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Aprop.
An expensive, extremely large paperweight.
Alpo and Thumper even had a stunning Pinup girl dressed in a blue Flyboys uniform shirt painted on the side by a friend’s daughter - along with a Flyboys logo that was extremely eye-catching. No, this plane would never be one for instructor-led flights… but rather a marketing gimmick for air shows, events, or used to drum up business.
His wrench slipped again, rounding off the nut, as he sighed heavily, hanging his head. He was hot, tired, couldn’t focus, and…
“Hey Luke,” a voice said from nearby, causing him to stand immediately on the ladder he was on, banging his head on the cover of the engine bay. Putting his greasy hand on his head, he turned slowly to see if he was fantasizing or daydreaming.
Nicolette.
“I thought you might be thirsty,” she began, smiling up at him, looking nervously around, before holding up a bottle of Gatorade for him.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled, looking away. “But thank you.”
He quickly buried his head back into the engine compartment, staring blindly as he tried to focus.
Why was she back here, talking to him? This was insane! She never singled him out, tracked him down, or spent any time with him alone…
Well, he wasn’t exactly alone.
Glory was working under the dash of the B-52 on the wiring harness that had been patched, repaired, soldiered, butt-spliced, and repaired thousands of times over the years… but he might as well be alone because, according to Glory?
‘Unless it’s on fire, seizing up, about to blow, or someone knocked you unconscious?… Gimme a few hours, undisturbed! Almost all of these looms are no longer red, yellow, green-wires-with-black-tracers, anymore… they are all ‘electrical-tape-black’ – and I can’t mix them up, Luke.’
Glory had been very determined in her efforts, taking masking tape with her so she could label as she worked through the multiple feet of chaos that looked like a bird’s nest under the dash.
“Luke?”
He yanked his head up in horror, banging it again even harder, and wincing at the pain as he spun around, nearly falling off the roll-around ladder… only to see that she’d come up a few of the steps to put the Gatorade bottle in the ‘cupholder’ that Alpo had welded to the ladder for Glory years ago.
“You can’t come up here,” he blurted out in a hushed voice.
“Have I done something wrong?” Nicolette asked openly, looking at him with those beautiful blue eyes that made him want to whimper like a puppy that needed to be let out into the yard.
“You? Never…” he whispered softly – and cleared his throat, looking away. “There’s just a weight limit on these things and…”
“Luke Fuller! Are you implying what Ithinkyou are?” she said, her blue eyes narrowing as she got this mutinous grind to her jaw that reminded him again of just who her parents were. “Are you calling me fat?”
“M-Me?” Luke stammered, gulping openly as his eyes widened in shock. “Heck no! You are the exact opposite! I mean, you’ve got curves where they are supposed to be, and those curves are…”
He swallowed nervously, realizing what he was blurting out, and couldn’t turn away from that slow satisfied smile that spread across her face.
“I’m gonna shut up now.”
“No, I think you should continue,” Nicolette said softly, coming up another step on the ladder towards him. “Tell me all about you lookin’ at my curves…”
“N-Nope,” he choked out.
“Are you playing hard to get?” she whispered softly to him – and he had to grab the railing of the rolling ladder to keep from flipping right over the edge onto the concrete floor below as she leaned towards him.
“Nicolette, I think your dad is in one of the Cessnas and should be here any…”
“Is it him that makes you nervous?”
“Yes? No? Yes, definitely, yes… but…”
“But what?” she said in a voice he’d never heard before, yet it spoke to him like a siren singing in the ocean to a weary sailor.
