“He fed his pilots?”
“Yes, because they were hungover.”
Alec and I were not hungover. Grayson had made sure of that. He was just ensuring I had enough to eat after he peeked inside my empty refrigerator. I didn’t want to discuss this any more than I’d wanted to tell him I couldn’t drive. But I didn’t want him to think I was naive, either. I was about to tell him I knew why he was feeding us.
He tilted his head to one side, the blond curls beneath his cowboy hat moving against his shoulder. “You looked really beautiful last night. I do like your hair better now, curly, but it was pretty last night too.”
“Ha-ha,” I said.
“And you look sexy when you dance.”
I put my hands on my hips. He probably thought I was trying to look sexier. I put my hands down. “I told you yesterday. It’s enough for you to make me date Alec. You can’t insult me too.”
He gaped at me. “I’m not insulting you. How is that insulting?”
“You’re being sarcastic.” I wasn’t sure whether this was true.
“I’m not being sarcastic.”
“Well, you can’t make me date Alec and then compliment me, either,” I said.
“It’s not a compliment. It’s a fact. You looked beautiful last night, and you looked great dancing.”
This was how things had started with Mark a few weeks ago. We’d been talking in the airport office about a job flying with his uncle, and suddenly he was asking me out.
Except that Mark had not been blackmailing me.
And when Mark had told me I was beautiful, I’d felt flattered. I hadn’t experienced this rush of pleasure through my body, my face flushing, my skin tingling like sunburn in the heat. I hadn’t fallen for Mark’s line like I was falling for Grayson’s. I hadn’t felt stupid.
“Are you coming on to me?” I asked sternly.
He lowered his shades on his nose and looked over them at me, his big gray eyes serious. “Considering your reaction, I guess not.”
“You can’t come on to me and make me date Alec.”
He pushed his shades back up so his eyes were hidden. “I have to make you date Alec.”
“Then stop talking to me.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath and tapped his tightly balled fist against his mouth.
The airport was eerily quiet, no airplane noises at all, no traffic noises this far out from town, just bugs screaming in the long grass.
Finally I said, “Exhale.”
He let out his breath in a long sigh, his broad shoulders sagging with it.
“You’re having a hard time,” I said gently.
He nodded, gazing at the sky.
“I’m sorry.” I closed the two steps between us and put my hand on his shoulder. When he didn’t flinch or shrug away, I rubbed his shoulder in a comforting way. I meant the gesture to be comforting, anyway, but I was distracted by how hard and muscular his shoulder was. And then I noticed that chill bumps popped up on his skin.
I was so confused about what he intended. But if I’d asked him for a straight answer, I doubted he could have given me one. He was confused himself.
It was time for me to fly, and there was no room for confusion in the cockpit of an airplane. Sliding my hand from his tight shoulder, I grabbed my drink from the hangar, then walked to the orange Piper. Grayson sat there watching until I took off.
eleven
This time I didn’t bother to stand on the toilet and check my look in the mirror over the sink. My sympathy for Grayson had faded. Now I was only fed up with him for coming on to me but making me date his brother. Fed up with Alec for playing along. Fed up with Molly for dragging me to this party. Also, I’d already worn my one clubbing dress and rinsed it in the sink. It hadn’t dried yet. Whatever I wore next would be inappropriate. If Molly was going to force me to a party where the girls would call me trash, and Grayson was going to treat me that way, I would dress the part.
I chose a pair of shorts that were too small a couple of years ago and obscene now that I’d grown a few inches taller. Molly, who had good fashion sense except for the glitter, would have told me that if I was showing that much leg, my top should be more demure so the whole outfit wouldn’t be overkill. I went for overkill with a tight, low-cut knit shirt. I ventured into my mother’s catastrophe of a closet for a pair of stilettos.
I wasn’t waiting for the boys outside my trailer this time. I listened for Alec’s car, then made my grand entrance down the wobbly cement-block staircase, watching their expressions. I couldn’t read them, really. They both stared at me openmouthed. Alec said something without taking his eyes off me. Grayson said something back. He jumped out of the front seat, left the door open, and slid into the back. Normally he would have focused on his phone again immediately, but he watched me cross the yard.
I slid into the car beside Alec. My shorts rode even higher on my thighs. You’re welcome.
I was so exasperated with everybody that I hadn’t even thought the whole night through. But when I walked with the boys into the café, suddenly I was embarrassed. Molly’s mom and dad hugged me as warmly as always. To judge by their reactions, I might as well have been wearing footed flannel pajamas. I was embarrassed anyway. It was almost like dressing this way for a flying lesson with Mr. Hall, which I never would have done.
And then, when Molly walked from the kitchen into the café, she cackled. “Jesus Christ, girl, you really don’t want to go to this party.”
“What do you mean?” Grayson asked her.
I was afraid that she would come out with the words airport whore. But she let it go, pressing everyone for what we wanted for dinner. I was glad she’d gotten my message, at least. If she was going to drag me to her rich-girl party, I was going to make her wish she hadn’t.
We took our gourmet organic food, which always tasted a lot better than it sounded, outside into the ocean breeze. The deck was empty because most of the tourists had eaten already. If we’d been on the flophouse end of town, the beach would still have been full of tourists, many of them staggering and sunburned to the point of hospitalization. Such things didn’t happen here on the magazine spread end. Only the sandpipers trotted across the beach. A stray toddler chased them. Behind that, his mother ambled along, half watching him in this safe environment, not the least bit afraid of him encountering a cigarette butt and picking it up to eat it.
At first, the noise of a plane was hard to discern from the noise of the surf, growing and fading on the wind. The engine’s growl loomed louder. On the horizon down the beach, I recognized the Coast Guard Super Hercules from the station in North Carolina. It had passed me in midair earlier in the day. I had announced myself over the radio because it was coming so fast and I didn’t want it to run me down or get its propellers tangled in my banner.