He split a look between them. “You’re paying a third of the mortgage each on the house when you could probably save money moving in with them.”
“So this is just about making a financially informed decision?” Jamie said, cocking an eyebrow.
Irritation made the back of Andrew’s neck itch. Damn Jamie for being so suspicious and analytical. Andrew really didn’t have it in him to be cagey right now. “That’s right. It makes financial sense. What the hell else would it be about?”
“We don’t know, A. You tell us,” Rory laughed without humor. “This is kind of coming out of left field.”
“And you waited until the middle of a rush to drop the bomb, too,” Jamie added.
Andrew held up finger to a signaling customer. “Meaning?”
“Meaning you don’t want to discuss it too deeply.”
Leave it to the middle Prince to nail him. “Look, we can talk it about another time. Just think about it.”
“I’m done thinking about it,” Rory said, his forehead creased. “Yeah, I stay at Olive’s place a lot, but that’s our house. And where the hell would this leave you, A?”
“Anywhere else.”
Rory and Jamie traded a glance. “This is about Jiya,” Jamie sighed, pushing up his glasses. “You really think distance is going to make it any better?”
Until Jamie made the accusation out loud, Andrew didn’t realize Jiya’s proximity did play a huge role in selling the house. What was he going to do? Watch through the front window every time she came to visit with her husband and kids, for the rest of his life? Yeah, he wanted to put his brothers at a safe distance from what he’d agreed to do for Handler, but selling the house and moving might very well save his sanity where Jiya was concerned.
If that was even possible.
Andrew shouldered past his brothers to take an impatient girl’s order, then returned to the speed rack to make her a gin and tonic. His brothers were waiting with their arms crossed, their resemblance more on display than usual.
“Go back to work,” Andrew growled. “We can talk about it later.”
“Oh no, we’re in it now,” Rory said, taking a toothpick from the box behind the register and pushing it between his lips. “Have you talked to Jiya about your idea to sell?”
“Why would I do that, Rory? She’s dating. She will eventually be married to someone else.” He stopped to clear the agony from his throat. “Whether or not I sell th
e house is not her problem. It can’t be.”
Rory snorted. “So you’re kicking us out and pushing her away. That sound like healthy behavior to you?”
“You’re going to talk to me about what’s healthy, Rory? Jesus. You’ve had your shit together for all of five minutes.”
“That’s one hundred percent true. So learn from my mistakes.” Rory pointed at Jamie, who was being way too quiet. “Hell, learn from his. We both almost let the past keep us from being happy and you’re about to take that same fucking fall.”
“It’s not the same. My past is…” No longer banished to the past.
It was in the present and actively fucking him.
“That cop still following you?” Jamie asked.
“God,” Andrew laughed bitterly. “I knew you were being too quiet.”
Rory went still. “What cop?”
“It’s nothing—” Andrew started.
At the same time, Jamie said, “A cop has been following Andrew. Or at least he was until a couple of weeks ago. Kind of got a little busy with the whole break up, make up and wedding after that.”
“Is he hanging around because of me?” Rory asked, his complexion gray.
“No,” they both answered firmly.
Rory relaxed somewhat. “Then what is it about…”
When their youngest brother trailed off, understanding and apprehension dawning in his eyes, all three of them looked over their shoulders reflexively. Andrew was not having this conversation. Not in the Castle Gate. He didn’t even want to talk about what he’d done, let alone while standing inside these four walls. He was proud of this place and refused to let ugliness touch it. Let the stink get all over him. Just not on the bar. Not on his brothers or Jiya. Please God.
“Listen to me, don’t bring it up again. Not what happened. Not the cop. None of it.” He looked them both in the eye. “Forget what you know, all right? Please.”
“Andrew,” Jamie said, grabbing his arm when he tried to walk away. “Tell us what’s going on.”
Andrew took a breath to center himself, before shaking off Jamie’s hand and forcing a laugh. “I think maybe I just need a breather. Rory, can you close?”
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