Page 124 of Asystole

He helps me out of the car and walks me forward, greeting people along the way. The faint smell of Jet A-1 fuel hits my nostrils. The distinction probably isn’t noticeable to anyone else, but to someone who’s spent years breathing the stuff, I’d know it anywhere.

“Mr. Matthews, so nice to meet you,” a heavily accented man says to my right.

I hear their hands slap together in a handshake before Chase says, “Erik, nice to meet you as well. Thank you for accommodating our late request.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

As soon as I hear the door to the chopper open, I know where we are.

“We’re at an airfield!” I announce loudly, immediately pulling off my blindfold to see if I’m right.

Laughing, Chase says, “How the hell could you tell that from the sound of the door handle?”

“I couldn’t,” I confirm, peering inside the helicopter. “I smelled the fuel.”

Chase raises a brow at me.

“That’s kind of hot… and also ridiculous.”

“Not really. I mean, if I blindfolded you and walked you through the doors of an OR, wouldn’t you be able to tell?” I ask, walking around, inspecting the touring helicopter. I’ve never flown one, but they’re cool. Almost the whole cockpit is glass since it’s designed for flight-seeing tours.

A sudden pang of loss rocks me as the realization that when I go home, there is no bird waiting for me. It’s the first time in fourteen years that a helicopter, somewhere in the world, is not assigned to me.

When we left Boston, all I wanted was to get out, get away, figure things out with Chase, and have a moment to breathe and just be together.

Now that we’ve achieved that, reality is crashing over me and I’m starting to panic. It was naïve to flee the fucking country without figuring this shit out first.

“Logan, what’s wrong? Where’d you go?” Chase asks, pulling me into a hug.

I shake my head free of the dark thoughts, not wanting to drag Chase down with me. He’s going through just as much as I am, but he isn’t breaking down.

So neither will I.

He and I can figure this out.

This trip is supposed to be a fresh start, so I’ll save the wallowing for later.

“Nothing, baby. I’m great. Excited to be in the sky.” At least the last part is the truth. It was so fucking thoughtful of Chase to schedule this.

“Are you sure?” he asks hesitantly. “I thought it might be good to give you time in a helicopter that has nothing to do with work, but now that we’re here, maybe it was the wrong call? Maybe you don’t want to be in a helicopter if you can’t be in control?” he says, his rambling tugging on my heartstrings.

“Hey, Chase?” He stops talking and looks at me.

“Yeah?”

“This is perfect. Let’s see Aruba at sunset.”

Chapter 44

Chase

The flight tour is two and a half hours long. We’ve been in the air for forty minutes, and I’m not sure Logan has looked out the window once.

“So, you’ve gotta do the startup for your engines individually?” Erik asks, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. “Doesn’t that waste precious time?”

“Nah. The medical helicopters are pretty sweet. I can turn both engines on simultaneously because the FADEC auto-syncs the starters. As soon as engine one reaches fifty percent N1 speed, engine two kicks in. I can go from cold to airborne in under ninety seconds,” Logan says proudly before adding, “Well, I used to. I lost my job right before we came out here.”

I don’t understand anything but the last sentence.