Page 18 of The Unlikely Pair

“We need to evacuate the plane. If the fuselage is damaged, it could cause a fire,” Kade says.

Fuck. With Kade’s words, the panicky feeling surges up to clutch at my throat. I’m suddenly claustrophobic, the cabin walls pressing in on me.

I don’t want to survive a plane crash only to die in a fire. That would be the kind of irony Alanis Morissette used to sing about.

Kade comes past me to rip open the red handle on the emergency exit. It’s like a plug, a small section of the plane coming into the cabin, leaving a hole behind.

“Are you okay to climb down?” Kade asks me.

“Sure. I guess I’ll be the first bear snack,” I say. I place my phone in my pocket, then climb out the hole onto the wing. It’s only a four-foot drop from the wing to where my feet land on slightly squishy ground.

We’re nestled in a small clearing surrounded by towering trees. The cold air nips at my face, and the scent of pine invades my nostrils.

Other than the squeaks and groans of the wreckage and the scuffling of Harry leaving the plane, the forest is quiet.

I slide my phone out of my pocket and check it, but there’s no reception.

Harry somehow manages to make jumping off a plane wing look like something he does every day because he’s completely composed when he lands on the ground next to me. I don’t even think his suit jacket has a wrinkle.

He stands beside me for a second, and I hear the sharp inhalation of his breath as he takes in the trees crowding around us like spectators jostling to get a view of the unexpected visitors.

We’re a long way from Westminster, that’s for sure.

There’s a tremor in the ground as Kade jumps down. He doesn’t pause to take in the sights like Harry and I have but instead heads straight around to the other side of the plane, where the external luggage compartment is located.

He stashed Harry and my luggage there before takeoff, but he doesn’t emerge with either of our bags now. Instead, he’s carrying a bright-red bag about twenty inches high. He heaves the bag onto the wing, the bright-red fabric standing out like a beacon against the white plane and the muted greens and browns of the forest.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Survival kit,” he says briskly.

“Oh. Right.” The idea that my life has taken such a dramatic turn that I require the contents of a survival kit leaves my head spinning.

“You might want to get some warmer gear from your luggage,” Kade suggests.

I look down at myself. I’m dressed in my standard casual work outfit: a navy blazer, white Oxford shirt, khaki chinos, and brown loafers.

“Right,” I nod. I follow Kade’s path to the external luggage compartment and retrieve my bag.

The problem is, I didn’t exactly pack clothes suitable for a trip to the forest. But I do have a field jacket, which provides a layer of extra warmth and has more of an outdoorsy vibe than I’d noticed when picking it out from Marks & Spencer.

I definitely blend in more than Harry, who is dressed in a three-piece suit and retrieves a camel-colored wool topcoat from his suitcase.

“Now what do we do?” I ask as we head back to the other side of the plane.

“We wait for rescue,” Harry says.

I turn to look at Kade. “Did you give a mayday call as we were going down?”

Kade’s eyes slip away. “Ah…no.”

“I expect he was slightly too busy focusing on landing a crippled plane,” Harry says scathingly.

It’s nice to see that Harry’s wanker side survived the crash landing. I can’t imagine he’d have any personality left without it.

Somehow, seeing Harry infuriatingly composed and infuriatingly…Harry causes some of the tightness inside me to unclench.

This is the one constant I can cling to.