“Home alone,” Glenn said darkly. “Your ex-girl won’t put you up for a while?”
“Cheryl?” Marc chuckled. “No chance. Besides, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes, thanks. Stop fussing.”
Glenn let it go, and Marc was glad of it. He’d come to Chicago for his surgery to get the hell out of dodge for a while—amongst other reasons—but as fun as it would be to hole up with Glenn for a few days, he had to get home.
A few hours later, he hobbled onto a Virgin Atlantic plane and stowed his crutches in the overhead locker, waving away the flight attendant who offered to help. “I’m fine, luv. Thanks.”
She moved on, and Marc hopped to his extra-legroom seat at the front of the economy cabin, the one expense he allowed himself when he travelled, though it was a necessity more than a luxury. He’d learned the hard way what happened to his renegade leg when it was cooped up in one position for too long. Fuck that noise. A bit of room to stretch and some kip, and he’d be right as rain, helped along by the shot of morphine Glenn had stuck him with before he’d left the hospital.
Marc loosened his prosthesis so that he was barely wearing it at all, pulled his old woollen hat low down his head, and closed his eyes, hoping to make good on his promise to Glenn to sleep across the Atlantic. And for a while, he did. Military life had engrained in him the ability to pass out just about anywhere—submarines, ditches, the edge of a cliff—and he missed take off completely. The plane was halfway to London when he woke.
He blinked and sat up, sharp pain in his leg yanking him abruptly from the lingering morphine blanket. A flight attendant tapped him on the shoulder. “Seat belt on, please, sir. We’re expecting some turbulence.”
Fuck.Marc blinked at the flashing sign and shifted awkwardly in his seat to fasten the belt around his waist. He glanced around for something to prop under his leg to keep it as still as possible. Turbulence didn’t frighten him, but he could do without getting chucked around like a pinball. That shit was gonnahurt.
He took his hoodie off and jammed it under his thigh, wincing as the plane began to shudder and shake, slanting from left to right at angles that would’ve alarmed him if he hadn’t spent twenty years screaming through the air in Chinooks. As it was, the disturbance was irritating, and toe-curlingly painful. Metal toes, obviously.
“Fuck.”
The repeat of Marc’s inner exclamation echoed his thoughts so absolutely that it took a moment to compute that he hadn’t said it himself. Then movement beside him caught his attention. Somehow, he’d slept through his neighbour stepping around him to get to the window seat, a scenario that would’ve been unthinkable a few years ago.
With gritted teeth, Marc glanced left. Blinked. And then stared, the juddering of the plane, and the consequential agony, briefly forgotten.Wow.There was no other word for the man curled up in the seat beside him. The guy was young and slender, pale skin stained with dark tattoos, black hair, and—well, that was about it, really. With the lad curled into a ball, his arms wrapped around his head, Marc couldn’t see his face. Only his white knuckles and strained tendons, clear signs of someone who was absolutely terrified.
The plane jolted and dropped a few feet. Marc’s stomach barely flickered, but the man beside him gasped and tightened his arms.Bless him. He thinks we’re going down.
The grumpy Brit in him didn’t much care, but Marc had spent most of his life overwhelmed by the inability to leave a crisis that didn’t concern him well alone—an affliction that had led him to be on this damn-fucking plane in the first place.
His hand reached out of its own volition and clamped down on the lad’s shoulder.
A spark of heat hit Marc, though the other man’s skin felt conversely chilled.Bloody morphine.Marc shook himself, and then his neighbour—gently, at first, but then with more force when he didn’t respond. “Hey, buddy. It’s okay—it’s just a bit of turbulence.”
For a long moment, nothing happened, and Marc assumed he’d have to leave his trembling row companion to his fate, but then the man raised his head, and Marc was instantly trapped by the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Stormy and deep, they were electric, and they swallowed him whole.Bugger me.If he’d thought the man was attractive before he’d seen his face, Marc was a bloody goner now. Tortured. Fragile. Beautiful. Andyoung, though there was a hardness in his gaze that Marc recognised—an edge he’d seen a hundred times over in men who’d lived through something that probably should’ve killed them.
The plane lurched sideways. Someone in the seats behind let out a low scream, and the young man’s eyes widened briefly before he screwed them shut again. Marc mourned the loss, but beyond that, the notion of leaving him trapped in the cycle of his own fear was too much.
Resolved, he shook the lad for a second time, and clasped his hand. “Hey. Look at me. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s a spot of turbulence. It’ll be over soon.”
Blue eyes snapped open again. “What are you? A fucking pilot?”
“No. But I know enough about aircraft to know that it would take a lot more than this to drop one. Planes are designed to stay in the sky. What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. I’m Marc.”
“So?”
Marc grinned. Even a sneering rebuke was better than fear. “So... I want to know your name. Won’t kill you to tell me, will it?”
A violent shudder passed through the plane. Perhaps unconsciously, the young man’s fingers wrapped around Marc’s like shivering vines, clutching Marc’s hand tight like they’d never let go. “Jamie,” he blurted. “I’m Jamie.”
Jamie.Marc turned the name over in his mind and absently rubbed Jamie’s shoulder. James, Jimmy, Jimbo, he’d known them all, but never a Jamie. “Okay, Jamie. I want you to listen to me a minute and think of the sea. Can you do that?”
A scowl lurked behind Jamie’s terrified stare, but he nodded jerkily. Marc squeezed his hand. “Good. Now I want you to imagine the tides and currents that you see in the ocean, and picture a boat on the surface. Have you ever seen one that doesn’t bob up and down, or lurch from side to side?”
“Um... no?”
“Of course you haven’t, and you won’t. Even in the stillest bay or lagoon, there’ll always be tides and currents, and the air is no different. Planes are built to ride the waves, no matter how big, and as uncomfortable and scary as turbulence can be, it’s not dangerous. I promise.”