Back in the company of his friends, Freddie seemed to remember who he was: the pushy, party-hard professional with charm and finesse enough to share. That other guy, the sweet, goofy average Joe I'd run around New York City with, he left behind in the limo. I didn't try and conjure that person again; if he came back, it would be in private. I didn't want to embarrass Freddie in front of Elton John- which meant I'd have to wait before asking him what was his favorite part of Star Wars.

And the two of us would have to get well out of earshot of these high-profile clowns before I could tell Freddie anything important.

In minutes we boarded the Starship, with a new captain at the helm. This time, there was a designated co-pilot, leaving Rudy off the hook. I remember neither of their names, I'm sorry to say, but they were great people. You'll see why in a bit. Since Rudy could no longer be my excuse to remove myself from the festivities (and to be honest, I didn't really want to this time around), I happily stayed in the passenger section.

The engines started up with a smooth, sexy purr, no rattle or telltale noise to speak of whatsoever. Before long, we'd taken to the night skies, and we were free to move about the plush cabin. Freddie slipped into the bathroom to splash a little water on his face. Belle, our sole stewardess, disappeared to fix Freddie and myself something to eat; all we'd had was a little theater junk food. Elton sat down behind the organ and started noodling around on the keys; and everyone else generally made a raid on the bar.

"Have a drink, Eve!" Peter offered. "What's your pleasure?"

"I don't, but thank you anyway," I shook my head.

"Rubbish! It'll help to calm you down, you got so upset earlier."

"I'm feeling much better now. No, thanks."

Peter sighed and put his hands on his hips. "How do you expect to have a good time when your answer to everything is 'No, thanks'?"

I half-smiled. "Freddie, have you been talking to Peter?"

Freddie crossed his legs and twiddled his thumbs in an attempt to appear innocent, looking in every direction except mine.

"You're a big help. Anyway," I joked, "I'm much too young."

Freddie turned serious. "Hang on. How young?"

"Don't look so scared. I'm two weeks away from twenty."

The dark eyes widened. "Well, f---. I was way off."

"How old did you think I was?"

"Five years my junior, if that?"

"And you are...?"

"Thirty-one in September."

"Whoa," I teased him, "you're so old."

"I wear my age well though, don't you think? But you- My God, you're practically still a child!"

Oh, you hypocrite. Mary was nineteen when you started dating her.

"Practically, but not technically," Peter said slyly. "C'mon, Eves. You can't be this uptight in Vegas, they'll have you tarred and feathered! Call it practice."

"Uncle, uncle," I sighed. "Okay, I'll have whatever you're having."

Famous last words.

He poured two tall glasses of straight vodka with a couple of small ice cubes for decoration. Sliding one into my hand, Peter toasted and threw his own back, swallowing it all impressively. I took one sip of mine, and found to my surprise that I didn't hate it. It was tasteless at first, but it burned with a friendly fire as it slid down my throat. This was no place for lightweights; in one gulp I drained my glass.

"That's the girl!" Peter cheered. I coughed a little, but I'd found favor with the Jamaican. Right now, that was plenty of encouragement.

Freddie looked on in disbelief. "You mean, that's it? No extra cajoling? Just boom, and it's down?"

"What can I do, Freddie," Peter smiled. "I have the magic touch."

"Well, well. Evie, you didn't tell me you liked your boys black."

Oh my gosh, Freddie, you did not just say that!

Still I smirked. "There's a lot I haven't told you, dearie. Anyway, you like your girlies blonde, Mr. Bo Derek."

"I don't mind making exceptions. Certainly you'd do me the same favor?"

"Mind your own business."

Freddie couldn't think of a good comeback, so he stuck his tongue out at me. Ooh, good one.

But in all honesty, I had indeed begun taking a liking to the man, though a solely friendly liking. He was similar to Freddie in many ways, but I was extremely attracted to Freddie, whereas I simply liked Straker.

Peter laughed. "Can't say I blame her."

I leaned forward and planted a friendly little kiss on Peter's cheek and tossed a wink Freddie's way, but felt rather surprised at myself. Cocaine made me hyper and careless; vodka made me cheeky and careless. Though careless was a dangerous thing to be, I much preferred "cheeky" to uncontrollably hyper.

