Heidi Rice - So Now You're Back

‘I a-a-am not freaking out.’ She never freaked out. She happened to be a champion coper—even if her chattering teeth weren’t helping to emphasise the point.

‘Let go of the chair,’ he ordered. ‘You’re about to break your fingernails.’

‘If I let go, I’ll fall.’ The plaintive plea sounded childish, even to her.

‘You’re strapped in, Hal. You’re not going anywhere.’

‘You won’t fall, Ms Best. This is an Airbus 380, the newest and best-designed plane in our fleet.’ The stewardess’s soothing tone managed to be even more annoying than Luke’s condescension.

‘You don’t know that,’ she whimpered.

Luke’s thumb caressed the web of flesh between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I do. Now let go, I’ve got you.’ He massaged into the pressure point. And her fingers released instinctively.

He threaded his fingers through hers and held on to her, just as he’d promised. ‘See, you didn’t fall.’

She rolled her head towards him, which wasn’t easy given that the sinews in her neck had about as much give in them as steel suspension cables. And managed a small nod.

‘Now breathe,’ he commanded.

Air swelled into her lungs and gushed out as the plane’s nose dipped to level off to their cruising altitude.

‘That’s it, keep doing what you’re doing,’ he prompted.

She concentrated on taking deep, even breaths, willing her lungs to cooperate. But continued to cling to his hand. The seat-belt sign pinged off and the purser’s reassuring voice droned on about their cruising altitude and flight path. Her gaze drifted to the fluffed cloudscape floating beneath them outside the window. The panic settled to purr under her breastbone, like a sleeping tiger ready to snarl at the first sign of danger, but subdued enough not to bite off her head at the slightest bump.

Luke squeezed her hand. ‘You OK?’

‘Yes,’ she croaked, her throat sore as her neck muscles relaxed.

‘You sure? You still look pretty spooked.’ He searched her face.

She took another careful breath, sighed when it didn’t hurt. ‘The take-off’s always the worse bit. I’ll be OK now.’ The Xanax must have finally kicked in, because she was starting to feel pleasantly numb.

Way to go, Xanax, only twenty minutes late to the party.

Luckily, Luke didn’t call her on her euphoric state, because she wasn’t quite ready to give him back his hand.

‘You look terrible,’ he said.

Way to go, Luke. You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.

‘I’ll look a lot better once I’m sure we aren’t going to get struck by lightning, hit a freak snowstorm, get hijacked or generally encounter anything that might cause us to go down in flames en route.’ The burst of verbal diarrhoea came naturally as the extreme panic downgraded to a bogstandard bout of nervous tension.

Nervous tension was doable. She knew how to handle that. She even knew how to use it to her advantage, because she’d had a lot of practice. Her nerves were an old and trusted friend.

The show’s first executive producer had once told her that her reaction to stress was the secret of her success, because the sharp, perky motormouthed quips she used to cope entertained while also making her totally relatable. Embracing the horrendous stage fright before every taping had become a key part of her ‘Everywoman appeal’.

‘Just so you know, if any of that stuff happens,’ she added, on a roll as her body sank into the seat, ‘I intend to arm-wrestle you for the Xanax. You have been warned.’

‘If any of that stuff happens,’ Luke replied drily, ‘you’re gonna need to be Dwayne Johnson to get to them, because I plan to bolt the lot.’

She laughed, the sound only slightly manic. And released his hand.

He flexed his fingers, probably checking for fractures, and she noticed the dark indents where her nails had dug into his skin.

‘I’ll keep these just in case.’ He flipped the bottle and caught it one-handed. ‘No more legal highs for you. Unless the slaphead executive over there turns out to be a hijacker.’ He nodded at the bald businessman, who had already resumed typing on his laptop. ‘In which case, let the arm-wrestling begin.’

He lifted his bum to shove the bottle of Xanax into the front pocket of his jeans, drawing her fuzzy gaze to his lap. The worn, comfortable denim cupped him, the metal studs of his button fly visible where the placket stretched over his groin. And a question from over twenty years ago popped into her head.

I wonder if he remembered to wear his underwear today?

Her pulse spiked and warmth settled into her lower body as she allowed her mind to drift into the safe, comforting fog of memory.

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