Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

swallowed, feeling like a pussy, but needing to get it out there just the same. “It feels like he’s in the cockpit with me every time I fly. I can’t shake it. Tonight was bad.”
    Because it was a night flight. Because I was number two again. The green fire. Because it had reminded me of before, and now it didn’t matter how many flights I’d flown in the Viper; the one when we’d lost Joker was the monkey on my back that I couldn’t shake.
    “You haven’t talked to anyone.”
    I didn’t bother answering that. Getting flagged with a psych issue would be a bitch with my security clearance and career progression. The military fully encouraged us to get help, but we knew how it would look if we did. Besides, I didn’t see Easy sitting in here, bitching about his feelings. Burn was kicking ass at Osan.
I
was the one who was fucked up.
    “I just need a few days off. Just need to get my shit sorted. I went from Red Flag, to Alaska and Joker’s accident, and I’ve been flying my ass off these past few months.” I felt like the biggest loser in the world for bitching about flying
too
much when all I’d ever wanted to do was fly, but at the same time, it was like no matter what I did, I couldn’t catch my breath. I needed to hit pause on everything. Needed to breathe again.
    “You’ve been flying a lot because we’re undermanned. You’re one of our strongest instructors. We need you here, getting the younger guys ready for the deployment.”
    “I know. And I will be. But right now, my mind isn’t where it needs to be to get the job done.”
    I could go through official channels and get medical leave to get my shit sorted out, and then he’d really have a manning problem. And I didn’t think he was trying to be a dickabout it; I’d been to the schedule buys—we definitely needed more bodies in the squadron. I’d seen the inbound list and we had some older guys who were already qualified as instructors—IPs, like me—before we left for Afghanistan, but in the meantime, they needed me.
    “How long?” Loco asked with a weary sigh.
    “Three weeks?”
    He made a face.
    “Two and a half? I already have leave to go to Reign’s wedding in South Carolina. I could just extend it a bit.”
    Reign and I had gone through pilot training together and had bonded over busting our asses flying T-38s and trying to make it to the big leagues. He was friends with Easy and Merlin as well—the F-16 community was a tiny fucking world—so we’d all flown out to Columbia for his bachelor party this past weekend and had planned on making the trek back to South Carolina for the wedding since we were all groomsmen.
    “And you think this will fix the issue?”
    God, I hoped so. This wasn’t exactly a normal request, and if the circumstances were any different, there was no way I’d get to take time off with this short notice. But we were in a bit of a weird situation here, and I figured Loco was trying to do the best thing for his squadron. No one needed a rattled pilot up there.
    “Yeah, I do.”
    He sighed. “We’ll work out the manning. Take the leave.”
    Relief flooded me. “Thank you.”
    I felt like an asshole because me being on leave would mean that everyone else in the squadron would have to pull longer hours, but this had become more of a necessity than an option, so I figured I was all out of plays here.
    “If you need to talk . . .”
    I nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
    I got up from my seat and headed to the door.
    “Thor?”
    I turned.
    “Are you going to be in the local area while you’re on leave?”
    I hadn’t even thought of it, hadn’t considered my options besides hoping that he granted my request, so no one was more surprised than I was when the words left my mouth—
    “No. I’m goinghome.”

F OUR

THOR
    Ten years was a long time to be gone, but at the same time, part of me felt like I’d never left.
    I drove through downtown Bradbury, surprised to see that some of my old favorites