He shook his head like he was embarrassed to admit it. “It sounds so stupid. There’s this belief that the first person who flies any plane is…isbondedto that plane. Like, their DNA becomes enmeshed with the plane somehow.”
“What?”
He nodded. “Yep. The first pilot supposedly sets the tone for the plane’s entire career, so the goal is to always have someone competent and positive piloting the maiden voyage. Kevin is currently in a, uh,transitionalplace, so he doesn’t feel like he should be the first person to fly it. He’s kind of up in his head right now, and he’s afraid he’d…” Harrison broke off to shake his head sheepishly. “He’s afraid he’d curse the plane.”
It made sense that pilots had superstitions. After all, they had an unbelievable amount of stress on them, flying a monster of a machine in weather that could flip on a dime, and with the responsibility of keeping other people alive while soaring ten thousand feet above the earth.
“So wait, when you said that you’d do it—did you meanyou’regoing to do the first trip?” I said slowly as I pieced the puzzle together. “Is that a good idea? When’s the last time you flew?”
His eyes flashed at me. “What are you implying?”
I pulled a face. I knew Harrison as the bosshole in chief, not the man in the cockpit. “Can pilots get rusty from lack of practice?”
“They can, yes, but that doesn’t meanIhave. You have no idea how often I fly,” he fired back at me.
“You’re right,” I replied. “No offense, I’m sure you’re great at it, but to me you’re an office guy.”
His mouth dropped open. “Awhat?”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t picture it,” I admitted as my shoulder crept up to my ears, because I could tell he didn’t like my perspective of him.
He stood up so abruptly that his chair shot out from behind him and hit the wall. “That’s it. We’re leaving.”
“Excuse me?”
“Now,” he opened his office door and pointed down the hallway. “I’m going to fly the Embraer for the first time, and you’re coming with me.”
17
GWEN
Sitting in a cockpit was a totally new experience for me, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
And worse, we hadn’t even left the ground yet.
Watching Harrison go through all of the pre-flight prep had me stressing out, big time. Even though I knew he had his pilot’s license, he still hadn’t answered my question about how often he flew. And there were so many damn buttons, knobs, and screens on the control panel in front of us. Any one of them could malfunction and send us crashing back to earth.
I had to tape a note on the bottom of my alarm clock to remind me how to reset it for daylight savings time, and that was a hell of a lot less complicated than this. If Harrison only flew occasionally, did he really remember what every button and lever did?
I much preferred being in a seat in the back, where I could pretend it was magic that got us to our destination, not a human who might sneeze at the wrong moment and fly us into a mountain. I didn’t like seeing how the sausage was made.
“Stop,” Harrison scolded me.
“Stopwhat?”
He nodded to my hands, and I immediately stopped picking at my cuticles.
“You’re scared,” he said as he continued his pre-fight process. “But you shouldn’t be. There’s no reason to worry.”
“Can you give me a little credit?” I griped. “I’m getting used to this new version of you. Harrison Ashford, pilot.”
“I’ve been a pilot since I was eighteen,” he pointed out. “You’ve literally never known any version of me whowasn’ta pilot.”
“Yeah, well, no version of you has ever been a pilot of a plane I’ve been on before.”
Harrison paused with his hand on a lever and studied my face. “Do you not want to do this?”
I considered the question. Yeah, part of me wanted to rip off the safety harness and run. On the other hand, there was also a part of me that was enjoying watching him in his element. I couldn’t deny that the man looked more than competent as he got ready to take off. And beyond that, he lookedhappy, primed and ready to do something he loved.