"Don't forget, Straker," Freddie warned. "She's to be married. Don't let's get too friendly with the lady. It's, um- it's not proper Round Table etiquette."

"The one we should be worrying about is you, Lance," Elton quipped.

Freddie feigned surprise. "Me?"

Elton smirked. "For the sake of her fiance, don't make Eve your Elaine!"

"Elaine?" I squinted. "Don't you mean Guinevere?"

"Not at all. I mean Elaine. Elaine and Lancelot. From the T. H. White story, remember? Better be careful, love. That's a dangerous combination."

I sat down, interested. "I don't know that story, what happens?"

But Freddie was grinning. "Tell you later, dear. It's hardly a chaste enough subject to be discussed at the Round Table."

"Look what I found!" John Holmes crowed. He was standing on tiptoes peering into the overhead luggage shelves. Reaching up, he pulled down a stack of boxes. "Trivial Pursuit," said one. "Group Therapy," said another. But as soon as I saw the red box on the bottom, I knew where these last two hours of our trip were going.

"Is that Scrabble I see?" Paul said almost cheerfully, throwing back a little scotch and water.

Freddie whirled, competition sparkling in his eyes. "I'll play. Who's joining us?"

"I will!" Peter set the game down on one of the tables. "Sharon, you up for it?"

Elton grinned. "I'll play the winner."

"I'm no match for you, Freddie," Paul said when the question was popped at him.

Freddie glanced my way. "How about you, Evie?"

"I would, except I'd beat you so badly you'd never get over it," I smirked.

His eyes narrowed, and he took two menacing steps toward me. "Was that a challenge, Miss Dubroc?"

"You tell me." I fluttered my eyelashes.

He laughed haughtily. "Don't worry, little girl, I'll go easy on you."

"There's no need," I said defiantly. "Unless, of course, I need to make the same adjustment for you, old man."

John Holmes laughed. "I think war's just been declared."

"Set it up!" Freddie thundered with a sweep of his arm. "We'll see who's bluffing who!"

The vodka, already going to my head, made me fearless. I corrected him, "Whom, Freddie. Who's bluffing whom."

"Whatever! Come on!"

After pouring myself another vodka, a shorter one without ice, Peter, Freddie, John Holmes, and myself crowded round the table. I loved Scrabble, and being such a bookworm, I was actually quite good at it. But I'd never felt competitive about the game till now. It was so silly, Freddie getting all worked up about a board game- but it was even sillier that I let his spirit rub off on me. Still, the vodka and this contest for bragging rights did a great deal to distract me from New York and the tragedy with which I associated it.

Soon enough, everybody was watching. Rudy was peering over my head at my tiles, and Elton glanced casually over Freddie's shoulder. I wanted to take a few pictures with the Android, but I preferred that only two people, namely Rudy and Freddie, know I had such a device.

I soon found out I was playing against the unofficial Scrabble world champion, and I was in over my head. Freddie had Scrabble down to an art. Typically he stuck to two or three letter words, but he arranged them so strategically that he not only hit the point jackpot every other turn, but he wound up blocking the board for everyone else. I almost got a little upset at first, because I couldn't understand how I kept making all these long, five to six letter words and then Freddie came along and caught a score twice that of mine by playing a single tile.

One of Freddie's pet peeves was when someone would look over his shoulder, see a possible word, and suggest it to him. It frosted him to no end. Paul learned that quickly.

At one instance, Paul whispered, pointing at his row of tiles, "Hey, you got this one here, and that one, if you put them in that corner over there you could get a triple let-"

Freddie slowly looked up at him with a How-stupid-do-you-think-I-am expression, his lips twitching irritably over his teeth, and Paul defended himself, "I was just trying to help!"

"You are not helping, you are cheesing me off," Freddie said through gritted teeth. "Won't you sit down?"

"Sorry," Paul said with a little bow.

Then the captain's voice screeched over the PA system. "In a few minutes, we'll be hitting a rather rough air pocket, so be prepared to brace yourselves. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

Freddie was too entrenched in the game to notice. "Oh, hey, I've got it," he announced with a naughty smirk, and laid down his tiles, creating his longest word yet. "Okay, that's three for C, plus one for the O, four; C, another three, makes seven, and with the K and S, which is six points together, so thirteen- plus the double word score, makes twenty-six! Great."

