Read Behaving Like Adults for Free Online

it’s goodbye world in a big red fireball.
    Then Stuart said, ‘Let’s hit it.’
    What with keeping in the screams and the farts, I had my work cut out. A few of both escaped. Only now do I understand the true meaning of ‘taking off’. Imagine stepping in a lift and jumping up twenty floors. In a Jumbo, you feel the power behind you. This was like being pinged from a slingshot. Noise (mostly me, screaming) but no vroom. No push. A sick, vertical ascent in a cigar tube. I gripped my seat, and focused on not vomiting. I knew if I opened my mouth to scream again, my stomach and its contents would fall out. Nick, I thought, my eyes blind with fear, you can stay forever. Just let me survive.
    â€˜Still alive, Holly?’ said Stuart eventually.
    â€˜Just.’
    I noticed the plane had
windscreen wipers
. How primitive can you get? I was already exhausted with the continuous tension of waiting to die. We were now horizontal but every other second a jolt knocked a gasp out of me. I can only compare it to hurtling a car over the brow of a hill at great speed and feeling your stomach fly. My innards were way behind. All of me trembled so hard I felt that my bones were in danger of rattling out of their sockets. I would have felt safer on a broomstick.
    â€˜Stuart. Will it be this turbulent all the time?’
    â€˜Chill, Holly. It’s just weather. Look at the view. Enjoy it. Relax. The sky is ours – unless, that is, we choose to blunder into commercial airspace and knock down a Boeing. Joke.
Joke
, okay? Bet you didn’t expect Girl Meets Boy to set you up on a date like this, hey?’
    I’m not that keen on the word ‘hey’ as a question. ‘You’re absolutely right, no, I didn’t,’ I replied. I felt bad. Stuart genuinely thought he was giving me a thrill. He was a lot sweeter than his application form. As far as he was concerned, this horror death ride was a laugh. It wasn’t his fault I was a nervous flier. Shame on me. This poor man had applied to my agency in good faith, and here I was using him for my own petty purposes – to edge my formerfiancé out of the house. If I live, I told myself, I will stop being a coward. I will march up to Nick and say, ‘Go’.
    â€˜It’s wonderful,’ I said, glancing out of the window to check the propeller. ‘But’ – it was only fair to tell him as soon as I could – ‘I feel queasy. I’m not going to be able to eat any roast chicken.’ Even the idea made me shudder.
    Stuart grinned at me. ‘No problem, Holly. There are other things we can do.’
    I realised I was ice cold and my teeth chattered. I like to think the best of people, I really do, but this oily innuendo could only mean one thing. His next sentence was bound to contain the word ‘joystick’. I can’t think of one good reason why, but I laughed.
    â€˜Stuart,’ I said. Shake, rattle, hum, mechanical fault. ‘If that was a veiled reference to the Mile High Club, you have got to be
kidding
me. I mean that.’ I stopped. I wasn’t going to reel out a list of reasons why not (I don’t know you, I don’t fancy you, I need you to fly the plane, etc.). No was it. That, in my view, is enough. But curiosity overcame pride. ‘I can’t believe sex is possible, in
this
. I bet you haven’t. Ever.’
    Stuart laughed. ‘There are ways and means,’ he said. ‘You set the controls, let her ride.’ He nodded at his lap, a wicked look on his face. ‘But for a pretty girl you’ve got a dirty mind, Holly. I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about
this
.’
    I shrieked shrill and loud as our tin coffin jerked harsh left and tipped in a rush of noise, till the plane lay dead on its side and I could see its flimsy wing sharp above us. ‘What are you doing?’ I screamed. ‘Stop, stop, stop, you’re going to kill