“You sure you’re okay to travel?”

Marc glanced up at Glenn, who was hovering at the door of his hospital room with all the appearance of a stern matron that his swath of tattoos and lumberjack beard would allow. “I can get my prosthesis on without bawling and you signed me off yourself.”

“Only because you’d forge my signature if I didn’t.”

“Bullshit. I’m fine, and you know it. You just want me to stick around to keep you company while Carla’s gone.”

Glenn didn’t deny it, but the matron face remained. “Dude, seriously. You’re seventy-two hours postsurgery. I know the stump swelling has gone down in superhuman time, but at least stay a few more days to recover?”

“I’ve got extra padding, and I’ll use my crutches on the journey, okay?”

“You shouldn’t be wearing the pros at all right now.”

“It’s just for the journey,” Marc repeated impatiently. “Bloody hell, man. It was a nerve repair graft, not an amputation.”

“Yeah, ’cause you need any more of those. Be sending you home in a wheelbarrow soon.”

The military gallows humour made Marc smile, even though both he and Glenn had been civvies for a good few years now. “I’m fine, mate. Honest. It’s only an eight-hour flight. I’ll be home in time for breakfast.”

“Home alone,” Glenn said darkly. “Your ex-girl won’t put you up for a while?”

“Cheryl?” Marc chuckled. “No chance. Besides, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes, thanks. Stop fussing.”

Glenn let it go, and Marc was glad of it. He’d come to Chicago for his surgery to get the hell out of dodge for a while—amongst other reasons—but as fun as it would be to hole up with Glenn for a few days, he had to get home.

A few hours later, he hobbled onto a Virgin Atlantic plane and stowed his crutches in the overhead locker, waving away the flight attendant who offered to help. “I’m fine, luv. Thanks.”

She moved on, and Marc hopped to his extra-legroom seat at the front of the economy cabin, the one expense he allowed himself when he travelled, though it was a necessity more than a luxury. He’d learned the hard way what happened to his renegade leg when it was cooped up in one position for too long. Fuck that noise. A bit of room to stretch and some kip, and he’d be right as rain, helped along by the shot of morphine Glenn had stuck him with before he’d left the hospital.

Marc loosened his prosthesis so that he was barely wearing it at all, pulled his old woollen hat low down his head, and closed his eyes, hoping to make good on his promise to Glenn to sleep across the Atlantic. And for a while, he did. Military life had engrained in him the ability to pass out just about anywhere—submarines, ditches, the edge of a cliff—and he missed take off completely. The plane was halfway to London when he woke.

He blinked and sat up, sharp pain in his leg yanking him abruptly from the lingering morphine blanket. A flight attendant tapped him on the shoulder. “Seat belt on, please, sir. We’re expecting some turbulence.”

Fuck. Marc blinked at the flashing sign and shifted awkwardly in his seat to fasten the belt around his waist. He glanced around for something to prop under his leg to keep it as still as possible. Turbulence didn’t frighten him, but he could do without getting chucked around like a pinball. That shit was gonna hurt.

He took his hoodie off and jammed it under his thigh, wincing as the plane began to shudder and shake, slanting from left to right at angles that would’ve alarmed him if he hadn’t spent twenty years screaming through the air in Chinooks. As it was, the disturbance was irritating, and toe-curlingly painful. Metal toes, obviously.

“Fuck.”

The repeat of Marc’s inner exclamation echoed his thoughts so absolutely that it took a moment to compute that he hadn’t said it himself. Then movement beside him caught his attention. Somehow, he’d slept through his neighbour stepping around him to get to the window seat, a scenario that would’ve been unthinkable a few years ago.

With gritted teeth, Marc glanced left. Blinked. And then stared, the juddering of the plane, and the consequential agony, briefly forgotten. Wow. There was no other word for the man curled up in the seat beside him. The guy was young and slender, pale skin stained with dark tattoos, black hair, and—well, that was about it, really. With the lad curled into a ball, his arms wrapped around his head, Marc couldn’t see his face. Only his white knuckles and strained tendons, clear signs of someone who was absolutely terrified.

The plane jolted and dropped a few feet. Marc’s stomach barely flickered, but the man beside him gasped and tightened his arms. Bless him. He thinks we’re going down.

The grumpy Brit in him didn’t much care, but Marc had spent most of his life overwhelmed by the inability to leave a crisis that didn’t concern him well alone—an affliction that had led him to be on this damn-fucking plane in the first place.

His hand reached out of its own volition and clamped down on the lad’s shoulder.

A spark of heat hit Marc, though the other man’s skin felt conversely chilled. Bloody morphine. Marc shook himself, and then his neighbour—gently, at first, but then with more force when he didn’t respond. “Hey, buddy. It’s okay—it’s just a bit of turbulence.”

