time, but he wasn’t wrong. “Funny thing is, I only left two days ago.”
“You do the run to the Pacific Islands often?” he asked while checking his dials.
I shook my head. “I’ve only been flying commercial for a few years. They started me out on shorter-haul flights. Once I started long haul, I was on the Europe track for a long time.”
He laughed. “If they’ve got someone like you paying your dues first, it’s no wonder it’s taken me so long to get on the international track.”
“You’re here now.” Joe and I had gotten to know each other a little earlier on in the flight, but then we’d switched out for naps, and this was my first real chance to speak to the kid properly without pleasantries and basics being in the way. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, flying international, but it pays the bills.”
“I’d say.” He smiled but returned his attention to the controls while we were landing. When we were safely on the ground, he stuck his hand out to me. “It was an honor flying with you, sir. I have to say, you’re nowhere near as intimidating as I thought you were going to be.”
“Why would you think I was going to be intimidating?” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “I have the next few days off and I’m planning on seeing my mother. What’s intimidating about that?”
“I didn’t know that.” He undid the latch on his own belt and darted his gaze out the window. “Your reputation precedes you, Jaxon. I know there are a lot of you former Air Force guys flying for us now, but it never makes it any easier to actually meet any of you.”
“You did a great job.” I clapped him on the shoulder after I got up, grabbing my suitcase as I opened the door. “I’ll see you around, Joe. Stop being so afraid of people just because of what they did in a previous life.”
I tipped my hat, which I was contractually obliged to wear outside of the cockpit. Then I left the kid to his own devices and made my way into the terminal.
As soon as I stepped out, I was surprised to see a familiar face waving at me. “Jaxon! Oh, my baby boy. I’ve missed you.”
My mother flung her arms around me like it’d been weeks since she’d last seen me, but I dropped my case and hugged her back. “What are you doing here, Mom? I thought we were having dinner at your place.”
“We were, but this way, I didn’t have to wait until then to see you.” She let go of me and stepped back. “It feels like you’re always away these days.”
“We have our weekly dinner most weeks,” I said, picking up my suitcase again before wrapping my arm around her shoulders. “We had our dinner last week. What gives?”
She shrugged, glancing up at me with laughter dancing in her eyes. “Maybe I got tired of cooking and wanted my son to buy me dinner for a change.”
I laughed and hugged her closer to my side. “I knew there had to be a reason you came to the airport when you knew I was going to come see you anyway.”
Batting her eyelashes at me, she pointed at a steakhouse I knew she loved near the end of the terminal. “AJ’s never hurt anybody and that place is as good of a reason to drive out here as anything.”
“Really? As good of a reason to drive out here as your own son?” I gave her a little shake and she laughed again.
“With the amount of hours I’ve spent waiting for you to come home in this wretched place, those people have become my family just as much as you are.”
“You’ll have your steak medium-rare with a baked potato and veggies then, huh?” I couldn’t even argue with her about the hours she’d spent waiting there for me. The staff there knew her order as well as I did by now.
Even though it’d been a few years since my last deployment, they’d never forgotten her. She smiled up at me and wedged herself out of my grip. “Actually, I’m on a diet now. I’ll have the grilled chicken breast and a salad.”
I eyed her scrawny figure. “No one even knows how you ever gave birth to someone the size of me. You don’t need a diet. You need a steak or four.”
“Mrs. Scott, it’s so good to see you,” the hostess said when we