Chapter Eleven, Part I

The Wrong City

The message from Crew Control arrives at 9:17 in the evening.

Adrian is standing in his bedroom, an open suitcase on the bench beneath the window, checking for the third time that he has packed enough shirts for the layover. His uniform hangs ready on the wardrobe door. Everything is organised. Everything has been organised since that afternoon.

He has spent the entire day trying not to count the hours until Los Angeles, and knowing exactly how many are left.

It has only been a week since he was there, but this was supposed to be his last Los Angeles layover for a while. After this, the roster pulls him elsewhere. Neither of them knows for how long.

The vibration of his phone is ordinary enough that he nearly ignores it.

Then he sees the sender.

CREW CONTROL

Adrian opens the message.

He reads it once. Then again, more slowly.

Due to an operational change, his flight has been rescheduled. New destination: San Francisco. His reporting time is thirty minutes later than originally planned.

The rest is written in the usual neutral language, as though somebody has merely changed a meeting room.

Adrian remains standing beside the suitcase. For several seconds, his mind refuses to move beyond the airport code.

SFO.

Not LAX.

Not Jack.

He checks the time. Nine seventeen in Scandinavia. Twelve seventeen in California.

Jack will be at the shop.

Adrian presses his name before he can reconsider.

The call connects after the second ring.

“Hey.”

The sound of machinery and distant voices reaches Adrian before a door closes somewhere at Jack’s end.

“Hi.”

Jack is silent for half a second. “What happened?”

Adrian sits on the edge of the bed. “How do you know something happened?”

“You don’t usually call me in the middle of my workday sounding like that.”

Adrian looks at the message again, as though it might have corrected itself.

“I’ve been rescheduled.”

There is a pause. “To where?”

“San Francisco.”

Jack is quiet for a moment.

“Damn.”

Adrian looks at the message again.

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Same flight duty, almost the same reporting time. They moved it thirty minutes later, so apparently they are perfectly entitled to do it.”

Jack says nothing.

Adrian can hear the muffled sounds of the shop through the closed door. A metallic clang, followed by a voice calling something he cannot make out.

“I can’t change it,” Adrian says. “I’ve already checked.”

“I could call Crew Control, but there isn’t anything to discuss. Operational requirement. Legal notification. Later reporting time.”

“Yeah.” A pause. “That really sucks.”

“I know.”

Adrian rubs one hand over his face.

He had known the layover would be short. Two nights. Barely enough time to arrive, recover and leave again.

It had still been enough.

He had pictured Jack waiting outside the hotel. Breakfast at the small place around the corner. The workshop. The house.

Jack.

Now all of it has disappeared into three letters on a screen.

“When do you land?” Jack asks.

“Just before seven in the morning. We should be at the hotel around eight.”

“And how long are you there?”

Adrian checks the amended roster. “Three nights.”

Jack is quiet again.

“That part is better,” Adrian says.

“Yeah.”

“I could take the first available flight to Los Angeles once we arrive.”

“No.”

The answer comes so quickly that Adrian stops.

“No?”

“You’ll have worked all night.”

“I’d be sitting on another aircraft, not flying it.”

“You’ll still be exhausted. And you’d spend half the layover going through another airport.”

Adrian looks towards the open suitcase. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

The small word catches him.

We.

Adrian lets out a slow breath. “I don’t want to become a problem.”

“You aren’t.”

“I would need somewhere to stay near you. Not necessarily with you. Somewhere I can sleep and come and go without feeling as though I’m in the way.”

“Adrian.”

“I know you have work. I don’t expect you to close the shop because I suddenly arrive on the wrong side of California.”

“You’re not on the wrong side.”

“I am quite literally in the wrong city.”

Jack’s voice softens. “Give me a minute.”

Adrian hears movement, then the muted sound of Jack speaking to someone. A door opens and closes. When Jack returns, the background noise is quieter.

“You still there?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“What if neither of us goes all the way?”

Adrian frowns. “What do you mean?”

“We meet somewhere in between.”

“Between San Francisco and Los Angeles?”

“Yeah.”

“That is a very large in between.”

“I know.”

