“Gimme cookies!”
The rubber struck Sister Mildred in the nose. Blood spurted in all directions.
“Oh my!” Sister Margaretta panicked. “I don’t like the sight of blood…”
She didn’t reach for her airsickness bag in time.
Sister Mildred sputtered a Hail Mary and reached deep into the arms of her tunic, somehow revealing a ruler which had passed through security.
I didn’t need to warn the father. First, he guarded his own wrists, then he yanked the toddler away before the nun inflicted her discipline with a quick smack of the ruler.
“Spare the rod—spoil the child!” Sister Mildred’s battle cry was all the more terrifying with blood streaking down her nose.
The nun shook off her friend and bolted into the aisle.
Adrian seized the opportunity to make his move. He rushed to the rear of the plane and approached the sleeping man with the foot infection. With a grunt, he grabbed a fork off a nearby passenger’s dinner plate, stabbed the man’s wadded up sock hidden within his shoe, and cast the sweat-soaked biohazard down the aisle.
The calico went nuts. It pounced for the sock by crashing over an open laptop and tripping Sister Mildred before she conducted an exorcism on the cackling toddler with a bottle of Aquafina and some fervent prayer.
The startled cat yowled, every hair on her body puffing like a porcupine. But Adrian captured her, sweeping her into his arms before helping me to stuff her into the carrier.
This earned him a round of applause from the passengers, though they seemed equally pleased when my co-flight attendant spritzed the sleeping man’s feet with a personal sized bottle of air freshener—an important tool to ensure the galley stayed fresh as a daisy…even if the lavatory didn’t.
Even the nun relented her pursuit of the toddler once sprinkled with water—maybe not holy but bottled from the cool, fresh streams. Both returned to their seats, exhausted and spent.
Within moments, Adrian, the miracle that he was, had solved every problem.
Except one.
I wasn’t pregnant.
And he had no idea.
I retreated to the galley with a painful sigh. What was I supposed to tell him? We’d both been so excited. We’d both worked so hard. And we’d had so much sex.
A lot of sex.
But was it right to worry about something as monumental as a baby when I couldn’t figure out the simplest of questions?
What did I feel for Adrian?
Was it wrong to want more? Was it worse to keep those feelings hidden?
Was it ridiculous to wonder if he shared the same feelings?
Adrian grinned at me, proud of himself for playing hero. He stayed in the aisle, helping Sister Mildred with a proper protocol on how to stop a nosebleed. He was a great source, had all the experience.
Why did he have to be so damned perfect?
“Did you want to land the plane too?” I asked.
“Just trying to make your trip a little smoother,” he said.
“I could use you on my three-day trip next week. I’m getting bounced from here to Seattle and back.”
“You tell me what you need, and I’ll be there.” His words wrapped around me, warm and smooth. “I promise.”
I believed him.
Which was exactly why revealing any feelings for him would only end in pain. What we had together was better than any of my previous relationships, even if it was complicated, messy, and dangerous.
First, we’d land. Then I’d confess that I wasn’t pregnant.
But that was it.
No other secrets. No sneaking under the covers. No stolen kisses or perfect embraces.
We were just friends. And we had to act like it.
I couldn’t risk losing him, or the one man who made me happiest in the world would be the one who ultimately broke my heart.
17
Adrian
Clover face planted onto the hotel bed.
She’d managed to kick one heel off, but the other dandled from her stockinged foot. A jagged run ruined the pair of pantyhose, but I didn’t think she’d noticed yet.
“I officially hate my job…” The pillow muffled her voice. “I’ve never had a flight that bad before.”
I’d had my share of shitty games and losing streaks. Hell, the locker room even suffered from the occasional bout of foot fungus.
But the screaming kids, loose sick cats, and bleeding nuns?
That was all new to me.
“You handled it well,” I said.
“Are you kidding? I nearly jumped out of the emergency exit at thirty thousand feet.”
“…Do they give flight attendants parachutes?”
“Hell no. If they did, we’d never stay on the damned flights.” She hid her face once more. “Or we’d push the problem passengers out the door.”
I joined her on the bed, but she rolled away before I could scoop her into my arms. I pretended I wasn’t disappointed. The last thing I needed was to distract myself with Clover’s warmth, curves, promises…
“Just remember why you took the job,” I said.
“I took the job because I was an idiot.”
“That’s not true.”
She paced the room, rubbing her neck to ease the tension. “I thought I would be traveling the world. Visiting all these exotic cities. Exploring these amazing, fairytale places.”
“You did.”
I didn’t like her defeated laugh.
“You know what I’ve done for the past eight years?” she asked. “I’ve toured, visited, and sampled all the wonderous locales in a dozen international airports. It’s hard to get excited about travel when you only ever see the inside of an airplane.”
“But you’ve been to plenty of places…and you’ve dragged me to most of them.” I rubbed the scar on my elbow from our misadventure in Australia—in which a half dozen beers and a huntsman spider resulted in a broken hotel ironing board and me hiding a massive injury from my trainers. “You’ve traveled farther around the world than anyone else I know.”
“And for what?”
“Presumably fun.”
“Sure, at first, I wanted to see the world. But…now I have. Know what I’ve learned?” She gestured beyond the hotel window. “There’s a Cinnabon in every terminal, and every bathroom soap smells the same.”
“Traveling isn’t so bad. I’m on the road a couple months out of the year.”
“That’s different.”
I crossed my arms behind my head and attempted to relax. Hard to do when her skirt teased the outline of her heart-shaped ass. “At least you don’t hop off a plane and instantly get checked into the boards.”
“But you’re traveling with your teammates. You’re doing something! Something productive. Something constructive.”
“I don’t think you can call the Forge constructive yet.”
She whacked the laminated Wi-Fi instructions and its holder off the room’s desk and into the trash—as destructive as she’d ever get.
“But you will be successful soon enough.” She sighed as she fished the paper out of the can and returned it to its rightful spot. “And you have that reason to get up in the morning. To go to work. To see your energy directed into something meaningful and worthwhile. You work hard. You do everything right. And you’re supposed to be rewarded for that.”