Page 7 of Over the Top

“Regular or Teflon? And do you want hollow points or hydra-shock rounds?”

“Bring me whatever you’ve got on hand, and I’ll be mighty grateful.” Since it had been a training jump, he had his sidearm in his gear, but he hadn’t been carrying live rounds.

“See you soon, Gun.”

“Soon.”

Sneaking out of the hospital turned out to be as easy as looking like he was supposed to be walking down the hall and knew where he was going. He stepped outside just as the ride-share car he’d called pulled up.

“Norfolk International Airport?” the driver called through the open window.

“That’s me.” He was tempted to offer the guy an extra twenty bucks to get him there fast, but the man looked to be pushing sixty years old and was not likely trained in combat driving.

The car pulled away from the hospital sedately, and he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The memories of Chas continued to flow. SneakingPlayboymagazines into his bedroom. He looked at them for the naked women, Chas looked at them for the fashion and the articles. Who in the world opened aPlayboyfor the damned articles? He snorted over that, even now.

He recalled Chas surrounded by a half-dozen football players taunting him for being a fag and working themselves up into beating the life out of him. He’d stepped in on that one, and as captain of the football team, he’d threatened to kick their collective asses and turn them in to the coach if they didn’t scram. Chas had cried in his arms, that time.

They’d been to hell and back together as kids. He’d had to survive his parents’ rotten marriage, and Chas had had to survive being gay in a small conservative town.

He felt like a steaming pile of crap by the time he reached the airport, checked in at a fixed base operator’s hangar, and walked out to the plane.

Rafe was indeed waiting for him, along with another pilot he introduced as Noah. The new guy didn’t offer any information about himself, so Gunner didn’t ask. There was an understood etiquette among operators about such things, and Noah had the hard look of one around his eyes and in the set of his shoulders.

“You look like death warmed over, man,” Rafe declared as Gunner hauled himself up the steps into the plane.

“I feel worse,” he grunted as he eased down carefully into a seat.

“Sleep, then. We’ll be there in about an hour and a half. That fast enough for you?”

“No, but it’s gonna have to be.”

“Balls to the wall, I can make it in an hour and fifteen. But that’s the best I can do.”

“Thanks,” he sighed.

Chasten Reed had reached out to him, huh? That was a name he’d never thought to hear again in this life. Not after the way they’d parted. Chas had figured out Gunner was gay, or at least bi, before he had, for Chrissake. And he’d never forgiven Chas for it.

The jet’s engines whined to life. They made a short taxi out and then lifted off into the night. He had no idea what kind of shitshow he was walking into, but it couldn’t be any worse than the one he was leaving behind.

CHAS LEARNEDquickly that time passed differently when a person was scared half to death. Each minute dragged on forever. He kept expecting to hear sirens, but they never came. Instead, almost exactly two hours to the minute after his call to Gunner, his cell phone vibrated, startling the living heck out of him.

The little girl, who’d finally dozed off, lurched awake, flinging her arms wide in terror and whacking him on the face. She started to cry, and then, as if she abruptly remembered to be frightened, went silent. For which he was inordinately grateful.

The caller ID on his phone said it was Gunner.

“Hey,” he said, low.

“You still alive?” Gunner asked.

“Obviously. You’re talking to me.”

“I just landed at the airport. Where are you?”

“In the back of a restaurant, or maybe a bar. Northeast corner of Fifth Street and Maple Avenue.”

“Got it. I’ll come into the building, so don’t shoot me when I do.”

“You’re hilarious. I wouldn’t know the front end of a gun from the back end.”

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