I remember because I was sober.’ Or soberish. ‘And all you had on was a baseball cap!’
‘Well, then I had all the essential stuff covered, didn’t I?’ He threw her the challenging grin again, daring her to deny it.
‘Essential stuff? What, like your brain, you mean? That certainly didn’t qualify as essential at the time, given it wasn’t the organ you did your thinking with.’
His eyes sharpened and she relished the hit. But then the captain’s monotone tenor came over the public address system with a rundown of their flying time and their altitude over the Atlantic, and the brief surge of triumph was smothered in panic.
‘Give me the bottle.’ She stretched out a shaky palm. ‘I need another before we take off.’
He lowered the bottle but didn’t hand it over. ‘How many have you had already?’
She pressed the tip of her tongue to her upper lip and tasted the salty sweat. ‘Only one.’ Or had it been two? Her mind seemed foggy on the details. But then the flight attendant strolled past to check their bays, and the plane rumbled into motion—and the panic became razor sharp. ‘Luke, for Chrissake, hand them over.’
‘Look at me.’
She squinted, trying to focus as he held two fingers in front of her face.
‘Do you know your pupils are the size of pinpricks?’
‘“Prick” being the operative word.’ She made a grab for the bottle again and missed by about twenty nautical miles, her coordination skills—along with her dignity—now completely shot.
‘Why do you need this stuff anyway?’
Why was he looking at her like that—all stern and concerned? And why couldn’t she remember how to speak?
The plane made a lumbering turn onto the runway, then gathered speed. Her stomach lurched up to slam into her larynx. She gripped the armrest hard enough to fracture granite, her nails gouging the leather.
Flying is safe. Remember Rain Man. You are not going to die.
‘Dammit, Hal, since when have you been scared of flying?’
She would have shot him another give-me-a-bloody-break look but she was far too busy clinging on for dear life.
‘Why didn’t you say something sooner?’ he added.
Because it’s stupid and irrational and humiliating and I’d rather lose a limb than admit a weakness to you.
‘I’m not scared of flying,’ she said, her fingers now fused with the leather. ‘I just have issues with the whole concept.’
‘What issues, exactly?’
He wanted to have a conversation about this now? When they were both about to die?
Extreme exasperation got the better of her terror for a second. ‘Gravitational issues,’ she snapped. ‘Such as, how does a huge metal box that weighs several tons stay airborne?’
The plane tore away from the runway and her stomach—and the last of her courage—went into free fall.
Please don’t let me start whimpering. Or puking.
‘Hal, it’s called aerodynamics,’ he said, all knowledge and reason when she was embarking on a major panic attack.
His pure blue eyes blurred round the edges as she struggled to make sense of the statement. Her stomach rocked against her ribs as the plane banked. She caught a glimpse of chequerboard fields and ribbon roads dotted with toy cars through the window and slammed her eyes shut.
Do. Not. Look. Down. The first rule of upchuck avoidance.
‘Excuse me if I’m not convinced by your knowledge of aerodynamics,’ she hissed through clenched teeth. ‘I happen to know you bunked off every physics lesson you ever had.’
‘I did an article on the aerospace industry for a tech website last year.’
A weak scoffing sound was all she could manage, the rumbling thud of the plane’s undercarriage lifting into the fuselage echoing in her stomach.
‘And, by the way, this plane is mostly made out of carbon fibre, not metal, if that helps.’
It didn’t. She couldn’t compute his words any more. Her head tipped back, anchored to the seat, as she ground her teeth hard enough to crack a molar.
‘Oh, God.’ She panted, hyperventilation the only way to keep breathing as the plane lifted into the cloud bank. Her stomach levitated into her throat. She swallowed convulsively to stop it vomiting out of her mouth. ‘I’m not ready to die.’
That would be whimpering.
A warm palm covered the hand she had superglued to the armrest.
‘You’re not going to die. You’re indestructible.’ His palm curled over her whitening knuckles and his thumb stroked the small scar on her wrist left by the burn he’d noticed in Paris. ‘If we crash, you’ll bounce.’
She wanted to tell him he was right, she was indestructible, because she’d had to be. But she didn’t feel indestructible. And she had lost the ability to talk, every single muscle and sinew in her jaw and neck having atrophied.
‘I need a pill,’ she finally managed to squeak. ‘Please.’ The begging would have embarrassed her, but in the grand apocalyptic scheme of things, having Luke smirk at her while she died didn’t seem like such a big deal any more.
‘Is everything OK, Ms Best?’
Halle prised open an eyelid to find the stewardess looking down at their joined hands with a benevolent smile.
‘I’m fine.’ Her whole body shuddered like an alcoholic recovering from an all-night bender. The stewardess didn’t look convinced. ‘If I could just …’
‘For Chrissake, Hal.’ Luke’s grip on her hand tightened. ‘You’re freaking out. There’s no shame in admitting it. Loads of people don’t like flying.’
‘I a-a-am not freaking out.’ She never freaked out. She happened to be a champion coper—even if her chattering teeth weren’t helping to emphasise the point.
‘Let go of the chair,’ he ordered. ‘You’re about to break your fingernails.’
‘If I let go, I’ll fall.’ The plaintive plea sounded childish, even to her.
‘You’re strapped in, Hal. You’re not going anywhere.’
‘You won’t fall, Ms Best. This is an Airbus 380, the newest and best-designed plane in our fleet.’ The stewardess’s soothing tone managed to be even more annoying than Luke’s condescension.
‘You don’t know that,’ she whimpered.
Luke’s thumb caressed
