Page 39 of The Best Bad Decision

Dry and dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt, I pull out my tablet and download the day’s flight plans. They’re all electronic now, and while I wait for them to materialise on the screen, I check my emails and open my social media apps. I rarely use social media; it just never occurs to me to do so. I don’t ever have the urge. But every once in a while, I remember it exists just long enough to check in.

I leave a short congratulatory message for a high school friend who got married for the third time and like a few friends’ holiday photos, and then a photo stops me in my tracks.

I’d been scrolling mindlessly, but I’d know those gold-flecked eyes anywhere. Amie is in the middle of three other women standing under a bright purple spotlight and all holding glasses of something brightly coloured with umbrellas. Amie is wearing a form-fitting yellow dress that hits mid-thigh and shows plenty of skin.Fuck, she’s beautiful. Her lips are painted with something red and glossy and I want her to wear it while she wraps her lips around my cock again. I want her to stain my cock the way she’s left a stain on my soul.

I met two of the other faces in the picture when I was in London. They’re all beautiful women but none of them hold a candle to Amie and the way she glows through the screen.

My tablet pings with confirmation that the flight plans have downloaded and like a petulant child, I throw my phone face down on the bed. I need to stop wanting what I can’t have and focus on what I do: a friend in Amie, a daughter in Maisy. And two flights coming up, the first of which will have me crossing from one side of the country to the other.

I check the plans and see our path has us dodging weather systems from coast to coast.

Fucking brilliant.

“I have control,” I say, ghosting my hand over switches on the panel in front of me.

“You have control,” my co-pilot, Jeff, confirms. Then he tears his headset off his head and stands from his seat, shimmying out and stretching carefully to avoid hitting the overhead switches.

“Sorry man,” he says. “Just gotta get out of that seat for a minute. Do you mind if I take a walk?”

“Go ahead.” I shake my head and almost immediately, I hear a disembodied voice sayDino-four-two-Charlie. My brain is instantly alert when I hear our call sign over the radio. I hold up a hand to Jeff, signalling that my focus is elsewhere, and he picks up the interphone to call for a flight attendant while I check in with Air Traffic Control.

The voice in my ear—attached to a man in an office complex somewhere—instructs me to make a small turn, and as I adjust the dials, a flight attendant buzzes the door and Jeff unlocks it to let her in. Then he slips out and leaves me with Lisa, one of my favourite flight attendants to work with. She’s in her fifties with sun-bleached hair, sunbed-tan skin and a dark, husky voice that sounds every bit like her twenty-a-day smoking habit. But she’s got a heart of gold; she’s smart and funny, and she’s great with passengers. She doesn’t take any of our shit, and most importantly, she always saves us the good snacks.

“Got any new pictures of that little angel of yours? She spent Thanksgiving with you, didn’t she? I’m sure that’s what Darcy said.”

“Darcy Flynn, the omniscient gossip queen.”

“More like the host of Galley FM,” Lisa snickers. I grin, sliding my finger across my tablet screen and showing off my new background. It’s Maisy in my parents’ pool at Thanksgiving. Big flower-shaped sunglasses cover her face and she’s wearing floatie bands on her arms as she grins at the camera from the giant donut floatie. Amie is beside her, arms wrapped around our little girl, grinning just as hard.

“That’s your girl, huh?” Lisa looks at me with a smile.

“Maisy’s my girl. Amie is… I don’t know what she is.”

I don’t know why the words fall out—especially not in front of Lisa. I know she won’t tell anyone, but that’s not what I’m worried about. I’m more worried about vocalising my darkest fears: that Amie isn’t my girl at all. That she’s just out of reach. That she might always be just out of reach.

“Oh, Camden,” she scoffs, socking me lightly on the shoulder. That’s the Lisa I know and love. “Look at how she’s looking at you. You can’t fake that sparkle. She’s your girl, all right. You’re a lucky man, Captain Whitehouse.”

“Yeah, I certainly am, Lisa,” I say, pushing a few more buttons on the control panel and letting Jeff back in. Lisa leaves again, and Jeff and I sit in comfortable silence, giving me space to think about my girls. MaisyandAmie.

Once upon a time, I thought nothing could hold a candle to the way flying feels. And then I held the Caine ladies in my arms.

twenty-three

Amie

Waiting for Cam’s callhas become part of our nightly routine. In the six weeks since he left London he’s called every single night to read Maisy a bedtime story, only foregoing the calls when we were in Phoenix with him. He’s called from airports, hotel rooms, even from the aircraft before pushing back from the gate—that was one of the few times he couldn’t tell a story, only say a quickhelloandI love youbefore hanging up. But he hasn’t missed a single bedtime.

Not that I expected him to. But I also didn’t expect him to be so diligent in calling every single night, bang on time, either.

After Maisy’s bedtime story—which Cam has taken to making up on the fly, with different characters and voices every night—he usually stays on the line and we talk. Sometimes it’s just for a few minutes; other nights, we chat for an hour or more. But despite loving my job, my friends, my daughter—those calls have become the highlight of every day.

Those calls are the few moments where I get to beAmieagain. Not purser Amie, supervising a cabin service and an aircraft full of passengers and crew. Not best friend Amie, whose life suddenly took a very different turn when she fell pregnant unexpectedly. And not Mama, the one relied upon for absolutely everything.

Not that I begrudge any of it. I do it willingly, and I love every role I play.

But evenings with Cam, although we’re thousands of miles apart, remind me of who I am without all of that. He makes me feel seen and appreciated—treasured, even—just for me. Not because I found an extra chicken meal in the galley or managed a medical emergency, or because I organised a get-together or cleaned up spilled juice.

We talk with no expectations, no obligations; I find myself sharing things with him that I haven’t shared with anyone. Not even Katy. But Cam—he accepts everything, and he lets me be myself. My full self, unapologetically. He champions my successes, he celebrates with me; with him, I feel… worthy. Whole.

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