Such a Rush(33)
Author: Jennifer Echols

He’d forgotten to put his shades back on when he came outside, so he squinted almost blindly at me and tripped over something as he made his way to my airplane. Strange that I felt I was suddenly seeing him more clearly than I ever had, now that he couldn’t see me at all. Blinking, he opened the cockpit door, handed me something, closed the door, and headed for the hangar. His skin shone with sweat.

“Um,” I said into the phone again. A catastrophic vision formed in my mind of Grayson and Molly at the club, hooking up.

But Molly was having a little fun and getting me out of a tight spot, as usual. She had no designs on Grayson.

Of course, she had not seen him. Yet.

“Um.”

“So you’ve said,” she broke into my thoughts. “Just vote yes. Isn’t this better than going out with Alec alone, if he ever asks you? What if he’s a horndog? He already thinks you’re the airport whore, so where does that leave you? Flat on your back, missy.”

I laughed then. Maybe this date would work out after all. It was hard to stay depressed about my situation while talking with Molly, who couldn’t imagine having problems like mine. “Yes. I don’t know how to introduce this date idea to these boys, though.”

“Give the phone to the sane one. Alec. I’ll take care of it. I’ll convince him I’m a vivacious airhead and he has to follow along with my schemes.”

“Don’t get too far out of your comfort zone.”

“Ha.”

“And listen,” I said. “You can’t let on to Grayson that you know what he’s making me do. He is dead serious about this shit. I respect his ability to screw me over.”

“Roger that.”

“Hold on.” I hopped out of the cockpit and followed Grayson across the strip of white sunlight, into the shadowy hangar. I couldn’t see, but I heard water running. The farther I walked into the hangar, the more clearly I saw Alec bent over the industrial sink, pouring water over his head with a hose. “Alec?”

“Hey.” He felt around for a nearby towel until I handed it to him, and he straightened while scrubbing his hair dry. “What’s up?”

“This is hard to explain, but my friend Molly is on the phone and she wants to talk to you. I mean, everything about my friend Molly is hard to explain. Here.”

He’d been smiling already. His eyes smiled too as he held out his hand for the phone and put it to his ear. “Hello, Leah’s friend Molly.”

I wanted to hear what he said, but it seemed awkward to stand there and listen in. As I wandered away across the hangar, I looked down and saw I’d been holding something in my other hand the whole time. While I’d been sitting in my airplane talking with Molly, Grayson had come out to give me a check for my first day’s pay.

He was in Mr. Hall’s office again, the overhead light spilling into the darker hangar. I didn’t want to follow him in there and have this conversation with him, but I had to. I shuffled to the doorway and knocked gingerly on the doorframe.

He looked up from his computer but didn’t gesture for me to come in. I walked in anyway and sat in the empty chair. “Thanks for the check. Could you cash it for me?”

“Cash it for you,” he said, not even a question, just a restatement of my statement, which he found ridiculous.

“The airport cashes my checks for me,” I said in my defense. “I can’t get to the bank very often.” Even when my mom spent time at the trailer with a boyfriend who had a car and we could run errands, I didn’t ask them to take me by the bank. I didn’t like to remind my mom I earned money. Then my paycheck would never make it into my account.

Without another word, he took a pen out of a cup on the desk and handed it to me. I endorsed the check and gave it back to him. He opened the desk drawer with the cash box. While he counted out the amount of my check, he asked, “What do you do with your money in between trips to the bank? Stash it in your mattress?”

“I have a better hiding place than that,” I said, “but I can’t tell you what it is. You might tell Mark, since the two of you are so chummy.”

One of his eyebrows went up. Now that he wasn’t wearing his shades, I saw the full meaning of that expression in his face. Disdain for trash. “You’re afraid he’ll steal your money, but you dated him?”

“I’ve dated for less,” I said pointedly. “Or at least tried to get a guy to ask me out. I don’t understand why it’s not enough for you to blackmail me. You keep insulting me too. I do have a limit, Grayson, and you’re trying hard to find it.”

He held the stack of bills out to me, complete with a few coins on top. “I saw you talking to Mark this morning.”

I pocketed the cash before Grayson could take it away. “I’m not allowed to talk to Mark now? He hadn’t grounded his airplane when he was pumping gas. He was about to blow the whole airport up.”

“That sounds about right.” Grayson stared at me from behind the computer like he was waiting for me to leave.

Looking for Alec, I glanced through the dark hangar to the bright sunlight shining on the planes outside. “Your brother’s on the phone with my friend Molly. We’re going to a touristy dance club in downtown Heaven Beach tonight.”

Grayson frowned at me like he was fifty-two years old. “Do they serve alcohol at this club?”

“Yes, it’s eighteen to get in, twenty-one to drink.”

“Do you have a fake ID? You and Alec can’t drink,” he said quickly.

“So you’ve said.”

“You can’t be hungover and fly,” he went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “And you can’t stay out late. We start work at seven again tomorrow morning.”

“Molly knows that already.”

He bit his lip, looked longingly at his computer like he would rather spend the night with it than go out. Then he said, “I’m going with you.”

“We already figured you were going with us like a double date from hell. Molly thinks we’re two girls going out with two hot guys. She has no idea we all hate each other.”

Grayson sucked in his breath, watching me, like he was going to say something.

He let out his breath in a huff. “Come help me get the airplanes in.”

Alec was just hanging up with Molly on a long laugh. The three of us pushed the Pipers back into the hangar, fitting them around each other. The hangar seemed huge with only the Cessna in it, but very cramped when filled with four airplanes.