Peach

Alabama is different.

It’s warm. There’s no snow.

And I don’t have to fight anyone to keep Papaya.

I’m also not taking any shit for her not being in school the week after Thanksgiving. Instead, I take her with me to Weightless. “You understand how parabolic flight works?” I ask her.

She’s been sullen and moody since we boarded the private jet Joey, Gracie, and their men rented to come to the wedding, so it doesn’t surprise me when she just shrugs.

“Once you get high enough in the atmosphere, little green men come out of the clouds and hook the plane onto magical cranes and swing it in a circle.”

She doesn’t even blink.

We pull into the parking lot of the aluminum building, and I march her into the conference room. Joey has visitors, and she looks about ready to scratch someone’s eyes out.

“Gentlemen,” I say, settling into the seat at the head of the table as if teenagers come into business meetings with us every day with Taylor Swift blaring from their earbuds. “Thank you for waiting. Mind bringing me up to speed?”

“Larry, Curly, and Moe won the Magellian contract,” Joey informs me.

I count two men, not three, but I catch the stooges reference. “Ah.”

“Mm-hmm,” she says.

“Do they know where the door is?” The normal rhythm is coming back easily. It’s in the smell of the room—paper, overheated computers, and jet fuel—and the feel of the leather chair under my butt and the inspirational posters all featuring military planes on the walls.

Home.

It is home, dammit.

And that weird blip in my heart suggesting it’s not can go fuck itself.

“Ladies, you haven’t even heard our proposition,” Curly says.

“You won a contract, don’t have a plane, and want to rent ours dirt cheap,” I guess. Because these aren’t the first men to come into our conference room and propose the same thing in the last year.

“We’re sacrificing our entire profit margin here,” Moe adds.

“The door?” I say to Joey.

She nods. “Less paperwork that way.”

“If you’ll just think about it—” Curly starts.

“Aw, honey, bless your heart. If you would’ve thought before you bid on a contract you’re not equipped to fulfill, we wouldn’t be here.”

I look at Joey. She gives me a nod, and I know she’s already filed a protest to the award, which is a pain in the ass, but it’s the only way to make sure douchewaffles like these guys don’t underbid all the competition and then try to pressure us into doing their work practically for free.

“Ladies, we’re—”

I hit a button on the intercom. “Security, please.”

Joey scowls at me.

“Don’t start. I need you in top flying shape, not explaining to the cops—again—why there are men with bloody noses on our doorstep.”

Once our visitors are gone, I grab Papaya by the arm, and the two of us follow Joey out to the hangar behind the building. We have office space at the edge of a private airfield north of Huntsville, which is convenient for the planes, though we’re working on getting space in northern Virginia and Seattle, since demand is rising on both coasts.

I’ve missed Weightless.

I also wonder if anyone will pick up my projects in Amoria.

Fuck.

And now I have something in my eye again.

I let Viktor down.

Not Papaya. Not the hot air balloon operator who let himself be lured away. Not Papaya’s friend and her parents.

Me.

I let him down.

And I don’t know that I could’ve done anything differently.

“You’re letting me near the plane?” Papaya says with all the snooty attitude she can work up.

“We’re going for a ride,” Joey replies.

Thirty minutes later, we’re strapped in to a Weightless plane in flight suits. “Why are you rewarding bad behavior?” Papaya asks.

“Don’t thank me until you don’t puke,” I reply.

I wonder if Viktor got to go along when Joey took Manning on a flight last year.

What he’s up to now.

It’s late afternoon in Amoria. He’s probably had meetings all day. I hope my secretary didn’t get fired, but Viktor wouldn’t do that.

He’d find another job for her.

“So this is guilt,” Papaya says. “You feel bad for taking me away from all my friends. Again. And for making me leave Fred behind.”

“Yep. That’s exactly it.”

“Are we going back to Amoria?” She sits straighter. “But we’re not packed. If we’re going back—”

Another piece of my heart frosts back over, because there’s no hope to keep it warm. “No.”

“Oh.” She slouches back, arms crossed, and doesn’t say anything else again until our crew assistant stands up and signals it’s time as we’re soaring at thirty thousand feet over the earth.

“C’mon,” I tell Papaya, unbuckling and heading for the front of the plane where the seats are removed and the walls are padded. “Stand up and come here.”

Ten minutes later, Joey takes the plane into the first zero-gravity parabola, and we’re floating in the cabin like we’re in outer space. No gravity, only the walls of the plane keeping us from drifting away.

“Ohmygod!” Papaya shrieks as she somersaults mid-air. “This is so blitz.”

I have no idea what blitz means, but I’ll assume based on the smile that it’s a good thing.

And I can’t disagree.

It’s fucking unreal to float in the air like a feather.

Despite owning the company, I don’t often go on flights with Joey. There’s too much else to do, and it’s better for the bottom line to have paying customers.

Watching Papaya laugh and float and be inspired is pure magic.

“I’m going to be a fu—udging astronaut when I grow up,” she shrieks as she somersaults again.

I don’t know if she means it or not, but it doesn’t matter.

She’s getting to see what else is out there in the world beyond stirring up trouble. And that anyone—me, her, Joey—can be successful even if they start with nothing.

“Can we go again?” she asks when we land back in Huntsville.

“When you can pay for it yourself.”

Her eyes bug out. “But that’s like over a thousand dollars.”

Well over. “Get a job.”

We unbuckle, and Joey and her co-pilots step out of the cockpit.

“I am so learning to fly like that when I grow up,” Papaya tells her. There’s a look of awe I’ve never seen on her face before, and I wonder how different the last few months would’ve been if I’d taken her on a flight before impulsively convincing Viktor to marry me.

Thor, I can’t even think his name without my heart cracking a little.

“Stay in school,” Joey says to Papaya. “Wanna see the cockpit?”

She doesn’t have to ask twice.

Papaya’s already dashing past her.

“Don’t let her touch anything,” Joey says to Monkey Butt, her flight engineer.

“Got it, boss.”

I high five her when we meet in the middle of the open part of the fuselage. “Nice flying.”

“She had fun?”

“We both did.”

She grunts in response.

Papaya’s talking a mile a minute, asking about the controls and the physics of how the plane can simulate zero gravity.

The only other thing I’ve seen her get this excited over was Fred.

Shit.

And there go my eyes again.

Viktor will take good care of Papaya’s alpacas. That’s what he does.

He takes care of things.

“I can take you back,” Joey says.

I shake my head.

Because it doesn’t matter that Viktor will take care of everything.

He shouldn’t have to.

I should be able to take care of my own messes.

“Peach—” Joey cuts herself off with a shake of her head.

“What?”

“Finding your person isn’t about being perfect for them. It’s about doing the best you can and accepting that they’re doing the best they can too.”

“But he has so many people counting on him.”

“And maybe he needs someone just as strong that he can count on too.”

My voice isn’t anywhere near steady when I answer her. “Hopefully he’ll find her one day.”