“How did you get the call sign ‘Toot?’” I asked.
Kansas started to laugh hysterically.
Toot’s face reddened.
“Okay, so you realize that when we’re in those things, there’s a lot of G-forces going on, right?” Toot asked.
I tilted my head slightly to the left.
“I guess,” I answered.
“Well,” he hesitated. “So my first time doing some Gs, I might or might not have let a little toot slip out. And others might or might not have heard it.”
“It was a big fart, not just a little one,” Kansas corrected him. “And it’s not just that one time. It’s almost every time he goes up there.”
“It’s a tradition now,” Toot disagreed. “And yeah, so that’s how I got my name.” He paused. “Your stupid man was the one to give it to me.”
My lips were already tipping up at the corner at that knowledge.
“Hey, she’s mine. I’m her man.” Easton once again threw his arm around me.
Kansas snorted. “State already told us. He knew we would be curious about it after what happened last night.”
Easton turned to me. “What happened last night?”
I felt my face heat.
“Ol’ State decided to throw down in front of the entire bar,” Toot answered. “All over little old her.”
“Some guy thought it would be a great idea to try to touch my hair,” I grumbled under my breath.
“Fuck.” Easton sighed. “What is it with him and your hair?”
I agreed.
The very first fight Trouper ever got in when it came to me was when someone had tried to put his hand in my hair. Sure, the hand had manure in it, but still, it wasn’t the manure that had set him off. It was the fact that someone thought they could touch my hair and get away with it.
Easton started to tell them that very story, but my eyes were all for the man that was now climbing into the cockpit of the scary looking plane.
“How fast does one of those fly?” I found myself asking.
“Top speed? About fifteen hundred miles an hour,” Kansas answered.
The breath sucked into my lungs so fast that I started to cough.
Easton slapped me on the back, and the movement drew Trouper’s eyes.
He narrowed them.
I knew he did, despite the fact that I now couldn’t see them due to them being covered by the really dark sun visor that was on top of his helmet.
I shrugged Easton’s arm off. Again.
“Stop touching me. It annoys him,” I grumbled.
Easton bumped me with his hip. “Why do you think I’m doing it?”
“Well,” I said, “I would rather you not do it when he’s about to go up in a two-ton machine that goes fifteen hundred miles per hour.”
“Actually, it’s around forty-three thousand pounds,” Kansas corrected me.
I rolled my eyes, then once again leaned forward so that my eyes could see clearly through the chain-link fence.
Seconds later, the glass thingy covering the cockpit was closing, and people on the ground were waving around.
Then the plane was moving, and my heart started to pound double-time.
“Don’t worry,” Kansas whispered. “Done this a thousand times before. He’s good. The best. You’ll see.”
I licked my dry lips and pulled out my phone. Unlocking it, I handed it to Easton.
“Video this for me,” I ordered.
Easton took the phone and did so for me, but my gaze was once again locked on the man about to fly.
The plane started to move faster. And faster. And faster.
“Oh, shit,” Kansas muttered.
I had no clue what ‘oh shit’ meant, but I was sure that I wasn’t going to like it.
“He’s gonna do it,” Toot agreed.
“He’s going to do what…” I trailed off when suddenly the plane went from flying down the runway to flying straight up into the sky.
I gasped, my heart leaving my chest for a little bit right along with the wheels leaving the pavement.
“Oh my God!” I cried out. “Troup, you bastard!”
My head was straight back on my neck.
I squinted into the sun, watching him until I physically couldn’t watch him anymore due to the brightness, then allowed my eyes to rest a bit before opening them and doing it all over again.
Finally, the plane went over backward, then sideways, then he was coming down just as fast as he’d gone up.
And I smiled wide.
I didn’t stop smiling until he landed the plane an hour later.
“Why didn’t y’all go up this morning?” I asked curiously as Trouper brought the plane in to wherever it was meant to go.
“We went earlier. When State was meant to go with us,” Toot answered. “He was late, though.”
I felt my face flush.
I was the reason he was late, and they both knew it.
“We were supposed to be getting some weights in right now,” he said. “But instead we’re doing this.”
“Babysitting?” I asked curiously.
“Making sure that you had all your questions answered like he did for our girls when they saw us take flight for the first time,” Toot corrected.
Then the cockpit was once again opening up, and Trouper was emerging.
I licked my lips as I watched him stand up and stretch his arms up high over his shoulders.
“What about you, Kansas?” I questioned.
“What about me?” Kansas wondered.
“What’s the meaning behind your name?” I pushed.
“I was hoping you’d forget,” he grumbled.
I didn’t take my eyes away from the man now climbing down out of the jet.
“I didn’t. Just got sidetracked for a bit,” I admitted, giving him a quick glance.
“Mine’s not any better, unfortunately.” Kansas scrunched up his nose. “On the first flight home after taking the planes up, I got lost.”
“And we call him ‘Kansas’ because that’s where he was on his way to when he realized where he was going,” Toot snorted.
“What about State?” I questioned. “I only ever call him Trouper.”
“State Trooper,” both answered unanimously.
“That’s not so bad,” I admitted.
“No,” they agreed. “Not bad. He’s probably the only one of us here that didn’t get a call sign based on them doing something stupid.”
Trouper’s boots hit the ground and my heart lurched for an altogether different reason.
He was sweaty.
Really sweaty.
And his eyes were lit with an inner fire that I’d never seen in them before.
He was happy.
God, he was so happy that it almost hurt to look at him.
This was the reason that we’d stayed apart for so long.
The excitement in his eyes right now was blatant and rather hard to see.
Why? Because I knew that I wasn’t his one and only love.
Flying was, too.
When he finally made it to us, it was to hear the tail end of Kansas’s explanation of his name.
His grin got wider.
“They explained their names?” he asked.
“They told me why they got their names,” I agreed, sounding somewhat breathless.