For a long moment, nothing happened, and Marc assumed he’d have to leave his trembling row companion to his fate, but then the man raised his head, and Marc was instantly trapped by the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Stormy and deep, they were electric, and they swallowed him whole. Bugger me. If he’d thought the man was attractive before he’d seen his face, Marc was a bloody goner now. Tortured. Fragile. Beautiful. And young, though there was a hardness in his gaze that Marc recognised—an edge he’d seen a hundred times over in men who’d lived through something that probably should’ve killed them.

The plane lurched sideways. Someone in the seats behind let out a low scream, and the young man’s eyes widened briefly before he screwed them shut again. Marc mourned the loss, but beyond that, the notion of leaving him trapped in the cycle of his own fear was too much.

Resolved, he shook the lad for a second time, and clasped his hand. “Hey. Look at me. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s a spot of turbulence. It’ll be over soon.”

Blue eyes snapped open again. “What are you? A fucking pilot?”

“No. But I know enough about aircraft to know that it would take a lot more than this to drop one. Planes are designed to stay in the sky. What’s your name?”

“What?”

“Your name. I’m Marc.”

“So?”

Marc grinned. Even a sneering rebuke was better than fear. “So . . . I want to know your name. Won’t kill you to tell me, will it?”

A violent shudder passed through the plane. Perhaps unconsciously, the young man’s fingers wrapped around Marc’s like shivering vines, clutching Marc’s hand tight like they’d never let go. “Jamie,” he blurted. “I’m Jamie.”

Jamie. Marc turned the name over in his mind and absently rubbed Jamie’s shoulder. James, Jimmy, Jimbo, he’d known them all, but never a Jamie. “Okay, Jamie. I want you to listen to me a minute and think of the sea. Can you do that?”

A scowl lurked behind Jamie’s terrified stare, but he nodded jerkily. Marc squeezed his hand. “Good. Now I want you to imagine the tides and currents that you see in the ocean, and picture a boat on the surface. Have you ever seen one that doesn’t bob up and down, or lurch from side to side?”

“Um . . . no?”

“Of course you haven’t, and you won’t. Even in the stillest bay or lagoon, there’ll always be tides and currents, and the air is no different. Planes are built to ride the waves, no matter how big, and as uncomfortable and scary as turbulence can be, it’s not dangerous. I promise.”

Jamie said nothing for a long moment, then he blew out a shaky breath and uncurled his legs from beneath him, revealing leanly muscled calves that were encased in charcoal-grey skinny jeans. On his feet were the kind of battered high-tops that Marc had spent the eighties avoiding.

The plane bounced. Jamie inhaled again and fixed Marc with a waspish stare. “You’d better not be bloody shitting me.”

He had a London accent. Marc couldn’t say why that cheered him, but it did. “It’s true. Google it when you get home.”

“If I get home.”

“You will.” Marc reluctantly let his hand slide from Jamie’s shoulder. “In fact, if this turbulence doesn’t pass in ten minutes, I’ll give you my car.”

“That’s reckless.”

“Not really. My car’s a heap of shit, but it won’t come to that.”

On cue, the shuddering of the aircraft eased and a collective sigh of relief echoed in the cramped cabin. Marc cocked an eyebrow at Jamie, who finally let loose the dark scowl Marc had expected. “Guess I’ll buy my own car, then.”

“Beats flying if you hate it so much.”

Jamie shrugged and disentangled his fingers from Marc’s without seeming to care that they’d been holding hands for a solid five minutes. “I don’t hate it. I’ve just not done it a lot. This is only my third flight ever.”

“Three isn’t so bad.”

“My second was this morning when I flew in from LA.”

LA? Maybe Jamie was a showbiz kid. He was certainly pretty enough. “When was your first?”

“A year ago, but I don’t remember it.”

Jamie tapped his fingers in a strange rhythm. Marc raised an eyebrow—there was a story there, Marc could taste it—but Jamie turned his face to the window and the dark sky beyond, effectively ending the conversation, and Marc let him be. They were strangers, after all. What right did he have to the secrets behind Jamie’s stormy gaze?

With the plane now calm, Marc went back to managing the pain in his leg, which returned full force without Jamie’s distress to distract him. “But that’s always your problem, ain’t it? You faff around in everyone else’s shit and never look after yourself.”

“Piss off, Nat.”

Marc silenced the old friend who didn’t seem to understand irony and rubbed his thigh, trying to ease the cramp that was building in response to the burning sensation below his knee. Another dose of morphine would’ve done the trick, but that wasn’t going to happen unless he wrote himself a prescription at Heathrow, and he was too eager to get home to piss around at the airport pharmacy. Nah, fuck that. He pulled his hat back down his face and fought the pain with nature’s best weapon.

* * *

He woke sometime later to the cabin lights coming on in preparation for landing. The cabin smelled of stale microwaved food, and he was glad he’d missed the in-flight meal. He started to straighten up, but a warm weight on his shoulder got in his way. What the fuck? But even as confusion danced through his sleep-addled brain, he already knew it was Jamie, and the sight of the tousled dark head lolled against him came as little surprise.

