I glance sideways at her, and she rolls her eyes. “God, you’re a pain,” she mutters before asking, “Were you in the Air Force for less than ten years?”
I grin, ignoring her question as I ask, “You ever been married?”
She stops, pausing with a chip halfway to her mouth. I watch as she swallows hard, lowering it back to the paper before reaching for her drink. Twisting off the cap, she nods before taking a long sip.
“Yes,” I reply. “I was in the Air Force less than ten years,” I add when she gives me a weird look. “Are you still married?”
Taylor shakes her head now, her eyes down as she reaches for another chip. “No,” she eventually says.
I want to ask if the guy we saw at the airport is her ex-husband, which would explain why she seemed so upset when she found out he was getting married. But I don’t, because as much as it feels like she’s slowly letting me in, I don’t want to push too hard. I get the feeling relinquishing control and letting go is hard for Taylor. And I want to hold onto her for as long as I can without making her aware that that’s exactly what I’m trying to get her to do.
We finish up our late lunch, and I gather up the rubbish. When I turn, Taylor is standing behind me, her sunglasses on.
“So, what’s next?” she asks, a hand up to shade her eyes from the sun.
I grin, smoothing a hand across my chest as I look at her and say, “Well, that depends.”
“On?” she asks, head cocked to the side.
My grin widens. “How much you care what the crew will say if we don’t go back to the hotel tonight?”
Five
Taylor
After returning the car to storage, Jake and I are in a cab heading back to the crew hotel. As much as he teased about not coming back to the hotel, we both know it’s for the best.
The silence in the cab is deafening, an awkwardness in the air that both of us can feel as it permeates the comfort and normalcy we both felt just minutes ago. There was something so secretive, something so defining about being alone together, and unlike in the past, this time together wasn’t about hooking up.
The strange sense of loneliness that pooled heavy in my chest after seeing Dean has returned, and when Jake’s fingers brush the bare skin of my arm, I feel a lump form in my throat.
This could be it. The last time I will feel normal, the last time I will be with Jake alone, and a part of me suddenly wants to invite him up to my room, to ask him to stay. But I know that hooking up with him won’t keep him.
“I had fun today,” he whispers, but his voice still rings through loud and clear in the quiet confines of the cab.
“Of course you did. You got to stare at me in a bikini,” I quip back, trying to quell this overwhelming urge to tell the cab driver to slow down, to help me drag this ride back to the hotel out just a little longer.
Jake smirks at me, his fingers trailing over the exposed skin of my thigh now and leaving little fires burning everywhere he touches. This would’ve normally been an opportunity to shove his hand away, to tell him he’s being inappropriate, but there’s a chance that all of this will disappear tonight.
I’ve never been the Cinderella type. The clock strikes midnight far too often.
“It was definitely a bonus.”
The cab arrives back at the hotel sooner than I would like, negating the solitude I feel, and knowing the hotel bar will be filled with most of the crew from our plane and other pilots and flight attendants I’ve met along the way, I bail first. My legs move quickly to the trunk, grabbing my bag before Jake even has a chance to exit.
There will never be a place where my reputation doesn’t precede me, and I catch a glimpse of the crowded bar through the large glass doors of the hotel. Before I pull the door open, I look over my shoulder and see Jake standing near the curb, his bag at his side. He looks stunning, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and for a split second, I think about throwing caution to the wind and getting back in that cab with him.
Seeing him shirtless today, his perfectly defined chest, his flat stomach accented by the outline of each abdominal muscle; it’s something that is burned into my brain and as much as I’m off bringing men back to my hotel room, I sure as hell don’t want anyone else to have him either.
But that’s about to go to shit. Even though he’s said he hasn’t hooked up with the flight crew, it’s coming.
Selfishness won’t win out over earning back my self-respect.
I look back toward the glass doors, calling out, “Thanks, Jake. Enjoy your night.”
With my hand on the door, poised and ready, he calls my name. It falls from his lips in a harsh tone with an air of desperation trailing at the end, as if he’s struggling with how to end this too.
“Meet me for breakfast tomorrow.” There’s no question in his tone, no wondering if I’ll say yes. It’s a demand, a request for this thing we have going to linger just a little longer.