“No, I changed my mind,” I say. “I have some savings and I decided it was past time to use it.”
“Sam, wait.” Danny slows and his hand squirms free of mine. “I can’t let you do this. The tickets must have cost thousands of dollars, and I told you, I’m cash poor until the business—”
“I don’t care,” I say, snatching his hand and holding on tight. “You can pay me back later. Or never, I don’t care. I just need to do this. Now. With you.”
“Why?” His tired eyes narrow as he searches my face. “What’s going on Sam? Why haven’t you returned my calls? I swear, I was starting to think…”
“Thinking is overrated,” I say, throat tightening as panic threatens to take over again. We have to get on that plane. Only when we’re strapped into our seats in row twenty-two will I finally be able to take a breath without feeling like it might be my last.
“I don’t know,” Danny says, hurt clear in his voice. “I knew you were okay because your dad said he’d talked to you, but I—”
“I’m so sorry.” I cut him off before he can say what I know he’s thinking. I can’t stand to hear him say he thought I was going to end it, or think about how close I came to telling him I never wanted to see him again. “I should have answered the phone, I’ve just been…really upset.”
“I thought I was the person you talked to when you were upset,” he says, the furrow between his brows deepening. “Or has something changed?”
“Nothing’s changed,” I lie, forcing a brittle smile.
I reach up, smoothing away the line between his brows the way I always do, even that simple touch reminding me that we are us. We are Sam and Danny and together we’re bigger and stronger than anything chasing me.
We have to be, or I’ve emptied my savings and flushed my future down the toilet for nothing.
“I’ve been doing a lot of hard thinking,” I continue, holding his troubled gaze. “About college and my family and all the compromises I’ve made so that other people can be happy…”
I swallow past the lump rising in my throat. “I’m just so tired of it. I’m tired of waiting for my life to start. That’s why I want to go on this trip. With you, my favorite person.”
He sighs, “Sam, you know I’ve been dying to—”
“Passengers Samantha Collins and Daniel Cooney.” The female voice on the loudspeaker turns the middle of Danny’s last name into an “ew” sound, making him raise an eyebrow. “Please report to gate seven for immediate boarding, the doors are about to close.”
“Please!” I capture Danny’s hand in both of mine and squeeze. “Please, just get on this plane with me. We can talk about anything you want once we’re on board. We’ll have ten hours in the air to catch up on everything we’ve missed since Christmas.”
The skin around Danny’s eyes relaxes, but the uncertainty in them remains. “I don’t know, Sam. Do you really think this is the right time?”
“Yes! Absolutely, yes!” I fight to keep the tears from my eyes. If I start crying again, Danny’s going to know something a lot more serious than a missed flight is to blame.
He knows me too well, something I should have considered when I put this crazy plan into motion. We can run halfway around the world, but if I can’t leave the past behind, it won’t matter how far I am from the scene of the crime. Danny will know something’s wrong, and he’ll get to the truth, sooner or later. The past few months have proven I can hold up under incredible amounts of stress, but I’ve never been able to hold up under the gentle weight of his eyes.
Danny shakes his head. “After this week, and the way you’ve been on the phone the past few months…”
He bites his lip for a moment before pushing on. “Things don’t feel the same, and it’s more than the time or distance. It feels like you’re hiding something from me.”
I’m hiding everything.
I’m hiding a secret so ugly it could destroy every dream we’ve had since we were too young to realize how lucky we were to have found each other.
Or how hard it would be to keep love alive in a world like this one.
Aloud, I say, “We don’t have time for the No Bullshit game, but I promise you, if you get on that plane, you won’t be sorry. I’ll make you remember why you fell in love with me, Danny, I promise.”
“You don’t have to remind me.” He reaches out with both hands, squeezing my arms below the capped sleeves of my gray tee shirt. “I still love you so much.” He pulls in a rough breath and continues in a softer voice, “I just need to know you still love me.”
“I do.” I fight the tears pushing at the backs of my eyes. “And I don’t want to lose you, okay? I can’t lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” he says. “Come on, Sam. You know me. I’m with you. For keeps.”
“Then come with me.” I cup his scruffy cheeks and stand on tiptoe, bringing our faces closer together. “Let’s have that adventure we’ve been dreaming about forever.”
Before he can respond, I press my lips to his.
It’s our first kiss since Christmas, and my first kiss since my life started falling apart. I don’t expect to feel anything—I’m so desperate to get on the plane I’m certain there’s no room on my neural pathways for anything but panic—but the moment his warm lips brush mine, something deep inside me flutters.
Nearly forgotten wings beat, sending dust puffing into the air, reminding me that there is still life in the locked rooms of my heart. Parts of me have been covered with blankets and secreted away, but they haven’t been destroyed. With Danny’s help, there might be hope for me yet, and even the possibility of hope is enough to make me get down on my knees and beg him to run away with me if that’s the only way to convince him.
But thankfully, it seems a kiss—and hearing our names called over the loudspeaker again, this time accompanied by the warning that this would be our “final call”—is all it takes to win Danny over.
“Okay,” he says, threading his fingers through mine. “But I’ll probably have the world’s worst case of jet lag by the time we get there.”
“It’s okay.” My heart lifts as we hurry toward the gate. “I booked a room near the airport for our first night. We can crash as soon as we get there. Just draw the curtains and sleep for twenty-four hours straight if we need to.”
He groans. “That sounds like heaven. I didn’t sleep at all on the last flight. The guy next to me was snoring loud enough to shake the entire row of seats.”
“You can sleep in my lap if you want.” I hand our tickets to the agent at the gate, a sour-faced woman who looks out of place in the cheery Hawaiian Airlines uniform. “I’m too wired to sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep yet,” Danny says. “We should talk first.”
“All the overhead bins are full,” the agent says, casting a pointed look at Danny’s giant weathered backpack, distracting from the anxious look I’m sure just flickered across my face. “You’re going to have to check that at the end of the Jetway.”