Which should’ve been a surprise in itself, but it wasn’t.

Jamie appeared unaffected by the quiet buzz of activity around them as passengers and crew made ready for landing. Marc considered leaving him to sleep, but the fear in Jamie earlier haunted him. Fuck it. He should see this.

For the third time in as many hours, Marc gently shook Jamie back to awareness. “We’re landing.”

“Oh.” Jamie sat up and glanced at the window. “I don’t like that bit.”

Marc noted Jamie was tapping his fingers again. “You should try it in a cargo plane sometime,” he said. “This shit is easy.”

Jamie said nothing. Marc considered another round of shaking him, but with Jamie upright and conscious, it seemed a little overboard. Instead, he settled for science, hoping that he didn’t sound too much like a geeky plane spotter.

“Put it this way,” he said. “We’re on a jumbo, so it’s going to be noisy because it’s a big plane and the airflow comes up over the top, but it’s actually one of the safest planes to land. Sit back and enjoy it. I’ll tell you if there’s something to worry about.”

“Will you?”

“Yes, but you’ll know anyway. The best way to tell if there’s a problem on a commercial flight is to check out the flight attendants. Look at them now—do they seem worried to you?”

Jamie cast a glance behind them to where the crew were buckled in their seats. Marc didn’t have to follow his gaze to know that they’d be huddled up chatting without a care in world, like people who flew dozens of times a month with no drama usually did.

“Trust me, mate.” Marc allowed himself to touch Jamie’s arm one more time. “You’re safer now than you’ve ever been in a car.”

He left it at that and closed his eyes for landing, bracing himself for the impact that would rattle what was left of his battered leg. Somehow, once again, the perpetual discomfort had eased while he’d been engrossed in Jamie—like his eyes took Marc to another world. Weird.

But Marc had run out of energy to contemplate it much. Postsurgery fatigue had caught up with him, even though he’d slept for most of the flight, and it was all he could do to haul himself out of his seat when the plane taxied to a stop.

He waited for most of the other passengers to disembark, distantly noting that Jamie was still staring out of the plane window, and then—after clipping his prosthesis tight again—manoeuvred his aching body to the overhead locker. Retrieving his crutches proved harder than chucking them in had been, and with no friendly flight attendant in sight, Marc braced himself on a seat and fumbled for them, hoping his balance would hold out a little while longer.

It didn’t. But as his renegade legs gave way, a lean body, buoyed by a surprising strength, steadied him. Again, his subconscious seemed to know it was Jamie before his brain computed Jamie reaching around him to pull the crutches from the locker.

Marc regained his equilibrium as Jamie held the crutches out for him to slip his arms into. “All right, mate? Got everything?”

“Er . . . yeah.” Marc looked over his shoulder. “Just need my bag.”

Jamie grabbed the last remaining bag in the locker and steadied Marc again while he shifted his weight from crutch to crutch and strapped it onto his back.

“Thanks,” Marc said when it was done. “I’m normally pretty good at staying upright, but it’s been a long day.”

“And it’s barely dawn.” Jamie’s smile was thin, his face as wan as Marc felt after eight hours on a plane. It was on the tip of Marc’s tongue to ask if he could buy Jamie breakfast, but Jamie spoke before he could. “Anyway, it was nice to meet you. Thanks for helping me not asphyxiate myself.”

And then he was gone, darting down the aisle and off the aircraft before Marc found the words to respond in kind. Marc hobbled after him, his balance still off after sitting for so long, but by the time he reached the jet bridge, there was no sign of Jamie.

Marc manoeuvred himself to the terminal, trying not to overtly scan every face in baggage claim—a tough ask, as the need to know exactly who was around him was an ingrained habit.

But as hard as he tried, he looked anyway, and Jamie was nowhere to be seen. And why would he be, numbnuts? Got two scotch eggs, ain’t he?

Great. Nat was back, and he’d brought Wedge with him. And just like that, a reality that didn’t involve ethereal strangers on trans-Atlantic flights came crashing down. Wedge had offered to pick Marc up from the airport, but life had got in the way since. Wedge was on the other side of the world right now, and who knew when Marc would hear from him again. I can’t lose another friend.

With heavy legs and a heavier heart, Marc dragged himself to the taxi rank to get a cab to Euston Station. He found one fast and threw himself into the back, preparing himself to doze off or at least make a mental list of all the things he needed to do when he got home. But as he pulled his trusty hat down and closed his eyes, real life eluded him, and in its place, Jamie returned, his ghost of a smile wider than it had been on the plane, more real, for all it was a figment of Marc’s imagination. And for once, he let his mind run free and take him to a place where warm slender hands didn’t disappear into the horizon.

A place where those hands stayed put and chased away every ounce of pain in Marc’s battered body.