Over the years, the sight of a plane has meant many different things to me. Trust. Freedom. Our family legacy. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Joy. A paycheck. Panic.
Right now, they’re nothing more than metal sculptures.But I squeeze Nico’s hand, open the car door, and step outside.
“The first step,” Nico called it. I close the Jeep door.
A moment later, he comes up behind me, pressing his chest against my back like a safety blanket. He doesn’t say anything, just lets me take in the hangar. I step forward, and he does too. I wobble, and he steadies me.
“I guess they’re not so scary from here,” I say, finally, my voice scratchy.
“Have you ever flown one?”
“Not these models exactly, but I learned to fly in something similar.” They feel so small in comparison to the one I crashed.
A door at the back of the hangar opens, and someone—Ari, I assume—walks out wearing a resort uniform.
“Hey! You must be Este and Nico,” they call, and Nico lifts his hand in a wave.
“Thanks for letting us come by,” Nico says, and if I’m honest, it’s so weird seeing him interact with a total stranger that it distracts me from the planes for a moment. This is the man who, when I first arrived in Wintermore, barely left the mountain.
Obviously, I know he did interact with people—he went shopping in Jackson, and even if I don’t like to think about it, I know he hooked up with people from dating apps. But when I imagine it (usually when I’m already stressed and my brain decides to add a sprinkle of jealousy for good measure), I don’t imagine him being warm and chatting away like he is now with Ari. When I first met him, I couldnever have imagined the words “Nico” and “chatty” in the same sentence.
“What do you think?” Ari asks me, gesturing toward the planes. “I bet they feel small to you.”
“They do,” I admit. “It’s been a while since I flew something so small. They’re nice, though. You have a good setup here.”
I’ve seen much dingier plane hangars. I guess if resort guests are coming up here, they want to make the whole experience luxurious.
“I’m lucky. The resort owns the planes, but they give me free rein here. We’re busy year-round, but especially over Christmas—Wintermore,” they say, rolling their eyes. “You want to take a closer look?”
I open my mouth to decline, but the word I’m expecting doesn’t come out.
“Sure.”
I’m sitting in a plane. There’s no air in my lungs, and I could pass out at any moment, but I’m doing it.
“Breathe, baby.” Nico’s beard tickles my ear.
How we went from standing outside the hangar to being in the plane is a mystery to me. All I know is the second I got close, and Ari suggested I open the door to take a peek at the controls, I couldn’t say no. And when they suggested I climb up for a closer look and offered a hand, I just… did it. My body went into, well, autopilot.
Now, I’m sitting beside Ari, watching them talk us through the controls, and Nico is behind us, with his arm around me and the seat, gently stroking my finger over his chest in a continuous rhythm, reminding me when to take a breath.
“It’s a speedy little thing,” Ari says. “And really smooth. Most of our tours are around forty-five minutes, and we rarely have issues with the planes. Weather is our biggest barrier, obviously, but we usually have advance notice of anything bad enough to stop us going up.”
It’s not a big plane. There are six seats, including Ari’s, and a bench at the back where someone could sit in a pinch. The top of Nico’s head is flush with the ceiling, and he looks comically large in the second row of seats, but the plane’s biggest asset is its windows. They’re big for such a small plane, crystal clear, and angled perfectly to show off as much as possible.
“I bet the view is incredible over the mountains,” I say.
“Oh, yeah. Especially at this time of year. The air is so clear, the sun’s not too bright, and there’s still snow to look down at. It’s magical.” Ari’s wistful tone is familiar. Views like that are why I fell in love with flying in the first place.
“I bet.”
Ari looks over their shoulder at Nico, then back at me. “Do you want to see it?”
If my palms weren’t already sweaty, they would be now. “What? Like… now?”
“Sure. No pressure if you’re not ready, you can come back anytime, but it’s a beautiful day if you want to.”
I don’t think my heart has beat in a few seconds. It’s aheavy lump in my stomach, instead. I twist in my seat to look at Nico. His face is totally neutral, but his eyes give away how much he wants this for me.
