Page 2 of Forever Fascinating

She quit her second job and his stepfather took over several things that she’d silently stressed about, leading to her skyrocketing blood pressure. There were doctors’ appointments, dietary changes, and they went for walks now – as a family.

It took being hit with almost losing his mom for Matthew to wake up.

Things were tense between him and his stepfather, but easier somehow. He started applying himself, drilling every afternoon to meet the physical requirements for the Academy, and talking with people online to make his presence known. High school had taught him that getting by was in who you knew… because that was how he passed a lot of his classes.

Matthew got the nomination and never looked back.

That had been years ago.

He’d gone to the Academy, studied, got his degree, applied for flight school, and somehow got accepted… only to very nearly crash and burn. It was the stupidest thing he could have done. You never drove a car without looking to see how much gas it had, yet he’d done that with a jet.

A multimillion-dollar jet.

He’d been running through maneuvers when an alert came on his display and started buzzing. At first, he thought he was losing an engine…but it was a different sound, a different light. It flickered, blinked, and he was miles out from the landing strip.

Sweat instantly began to pour from his forehead as he realized he was in serious trouble, or the gauge was broken – and either way? He couldn’t chance it.

He'd managed to land… barely.

Matthew nearly disgraced his uniform when he lost the first engine due to the plane choking for fuel… and as he was coming into land?

He lost the second engine.

His call sign ‘Vapor’was born…

Matthew had gotten out of the jet, almost thrown up, but somehow managed to mask his overwhelming fear, relief, and embarrassment by putting on a show… pretending to beso cooland in control.

He threw up later.

Looking up towards the front from where he was laying, he saw several of the guys were playing cards, one was doing push-ups, and another was playing a game on what looked some an ancient iPad.

He had no idea how it managed to work out here or stay charged, because it was a struggle for the single plug in their barracks to keep their cell phone batteries full… not that they got reception anyhow.

Middle. Of. Nowhere.

Since getting into a fight with Hot Cakes a few months ago, that all changed. Something had shifted with the team, and Matthew wasn’t sure if it was for the better or the worse yet.

He hated the huddle before a mission and thought it was the dumbest thing ever, but everyone else seemed to need that moment to talk, pray, and bond together.

Matthew was actually going to be attending Hot Cakes’ wedding to some girl he had back in Texas, someone that the pilot met while on leave. That seemed so odd, so foreign, that he was curious… and had immediately volunteered to stand up with the man during the ceremony.

He never expected Hot Cakes to agree!

X-Ray had volunteered to go, but that was because the two were thick-as-thieves… and X-Ray was emailing the guy’s sister.

A very strange friendship between them, indeed.

Matthew was pretty sure that the only reason Hot Cakes agreed to them attending the wedding was so that he had someone to stand up with him. Reaper and Handsy were the airman’s first choices, but both had declined due to different reasons.

Reaper was waiting to take his leave to go home when his first child was born… and Handsy had some falling out with his wife, going home at Christmas to try and patch things up – or at least that was what the gossip was among the men.

That had been months ago… and they were flying out tomorrow, together.

Him, X-Ray, Hot Cakes, and Caboose… nearly half of the team was leaving at once and he thought Reilly would have an aneurysm. It made him wonder if something was up, because the man had bit his tongue and approved all four men’s requests on the same day.

“Guys, are you packed? Does everyone have their dress uniforms ready?” Hot Cakes said nervously, smiling, as he put the last of his things into his duffle bag.

“Yup,” Matthew said, giving him a thumb’s up.

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