Virgin Flyer

I put my hand over the one he had on my arm and squeezed lightly. “Will you be okay by yourself until I can get to the hospital?”

His face relaxed a little bit. “Of course. Yeah.”

The EMTs finished snapping the gurney in place, and I knew Tee needed to hop in so they could get going.

“I’m Jack Snyder,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Teo Parisi,” he replied, slipping his slender fingers into my grasp.

There wasn’t time to exchange phone numbers or linger over the feel of his skin against mine, so I pulled away. “I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as I can. If you need me before then, call the airport and tell them to find me, okay?”

He moved toward the open bay door of the ambulance. “Okay.”

Nate and I spent the next several hours dealing with inspections and assessments before determining that it had been a bird strike. We were going to need mechanical help before any chance of taking the plane back up.

“Apparently they have a good crew here who can come check it out in the morning if the snowstorm they’re expecting holds off,” Nate said, blowing out a breath of frustration. “So I guess we just need to find a place to get some sleep until then. The Canadian TSB is going to send someone out too. Probably be here around ten, I’d imagine.”

The overnight airport manager was a man named Simon. He walked out to us from the airport building with two Styrofoam cups of coffee. “Brenda sent me out with these. She’s arranged hotel rooms for you, and I have a car you can borrow when you’re ready.”

The fact this man was willing to let us borrow a car was a testament to just how small this town was. With less than ten thousand residents, Goose Bay was just big enough for two Tim Hortons and a hospital. Instead of stopping at the hotel, I asked to be dropped off at the hospital.

The nice woman at the reception desk directed me to a room where Mr. Banks seemed to be sleeping peacefully despite the number of tubes and wires snaking out from under his gown. Teo, on the other hand was pacing around the room with one hand on his phone and the other raking through his hair.

“Hey,” I said softly. His head popped up and he stopped pacing. “How’s he doing?”

“Oh, uh… not… not great. He, ah…” His face pinched in dismay. “He had a heart attack. And… and I can’t get ahold of his family, and they don’t have a cardiothoracic specialist here, and he would want one. I mean, he needs one, and they say they can—”

I stepped forward without thinking and pulled him into my arms, holding him tightly to me and whispering to him to take a breath. “Shh, it’s going to be okay. He looks stable right now, so just breathe, all right?”

His body relaxed against mine, and his arms came around my back to return the hug. I inhaled the same lemony scent from my memories of him, only now it was mixed with the smell of antiseptic hand soap that seemed to permeate all medical facilities.

After he had a chance to catch his breath, I pulled back just enough to clasp his face in my hands. “I’m here. I’ll help any way I can. If we need to get medical transport back to Chicago, I can start working on that right now.”

He looked so tired and worried. I wished more than anything I could simply take him back to the hotel and hold him while he slept. But it was clear he wasn’t about to leave Mr. Banks alone, and I respected that completely.

Teo ducked his forehead into my collar and kept his arms around me. “I was happy to see you on that airplane.” His words were muffled, but they still managed to hit me square in the chest with a burst of relief.

“That makes two of us,” I admitted, rubbing his back. “What did the doctor say about Mr. Banks?”

Teo stepped back out of my arms and moved closer to the hospital bed where he gently picked up Mr. Banks’s hand. “They’re not sure of the extent of the damage yet because they don’t have a cath lab here. The closest one is in St. John’s which means an hour-and-a-half flight. But if we’re going to do that, I think he might be better off back in Chicago. So—” He stopped and glanced up at me before slowing down again. “So, I was hoping to reach Mike or Chris to see what they want me to do. But… they’re not answering.”

I checked my watch and saw it was four in the morning which meant two in Chicago. “If they have their phones on nighttime mode, maybe they’ll only accept calls from family. Did they give you Mr. Banks’s phone?”