“Hardcore like mine,” he said with a laugh.
I nodded. “We used to joke that she ate carabiners for breakfast, but she knew her shit. Every course she ever taught, she picked the sloppiest tech and booted them right out to teach the rest of us a lesson.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon in companionable conversation about search and rescue missions we’d been on and emergencies we’d faced. By the time the workday ended and we’d completed two test flights, I felt comfortable working alongside Johnny and knew Tag had made the right decision in hiring him.
I headed back to the little rental cabin in the woods that Tag had helped me find. It was nice being a few miles away from anyone else at the end of the day, especially after tomorrow when the students would arrive. I knew from experience that training rookies was exhausting since it demanded complete focus and there was no room for fucking up. Being able to escape to my own place at the end of a training day would be critical.
But being alone also meant time to think, which was the last thing I wanted or needed. It was one of the reasons I kept finding myself out on the trails in the evening pushing my knee well past its new limits. After Tag had caught me limping earlier in the day, I knew I needed to abandon any idea of getting back out there tonight. Instead, I christened the cabin’s small grill with a fat steak, forced myself to stick to water instead of the beer that would have tasted ten times better, and rounded out the thrilling evening with a long, hot shower.
And if I fantasized about pushing a young, perky-assed paramedic up against the shower wall and fucking his brains out while the hot water beat down on us, well, it was no one’s business but my own. But the fantasy followed me from my jerk-off session in the shower into my dreams. It began as purely sexual but then morphed into a crazy combination of flashbacks in which Lucky took the place of one of my teammates. For hours I thrashed around inside my head, screaming for him to get down, take cover, anything to stay alive. But time after time he ignored me, acted as if I wasn’t even there, and walked right into danger.
When I woke up gasping and drenched in sweat, I’d never been so relieved to hear my alarm blaring. I returned to the shower in a completely different mood than I’d entered it the night before. It was time to prepare for work, and I needed to get my damned head on straight.
A class full of students were counting on me to lead them through some very dangerous training today, and I needed to focus in order to keep them all safe. I’d be damned if I was going to let my asinine obsession with Lucky Reed fuck with my job.
I whipped up some eggs, made a giant coffee in a travel mug, and hopped in the truck. When I got to the hangar, I felt marginally better. It was going to be a great day. The course was finally beginning and it would help me get my head out of my ass and move on.
Tag met me on the tarmac with a big grin. “Ready to meet the class? It’s like Christmas morning in there. Nerves and excitement about what the day will bring. I fucking love this job, man.”
I grinned back at him. “Not sure who’s more excited, them or you.”
He laughed and clapped me on the back as we entered the hangar’s single classroom. He was right about the nerves and excitement. The room buzzed with it.
“I’m dying to introduce you to that kid I told you about. It figures he’s sitting right up front. C’mon.”
We made our way through a group of people chatting and sipping coffee out of paper cups. When we reached the front row of seats, I stopped in my tracks and nearly choked on my own coffee.
“Zach, meet Lucky Reed. Lucky, this is my buddy, Zach. He’ll be leading the…”
His voice faded out as the blood roared in my ears. I barely registered the fact that Lucky looked as shocked and horrified as I felt. What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be safe down in Yellowstone leading nature walks and educating foolish tourists on the benefits of wearing appropriate footwear on hiking trails and the importance of staying hydrated.
My brain quickly shifted from the picture of a genuinely sincere Lucky chatting happily with a park-goer to him hanging in a harness from a moving helicopter over a sheer mountain rock face with only a length of rope to keep him from plunging hundreds of feet to his death.