Page 45 of Reaching Gavin

Chapter Seventeen

I was going to die.

And not an unexpected death. No, I pretty much expected it. I hadn’t asked questions when Gavin picked me up in his Tesla. After my conversation last night with Jess and Jillian, I’d looked up the ferry information for the one that went out to the San Juans. I’d felt prepared, so when Gavin began to drive, I didn’t think anything of it. To be honest, I didn’t know this side of the Puget Sound all that well. If I had, I might have noticed that he wasn’t heading in the direction of the ferry at all. That, and the fact that he’d given the entire office a day off, stating that we all had to rest up before the big Majestic Theater presentation, had led me to believe that we would be spending the whole day traveling.

I stared at the small, four-person aircraft he expected me to get on. Gavin hadn’t noticed my reluctance yet. He’d been putting our baggage into the cargo hold and speaking with someone who worked at the private airfield.

I hadn’t moved. I was still sitting in the passenger seat. The car was off and it was beginning to get hot, but despite the dangers of the greenhouse effect, I felt a whole lot safer in here.

I wasn’t an enthusiastic flyer on a good day. I usually had to remind myself that statistically I was more likely to die in a car accident then I was in an airplane crash. I didn’t know how much that changed on a Cessna, but I was going to guess those figures skewed a little when the plane was the size of a golf cart. I was considering whether I should call my parents and tell them I loved them when Gavin opened the passenger door and leaned down.

“Are you going to join me?” he asked.

“I was just deciding that,” I admitted. My hands were still on my seat belt buckle. I really hadn’t gotten far in the decision-making process.

“Will it help you to know that I’ve been flying for 12 years?”

I did the mental math on those numbers. “You can fly at 14? Your parents let you do this? Do your parents even love you?”

“I learned with my dad. When he bought his first plane,” he added.

“So this plane is yours?”

“My family’s.”

I stared at it. Gavin owned a freaking plane. The longer that information stewed in my brain, the more silly I felt. Of course, his family owned a plane. They were gagillionaires, which meant they probably could have afforded something a bit larger. Or at least big enough to have a nice flight attendant serving vodka.

“Oh, I guess I would have expected…” I shut my mouth before I said something truly stupid.

“That we would have private jet? We do. I just don’t like to use it. Dad insists that we have a pilot fly that. I prefer to be in the cockpit.”

I really wished he didn’t have that preference. Right now I wanted a pilot and a plane that looked a little less like child’s play toy than this one.

Gavin extended his hand in offering. “Do you trust me?”

That was a loaded question. An hour ago I would have said yes unequivocally. Now, I had something to quibble about. He helped me out of the car slowly, letting me take my time, or maybe giving me time to change my mind. Once I was out, his fingers knitted through mine and the simple gesture—the first time we’d ever held hands—calmed me. He led me toward the Cessna, chattering about various near misses and how he’d handled each one.

“Please don’t tell me about the times you almost crashed,” I said, gripping his hand a little tighter.

“The weather is perfect today,” he said in a soothing voice. “It’s going to be a perfect flight and it will take less than an hour.”

One hour. I repeated it over and over again like a mantra. I could handle anything for an hour—except dying. Gavin helped me climb into the co-pilot’s seat, which proved to be a little tricky in my sundress. When the wind caught my skirt and tried to blow it over my head, he grabbed it and kept me covered up.

"That’s for my eyes only.”

Normally, I might have languished in those words, savoring the possessive suggestion of them. Now? I was glad I would die with my dignity.

Once I was inside, he handed me a bulky set of headphones with a mic attached. “You’ll need these when we’re in the air. It will be too loud for us to hear each other otherwise.”

“Since I’m probably going spend the entire flight screaming, you might regret giving me these.” I took them as my stomach began to churn.

“There’s a floatation device here.” He motioned to a pouch on my belt as he helped me buckle up. “But you aren’t going to need it.”

“I never understood why they do that,” I began, nervously rattling out everything in my brain. “Before you take off—when they tell you what to do with your mask or flotation device or how to get to an exit. We’re all just going to be praying and crying if the plane goes down.”

Gavin stood back, his mouth gaping open, and I realized what I’d done. I thought I’d gotten control of my sailor mouth.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I did the cursing thing again, didn’t I? What did I say?”