I covered my eyes, then tallied his points. "King Arthur's Knights, ha!" I muttered. "More like the Suicide Squad."

"The who?" Peter looked up, brows knit under his dark brown curls.

"Uh, never mind." Whoops. That was a little too untimely of a reference, but now it was too late. I blame the vodka. Only the Grey Goose could have made me draw such a stupid parallel.

"Did you say Suicide Squad?" he repeated.

"Er, yes."

"Never heard of that. What is it?"

So I told him. "You're not missing much. It's a story about a bunch of crazy bad guys who are called in to destroy an even worse bad guy- which, I guess, makes them the good guys, but they're still rotten people inside."

Peter nodded, humoring me. "Makes sense, I suppose."

"They have really sensational names, too- code names," I murmured. "For example, if you were in the Squad, Rudy, because you're so reliable and tough, we'd probably call you Fail-Safe." Rudy nodded, accepting his title with quiet, dignified indifference.

"And Sharon [I never thought I'd be so comfortable around Elton to call him Sharon, but it happened], you'd probably go by the name Rocket Man or something."

"No he wouldn't, he'd be Sharon," Freddie laughed.

Elton John shrugged. "Whatever. Better than Four Eyes."

"Obviously," John Holmes muttered with a grin. "I suppose I'd just be Randy John, right?"

I nodded. "Now, Straker would be, um..." Since I had Elton John songs on the brain, I thought of the one Freddie and I sang together that night. "Too easy. Peter, you'd be the Mad Hatter."

"As opposed to the Mona Lisa, of course," Freddie hummed, drumming his fingers against the table. "Are you going to play, dear, or-?"

"Oh, yes, yes- sorry, I was just trying to decide who you'd be," I said, then stared at my tiles. We were close to the end of the game, so there was nothing to draw from anymore and all we had to work with were the tiles we had already drawn. I had four left- something like T, N, V, and U. There was an obvious choice, especially after the word Freddie had just put down, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I shook my head. "No mercy, eh, Freddie?"

"You said not to go easy on you," he sang. "Are you going to pass again?"

"No, hold on. I just don't know if I should make this word. It's so awful."

"Awful? Oh, then by all means. Let's have it."

"But I can't!"

"Then you'll pass?"

"No! Okay, okay, here it comes." I looked up, whispered "God forgive me," then, building off the top C in the word Freddie just played, I lined the tiles up.

Everyone went silent and stared at this word, this word that I had played- I, of all people. I could scarcely believe it myself. Freddie stared, flabbergasted, at the obscene word now branching off his, then looked back up at me.

"Triple word score," I said meekly.

And that contagious, almost evil laugh just began rolling out of Freddie. All the guys joined him. Elton actually slapped me on the back. With a dramatic flair Freddie reached across the table, took my hand in his, and kissed it. And then I did something terrible: I started laughing too.

When we get to Vegas, I am finding a church and I am going to confession. No questions asked.

"That was worth the whole game right there," Freddie said. "Your turn, Straker?"

At that moment the plane shook, as though we were in a car driving over a badly paved country road.

"On second thought, maybe we'd better strap down," Freddie said hastily. "Come back to this in a minute."

So we abandoned the almost-full board and fastened our seat belts. For no particular reason- perhaps out of force of habit- I grabbed my Android as I passed my backpack and turned it on.

Freddie came and sat beside me again. "You are too much, Evie!" he hissed into my ear. "Where on Earth did that word come from?"

"Don't play righteously indignant with me," I said. "As if you don't use the word yourself!"

"I just never thought I'd see the day you'd use it, let alone play it," Freddie marveled. "Sweet and innocent on the outside, but, oh, what an edge you've got on the inside!"

The plane shook again. Freddie looked freaked for a moment, then calmed as I answered him, "You do realize you're responsible for that 'edge,' right? Ever since I got here, you've worked at wearing me down."

"Perhaps, but I do it with the best of intentions."

"Oh, really?"

"Are you having fun?"

"Absolutely."

"That's all I want. You just need to take the risk. I may be forcing you to take it, but for the most part I haven't steered you wrong, have I?"

"Even if I say no?"

