Page 36 of The Slug Crystal
“We’re going to Italy,” I confirm.
We have a plan. It’s reckless, possibly illegal (are snails allowed to cross international borders?), and one hundred percent on-brand.
We head back inside, the cold lingering on our skin. I watch as Ben types out the details. Dottie winks as she wanders over to our table and refills our mugs. I wonder if she knows how much life can change over a single cup of coffee.
Tuesday, 3:18PM. If you’ve never flown private, don’t start now. It’ll ruin you for the rest of your life. Ben’s cousin, Luca, meets us at a sleepy regional airport in upstate New York, rocking the kind of aviators that scream “I’ve seen Top Gun thirty times and masturbated to all of them.” Or maybe I just have the imagination of a pervert.
Luca looks a little older than Ben, with dark hair buzzed tight at the sides and gelled at the top. His jawline is impressively sharp, and he’s tall, with long, powerful limbs wrapped in jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket.
The jet, a tricked-out Gulfstream that looks like it’s equipped with leather seats and a fridge full of Prosecco, is parked on the tarmac, glinting in the sun peeking from the clouds.
“Amore! Benji!” Luca hollers, hugging Ben so hard I hear something crack. Then he turns to me, eyes flicking up and down, zeroing in like he’s assessing every inch of me and determining if I’m attractive or not.
“And this,” Luca says, “must be the famous Emma.” He grabs my hand, turns it over, and kisses my knuckles. The act doesn’t make me feel as squeamish as I thought it would. “Welcome to your chariot. It’ll get you wherever you need to go, in style!”
Ben snickers. Jake, stonefaced, just nods and shakes Luca’s hand.
Luca grins wider. “You fly often?” he asks me.
“I’ve flown coach a couple times,” I reply sheepishly.
He does a little mock swoon. “This will be different, I promise. No lines, no babies, no bullshit. You want a Bloody Mary before takeoff? I make the best.”
Jake mutters, “I’ll pass.”
Luca barely spares him a glance, cocking his head to the side and pulling his aviators down his nose to look at me. His eyes are a pale gray, framed by sooty lashes.
“Uh, sure,” I stammer out, flushing under his intense gaze.
Before I know it, Luca’s ushering me up the steps and into a world where even the seatbelts feel expensive. The inside of the jet is... something. There’s a little lounge area with a velvet couch and a credenza stocked with glassware, and a narrow galley where Luca heads to mix drinks. On the opposite side are eight seats draped in leather leading towards a small bathroom and a second door that I’m guessing leads to the cockpit.
Ben sprawls across two seats, manspreading with wild abandon, and Jake parks himself by the window, arms crossed, eyes glued to the runway, ignoring us all. Again.
I settle into a seat by the galley, buckling Alex into the seat next to me, and then watch Luca work. He pours tomato juice with one hand, vodka with the other, never once looking at what he’s doing. “A good pilot,” he says, “trusts his instruments.” He winks at me as he shakes the cocktail, then pours it out, garnished with celery and, because why would thisplane not have every luxury, a single green olive impaled on a tiny sword.
He hands me the first drink. “To adventure,” he says, clinking another glass against mine, then passing it to Ben.
Ben reaches over to clink his glass against mine a second time. “To not dying.”
Jake, dryly adds, “To surviving this trip without murdering each other.”
I glance at him worriedly, but he smirks at me, adding a wink to show he’s joking. I smile back, then sip on my utterly delicious Bloody Mary. Damn, Luca is a pilot and a near-expert bartender. Ben really hooked us up.
We take off quicker than expected. The engines roar to life, and within seconds, we’re up, off the ground, the world dropping away below in my oval view through the window. When the plane levels out, so does the vibe. Ben grabs a deck of cards and proposes strip poker, which Jake shoots down immediately. Instead, we settle for Hearts, played at 35,000 feet with a cash pot made of whatever American bills and spare Euros Ben fishes out of his pockets.
Luca keeps the drinks coming, slipping into the lounge area every few minutes to top me off or lean against the armrest and tell a story that involves motorcycles, near-death experiences, or European models with more vowels in their names than I thought possible. He touches my shoulder whenever he laughs, always lingering half a beat longer than necessary.
At one point, he leans in and says, sotto voce, “If you get cold, the blankets are cashmere. But if you really get cold, you come find me, eh?” He smells like expensive soap and a little bit of jet fuel. I almost drop my cards.
Ben clocks it immediately. “Careful, Emma. My cousin falls in love three times before breakfast.”
Luca shrugs. “It’s genetic.” He flicks Ben in the forehead,grins at me, and moves off to the cockpit, leaving the door open as he slides inside.
I finally ask, “He’s always like this?”
“Only when he’s interested in someone. With men, he’s an asshole.”
Jake, without looking up, comments, “He likes you, then.”