There is a rustle at Jack’s end, perhaps paper, perhaps his phone moving against a workbench.

“You shouldn’t drive,” Jack says.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“I was considering possibilities.”

“You’d land after working all night, sleep for four hours and rent a car in a country you don’t know.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds irresponsible.”

“It is irresponsible.”

Adrian smiles despite himself. “Very well. I won’t drive.”

“A train, maybe.”

“Possibly.”

“I’ll look.”

“You’re working.”

“I can do two things at once.”

“That is exactly what men say immediately before proving they cannot.”

Jack ignores him. “I’ll call you later.”

“What time?”

“Your time or mine?”

Adrian looks at the clock. It is already nearly half past nine for him, barely lunchtime for Jack.

“Mine, please. I have to sleep at some point.”

“I’ll call before midnight.”

“That gives you two and a half hours.”

“I know how time works.”

“Your recent relationship with coffee suggests otherwise.”

Jack laughs softly.

The sound loosens something in Adrian’s chest.

“I’ll find a way,” Jack says.

“We’ll find a way,” Adrian corrects.

There is a brief pause.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “We will.”

The phone rings at 11:42.

Adrian is in bed but not asleep. His suitcase is closed, his alarm is set, and his uniform still hangs ready across the room.

He answers immediately. “You found something.”

“I found a train.”

Jack sounds tired now, although it is only mid-afternoon in California. Adrian pictures him in the office at the back of the shop, one hand braced against the desk.

“How much of a train?”

“Enough to get you south without putting you behind a wheel.”

“And where does it take me?”

“Paso Robles.”

Adrian repeats the name carefully. “Is that near you?”

“Not exactly.”

“How far?”

“A few hours north.”

“And from San Francisco?”

“Longer.”

“That sounds suspiciously unequal.”

“I’ll survive.”

Adrian turns onto his side. “What is in Paso Robles?”

“A train station.”

“Promising.”

“And it’s close enough to Cambria.”

“Cambria?”

“Small town on the coast. About forty minutes from the station.”

Adrian waits. “You have already found a hotel, haven’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Jack.”

“It’s quiet. Near the water. Separate from the crew hotel, the shop and everyone either of us knows.”

Adrian is quiet for a moment.

“You did all of this in two hours?”

“I had help.”

“Mike?”

“Sam.”

“That explains the efficiency.”

“She had opinions.”

“I imagine she did.”

“She also said that if I put you in a motel next to the highway, she’d tell you where I live and let you deal with me.”

Adrian smiles into the darkness. “And the train?”

“You land in the morning. Go to the crew hotel. Eat something. Shower. Sleep for four hours.”

The order is so precise that Adrian sits up slightly. “You’ve planned my entire day.”

“The train leaves early afternoon.”

“And if I sleep longer?”

“I’ll call.”

“You intend to wake me?”

“Yes.”

“What time would I arrive?”

“Late afternoon. Not too late.”

“And you’ll meet me?”

“I’ll be there.”

Adrian closes his eyes.

San Francisco no longer feels like the end of the plan. Just the beginning of a different one.

“You have the shop,” he says.

“I know.”

“You can’t keep leaving whenever I appear somewhere in California.”

“You’ve appeared twice.”

“That’s already becoming a pattern.”

“Mike can handle the afternoon.”

“Can he?”

“No. But he’ll learn.”

Adrian laughs quietly.

Jack’s voice becomes more serious. “Are you comfortable with this?”

“With the train?”

“With meeting me somewhere you don’t know.”

Adrian thinks about the first time he stepped into the workshop simply because he had nowhere else he needed to be.

“I met you somewhere I didn’t know.”

“And that worked out?”

“So far.”

Jack is silent for a moment. “Get some sleep,” he says.

“I will.”

“And message me before you report.”

“At five in the morning my time?”

“It’ll be eight at night here.”

“Right.”

Nine hours.

Their days overlapping only in narrow, inconvenient strips.

“I’ll message you,” Adrian says.

“Good.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Adrian looks at the dark room around him. “For finding the halfway point.”

Jack’s answer is quiet. “Get here first.”