"Especially if you say no. That only makes whatever it is all the more vital."

I glanced out the window. It was pitch dark, save for the red and white lights on the wing.

I freak you out because I'm "good"; man, you're the naughtiest person I've ever spent time with, and you scare me to death. You are eroding my will, Freddie, to make it align with yours- and doing a pretty good job of it. That's the scariest part of all.

"It's like you're the Joker trying to make me into your own personal Harley Quinn," I said aloud.

"You mean, harlequin," Freddie began, when the plane shuddered one more time. His large hands clenched over each other, turning the tips of his fingers red. "Is it me, or are those getting worse?"

'It's just turbulence. And no, I mean Harley Quinn."

"Evie, my lush little lush, it's pronounced har-luh-quin. Not har-lee-quin."

"Mr. Grammar Nazi, I'm not talking about your diamond-leotard-catsuit thing, okay? I'm talking about a very famous femme fatale- oh, wait, sorry. Yeah. Too soon. She was a nineties thing, sorry."

Freddie eyed the half-full glass still in my hand. With a haughtily arched brow, he very pointedly took it away from me.

"Perhaps," Freddie remarked, "you'd better stay dry after all. You can't handle it."

"Was that a challenge, Mr. J?" I said (having tipsily decided that Freddie was indeed the Clown Prince of Crime- which slipped him quite nicely into the "Squad"; all I can say is, Freddie was absolutely right- I don't hold my liquor well).

Freddie raised my glass in a silent toast. As he lifted the glass to his lips and drained it, I couldn't help notice how much quieter the cabin sounded. The engine noise had reduced, by almost too much. For a moment the Starship leaned slightly but still noticeably to one side before making a subtle adjustment. We endured one more turbulence shock while the overhead lights flickered.

Peter said, perhaps a bit too nonchalantly, "Should we be concerned?"

But the fellow sitting by the aisle next to me saw this as no laughing matter. "What the f--- was that?" he demanded. To say he sounded a little nervous would be an understatement.

The Captain's voice came back over the speakers, as if to answer Freddie. And it wasn't the best news.

"Ladies and gentlemen, again, we're sorry for the turbulence. We've just l-" He said more, but the menacing air pocket wasn't nearly through with us. We jostled about a little more, and immediately afterward we heard the distinct whirring of the engine propellers wind down and stop. All that remained was the sound of the air sweeping across the wings.

"...Uh, make that both the engines," corrected the captain, "but we're doing our best to get them back on. Please do not panic. If in the event we do not succeed in restarting them, we will take steps for an emergency landing in the Utah area."

Elton said with admirable calm, "Did he say we've lost engine power?"

The lights in the cabin flickered a moment, then dimmed. A rock plunged into my stomach. No engines, and we were flying through the tail end of some serious turbulence. Already we could feel the cabin pressure change. My ears began to pop. There was a little time before we dropped to an altitude where we had to land. Belle rushed to the front, somehow kept her balance as the plane shook one more time (hard enough to finally send the Scrabble board to the floor, tiles flying in all directions behind us) and she instructed us on what to do should the oxygen masks pop out in front of our faces.

"Ground Control to Major Tom," Peter started trilling to himself. "Ground Control to-"

"STRAKER!" We all shouted in frightened, ragged voices.

Well, everyone except Freddie. He sat there as still as a statue, his head back against the cushion, his eyes closed, his mouth pressed in a tight line, his hands gripping the armrests for dear life. He was holding everything in like usual, but only a compete idiot could have missed what was really going on. The rest of us were scared, no doubt about it; but this man was petrified.

In a very quiet, strained voice, he suddenly spoke. "This is one way to go, I suppose."

I gulped. I thought of my new friends, of high and low profiles aboard this plane. Before I came along, there was no record of any such joyride to Vegas. Had I screwed Freddie over prematurely? Had I ruined them all so fast? Were we about to plunge to our deaths? Dear God, please protect us. Get us through this. It's too soon.

In a strange moment of coherence, I remembered my Android. According to the great scientific genius of time travel, Robert Zemeckis (ha), if this Vegas trip had altered time at all, I'd be able to find proof in a picture, or a song, or a film. Quickly I tapped the password then zoomed straight to my Music. I looked through the playlists and saw nothing