Sink or Swim (Beach Kingdom 3)

Right?

She looked down at the veins standing out on the back of his fist and frowned.

The man behind the desk picked up the phone, covering the receiving with a hand. “You’ve completed the paperwork online, right?”

“Yes,” Jiya said, producing them from her satchel and sliding them across the counter. “I brought copies, too.”

“Great. Just a minute,” the man muttered, turning in his chair so he could speak privately into the receiver. Jiya worried he might have called security instead of the flight instructor, but her shoulders relaxed when the man merely informed whoever was on the line that his two o’clock had arrived.

Just like that, Andrew’s anger cleared, too.

He reached over and tugged her ponytail. “I’ll be right here when you’re done, okay?” Knowing how much work he was neglecting, Jiya started to protest, but he cupped a hand over her mouth. “Hey. Go enjoy it. Don’t think about me or anything else for the next two hours.”

I’m so in love with you, Andrew. You idiot.

“Thanks,” she said on an exhale when Andrew took away his hand. “I…thanks.”

“He’ll meet you at hangar one,” droned Coke Guy.

Jiya nodded and sidled past a super-still Andrew, her nose filling with sunshine and ocean and man. When she glanced back at him on her way out of the office, he was watching her over his shoulder from beneath the brim of his hat, sending an involuntary shiver up her spine.

Focus.

She stepped back out into the heat. Two huge, white structures sat in the near distance and she walked toward the hangar with ONE painted on the side. Andrew’s directive came back to Jiya—go enjoy it—and she let a smile curve her mouth. Let excitement ruffle in her chest. That anticipation only amplified when she walked into the hangar, the sheer size of it reminding her of the vastness of the sky that had always fascinated her. Small, single engine Cessnas were lined up in formation, their propellers catching the sunlight.

A man stepped out from behind one of the planes, a smile spreading beneath his bushy white mustache and Jiya immediately felt as ease.

“Ms. Dalal?” He strode forward and extended a hand, reminding her of Santa Claus’s action hero brother. “I’m Rick. I’ll be your flight instructor for the next five weeks.” He gestured to the nearest plane, a white aircraft with cheerful red stripes on the tail. “And this beauty here will be our ride.”

“It’s so nice to meet you.” Jiya breathed. “And she’s beautiful.”

“That she is.” He winked at her. “I might even let you fly her today.”

“Today?” She couldn’t subdue her smile. “My mother is going to faint.”

Rick’s hearty laugh boomed through the hangar. “Let me ask you something. Is this a bucket list experience or do you really want to know everything about flying a plane? That might help me gauge how in depth we make this lesson.” He gestured toward the tarmac. “I can put you in the co-pilot seat, switch control and let you steer this very afternoon. No sweat. Or we could spend some time making sure you do it right. And eventually even on your own.”

“I guess I’m not sure. It’s always been my dream to fly a plane, but I don’t think I’ll know how serious I am about continuing until I’m…”

“Soaring.”

“Yes.”

Rick nodded succinctly. “Come on, then, Jiya. Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way.”

Over the course of the next hour, Rick went over safety instructions, including the procedure for emergency landings, loss of cabin pressure and what to do in the case of a medical emergency. There was a practice control panel in the hangar that he used to explain the controls, before quizzing her on their functions.

It seemed like only a minute had passed when Rick invited her to board the plane, gesturing for Jiya to take the co-pilot seat. She climbed inside and engaged the seatbelt, running her fingers over the controls. This morning, she definitely hadn’t known how to identify a turn coordinator, altimeter or airspeed indicator and she was gratified now to understand each dial and button’s function.

Following Rick’s lead, she put on her headphones, her breath catching in her throat when he started the plane’s engine. When they started to taxi their way to the tarmac, the body of the plane rumbling beneath her, she almost asked to go back. Flying had always seemed so abstract in her head, but not now. Now, it was the smell of engine oil and leather and the aircraft bouncing when they went over a bump in the concrete. This was it, she was…

Flying.

Her fingertips dug into the passenger seat as they climbed into the sky, the seemingly endless runway disappearing, being replaced with blue. “I think I left my stomach back at the hangar,” Jiya quipped into her headset, leaning over to look out the window. She waved at the office they circled around. Whether Andrew could see her or not, she knew he’d be watching. Oh man, flying was an entirely different experience from the front of the plane. Possibilities and nature and peace.