Page 7 of Asystole

By the time six fifty-eight rolls around, I’m dying to get out of the hospital. My chopper is refueled and restocked, all the logs have been filled out, and she’s ready to go. I, on the other hand, desperately need a shower, some clean clothes, and to brush my teeth.

Carlos, my relief pilot, comes into the flight locker a minute after me.

“How’s it hanging, Kirkland? Anything I need to know?” he asks, opening his locker to check his gear.

“Nah, pretty run of the mill,” I tell him.

“Good, that’s how we like it,” he says, giving me a wide grin. At first, I’d thought maybe we would grab a beer sometime and commiserate over the mundanity of this job or something, but Carlos feels about flying for the hospital the way I did about flying for Ricochet and for the Forest Service before that. It’s his whole life; meanwhile, I’m still searching for what I lost when I left the mountains.

“Speak for yourself,” I say with a smile. “See you in a week.”

He gives me a salute as I grab my bag and head for the door.

The hospital employs four pilots who make up teams Alpha and Bravo; two daytime pilots and two nighttime ones. We switch every quarter. Carlos is my teammate, and since this is our last shift before the Alpha guys come back, I won’t see him again until next week’s shift change.

My phone rings on my way out of the hospital.

Probably Chase making sure I’m not bailing on him, I think to myself as I move my bag to my other hand so I can grab my phone out of my pocket.

But the name on my screen stops me dead in my tracks as my chest seizes, making me feel like I’m going into cardiac arrest.

Stone Addario.

Why the fuck would he be calling me? I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve spoken since I fled Ricochet, and the last time we talked was well over two and a half years ago… and it didn’t end well.

Fuck.

I just want to grab a beer and have one night where I don’t feel so fucking alone and hopeless.

Heartbreak is a bitch, and a cold-hearted one at that.

Declining the call, I slip the phone back into my pocket and try to think about literally anything else the entire drive home.

Once I’m there, stepping over the threshold into my space should bring some relief, but it doesn’t. Standing under the spray of hot water should loosen the tension in my muscles, but again, no luck. I’m so pissed at myself for being worried that something is wrong with Stone that I can’t even relax.

He didn’t leave a voicemail, so it can’t be an emergency, and even if it was, I’m not sure what he’d expect me to do about it from across the country.

Climbing over the side of the tub, I aggressively rip my towel from the rack, pulling the whole damn thing from the wall.

“Motherfucker!” I yell in frustration, slapping my hands against the edge of the sink and hanging my head.

This has to stop.

While I’m fighting with myself, my text alert goes off, and I greedily grab my phone, heartily ignoring the disappointment welling inside me when I see Chase’s name instead of Stone’s.

Chase

I’m heading over. I’ll grab a table.

I send a thumbs-up emoji because it’s all I can muster, then I slip into a clean pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a Ricochet Ridge Ski Patrol hoodie that I stole from Stone because I’m an idiot and a masochist. Toxic or not, it still brings me comfort.

Chapter 4

Chase

I’m glad to be out of scrubs as I pull open the door to the bar. In the summer months, the whole front of this place opens up, but now that the weather has turned cold, the large window remains firmly closed.

It’s crowded, but surprisingly, I don’t have to wait for a table. The hostess leads me toward the back of the pub-style bar and down a small flight of stairs. The lights are low, and there are flameless candles on all the wooden tables. Exposed brick walls and rich colors make it look like a place Al Capone would have done business.