“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” I yelled to Molly. “This massive piece of engineering that looks like it shouldn’t be able to fly.”
“What?” she shouted back.
The airport office door burst open behind us. Grayson hollered over the noise of the helicopter. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The four men and one woman in fatigues walked back across the tarmac with drinks and packs of crackers in their hands. They disappeared into the belly of the Chinook. It rumbled even louder and deeper for a few moments, just for good measure, then lifted as easily as a tiny Piper blown on a storm wind.
“What did you say to them?” Alec yelled at Grayson over the fading noise.
“I told him to get his f**king Chinook off my runway,” Grayson said. “I’m trying to run a business here, and I’m not going to be held up and lose contracts just because these idiots think it’s funny to land here.”
“Did you say it to him like that?” Alec asked, horrified. “Grayson, you can’t talk to him that way. He was a lieutenant!”
“I can talk to him any f**king way I want, Alec. I’m not in the f**king military.”
“The Chinook’s gone now,” I pointed out.
Grayson looked around. He wanted to stay and argue, but he realized he was now being held up and losing contracts just by standing there. He walked toward the red Piper.
As an afterthought, he turned around and walked backward. “Molly,” he barked. He pointed toward the rolled-up banner in the center of the field.
Molly saluted him and galloped toward the grass. The other spectators faded into the metal buildings they’d scurried from. Nothing to see here. The last rumble of the Chinook had faded. The airport was as calm as if the helicopter had never landed.
I turned to Alec. “What’s Grayson’s problem? I liked the Chinook dropping by. I thought it was neato.”
“He’s mad because I got admitted to the Citadel.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “Alec, that’s great!”
“He thinks I’m going into the military,” Alec said.
“Oh.” Now I saw. As Grayson started the engine of the red Piper and we watched him taxi past us toward the far end of the runway, I realized I didn’t see the whole picture, but I understood the tiniest piece of why Grayson wanted Alec to be smitten with me. The Citadel was in Charleston, the city Grayson wanted me to keep Alec away from.
I asked, “Are you going to join the military?”
“I don’t know,” Alec said. “I can go to the Citadel without joining. I did think it was a great idea. I mean, I want to fly for a living. Where else are you going to get the chance to fly a Chinook? Or, gosh, an F-15?”
I nodded. An F-15 was what Jake had been flying in Afghanistan when he got shot down.
“I told my family a couple of weeks ago,” Alec said, “and Grayson went ballistic.”
We both turned to watch Grayson take off, the tiny plane sailing without incident into the calm sky.
“He got my mom all freaked out,” Alec said. “Then Grayson got this bright idea that we should run Hall Aviation, just like my dad. I’m thinking, Hell no. I couldn’t imagine going into business with Grayson. Could you?” He turned to me, blond brows raised, wanting me to verify his answer.
“Before I saw it for myself,” I started slowly, “I would have said no. But now…” I gestured toward the red Piper skimming low over the grass. Grayson passed the upright poles. The plane shot up at an impossible angle, nearly stalling the engine. Had he missed the banner? Had he missed it? Molly’s banner stayed put on the ground way longer than it should have, it seemed. Then the plane stopped in midair, just for a split second, and kept going. The banner jerked on the ground and lifted gracefully: SUNSET SPECIAL 2 FOR 1 BEACHCOMBERS. It went sailing after Grayson into the sky.
“The business seems to be going okay,” I continued. “I mean, gosh, Grayson knows how to do taxes.”
“Right,” Alec said. “He’s putting forth all this effort now. He’s throwing himself into this like he would have thrown himself into rock climbing before, this wall of energy with no understanding of the consequences, shoot now and ask questions later. That’s just because he and Mom convinced me to try out the business with him over spring break and a few more spring weekends, since Dad already had the contracts. If it goes okay, they want me to come back and fly with Grayson over the summer, and consider it as a civilian career instead of ever going into the military.”
“I get it,” I said. I really did. Grayson had thrown himself into this business, for Alec. He had swallowed every bit of his impulsive, irresponsible personality and redirected it toward a responsibility way too heavy for an eighteen-year-old boy, all for Alec. To fill out the contract schedule, he had needed me to work for him too, just like his dad had planned. To stack the deck, he had needed me to date Alec, so Alec would feel drawn to this place and wouldn’t want to leave for Charleston and the Citadel at the end of the summer.
And when I had refused, Grayson had found a way to make me.
“What do you think?” Alec asked.
I blinked at him. He was wearing aviator shades, just like Grayson, but for some reason his expression was a lot easier for me to read than Grayson’s ever was. Alec needed reassurance. “About what?”
“The military,” he prompted me. “Versus flying tow planes, or some other civilian job. I mean, you’ve got this job now, and Grayson told me that Mark had been dicking you around about a job flying crop dusters for Mr. Simon. But you’re not planning to stay here, are you? The military would be the perfect place for you.”
I nodded. “Because I live in a trailer.”
“That is not”—Alec paused in midsentence as he realized that’s exactly what he’d meant—“what I meant,” he finished weakly.
We both looked toward the Admiral’s plane as he started his engine.
“I’ve never been in the military,” I said slowly, “so I don’t know for sure. I can only judge from what I’ve seen, living in trailer parks with mostly military families when I lived near the Army base and then the Air Force base.”
Alec opened his hands, prompting me to go on. “What did you see?”
“I saw that the military treats people like dogs.”
Alec’s fresh face hardened. “If you lived in a trailer park with them, you probably mean single enlisted men. Privates.”