I’d stopped walking and stood still at the bottom of the airplane stairs. He had to be pulling my leg. “You’re not coming?”
“It’s fine. Grandpa can handle it. The signing is just a formality anyway. We’ve already hashed out the details with their legal team.”
That wasn’t the point.
A uniformed woman about my mother’s age smiled at me from the door of the jet. I recognized the jacket in her hands as Grandpa Banks’s, so I assumed he was already on board. I closed my eyes for a minute and took a deep breath. This was going off the rails. My stomach was going to revolt. There was no way I was getting on that plane without my best friend.
“Chris… it’s not that, it’s… I’m terrified of flying, and… and I just wanted to talk to you about… about us.”
“Us?”
I winced, realizing this was a terrible time to bring it up if I wasn’t going to be able to see him in person again for an entire week. But I couldn’t wait any longer for some answers. And I needed something to distract me from one of my biggest fears. “Why didn’t you ever tell me Uncle Rod was gay? Or Oliver Poole? You made it sound like your family would freak out if they found out you were bi.”
The noise from other airplanes was loud enough for me to put a finger in my other ear so I didn’t miss his response. I was desperate for any little scrap of evidence he hadn’t spent the past ten years stringing me along for some other reason.
There was a pause before he answered. “You said you wouldn’t pressure me, Teo.”
“It’s been over ten fucking years! At what point do I read the writing on the fucking wall and give up? Every reason for your hesitation went up in smoke when I realized it wasn’t your family who were the problem. Tell me what’s holding you back, for god’s sake.” I pressed my palm to my forehead and gritted my teeth against the pain in my chest. I’d been such an idiot. “If it’s that you don’t want to be with me… please just tell me and let me go. Let me stop hoping for something that’s never going to happen.”
His voice was softer this time, the familiar comforting voice of the friend who’d been by my side since I was six years old.
“I love you. You know that. But I’m just not ready to settle down yet. I don’t understand why we can’t just have fun together first.”
I lowered my voice. “Fun, meaning sex?”
“Yes. Just think of all the shit we could be doing right now if you just… Jesus, Tee, if you just relaxed for once. How can you go out and sleep with some random fucking stranger and not me?”
His question surprised me, not only because I hadn’t realized he’d been thinking of me that way, but also because he kind of had a point. It only took me about a second to remember the reason.
“Because I wouldn’t be able to stand sharing you,” I confessed. “And I can’t believe you’d be okay sharing me either.”
The flight attendant caught my eye again, and I realized they were waiting on me to board so we could get underway. I wasn’t going to let the Banks family down, and I especially wasn’t going to let Gordon travel overseas without someone to help look after him. I climbed the stairs and dropped into the first seat, not even bothering to find Gordon until I finished the call with Chris. I didn’t want to give Chris any excuse to cut our conversation short.
I heard shuffling and muttering through the phone and wondered where he was and what he was doing.
“Chris?” I asked, since he hadn’t responded.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m just—”
The loud clunking sound and vibrations alerted me to the closing airplane door. I glanced up at the flight attendant preparing to begin some kind of safety presentation. I could see the narrow cockpit door still partially ajar and the pilots moving around getting settled.
“I’m going to have to go,” I said. “They just closed the airplane door.”
“I’m not ready to settle down yet, Teo. That’s the reason. We’re only twenty-six for god’s sake.”
I sighed. “Yeah, well, I am ready.”
The bitterness was clear in his voice. “Then maybe you should find someone else to do it with.”
A deep rumble of laughter caught my attention from the open cockpit door.
“Maybe I will,” I said, absently, recognizing the familiar stubbled jaw and pointed canine tooth in the smile of the laughing pilot.
I didn’t hear Chris’s words over the sound of the roaring in my ears. The pilot turned to close the cockpit door and met my eyes. Time stopped and my stomach plummeted. There he was. The stranger I’d given myself to, the man who’d kept me company in my daydreams for months and held up as the standard by which all future bedmates would be judged.
FlyGuy.
While we stared at each other in disbelief and my entire world seemed to jangle unexpectedly, the efficient flight attendant reached back and pulled the cockpit door closed, cutting off our eye contact and beginning the stopwatch on an eight-and-a-half-hour flight to Frankfurt.
For the next eight hours I would have to sit there knowing that my sexy stranger was less than ten feet away from me.
And the man I thought was my future seemed bound and determined to become only my past.
8
Jack
It was him. I’d know those sweet light green eyes anywhere. My lips remembered the warm curves of his skin and the taste of his kisses. He’d looked just as surprised as I was when we saw each other through the cockpit door.
I forced myself to concentrate on the task at hand. We needed to get this plane in the air. The sooner we got to Frankfurt, the sooner I’d be able to beg him to give me a few minutes of his time to get his contact information. In the meantime, the captain’s voice snapped in my headset, helping keep me on task through taxi and takeoff. Once we were settled at cruising altitude, my mind wandered back to NurseTee. Had it really been him?
The surprised doe eyes had been unmistakable. The man was sexy as hell and irresistible. I wondered why he was flying to Frankfurt. Did he have family in Europe? Or business? And if he was a nurse the way I’d assumed, how could he afford to fly in a private jet? The only other passenger I’d seen was the elder Mr. Banks, whose company owned the plane. I’d already met some of the other family members who worked for the company, so I didn’t think Tee was part of the Banks family. But maybe he worked for the company with Mr. Banks?
Maybe Tee was the older man’s nurse. But what if he was more? Mr. Banks could be Tee’s sugar daddy for all I knew. How would that make me feel? It certainly could explain his need for the sexual hookup with me.
Even if he was alone, he’d been so adamant about no contact during our hookup, would it be unfair of me to approach him? Maybe I would have to approach cautiously and assess his body language.
My skin itched with the need to climb out of the flight deck and talk to him, but I couldn’t. I’d only been in this job for a few weeks, and I was still anxious to prove myself as focused and dedicated even though I was sure my fellow pilot wouldn’t mind. I’d already figured out this captain was diligent and professional but didn’t take his job too seriously. It was one of the things that had attracted me to the position. I hoped to learn about work/life balance from pilots like him, and I’d already enjoyed the few trips Nate and I had flown together.