Page 172 of Always Us

“You’d never been on a regular plane before?”

“I had, but it was when I was a kid.”

He means back when his mom was alive. His mom hated small planes because she thought they were dangerous. And she was right. She ended up dying on one. Shit! What if Garret and I die on this thing?

I feel my palms sweating as the plane moves.

“I can’t do this.” I undo my seatbelt. “Let’s get off.”

“Relax.” He fastens my seatbelt again. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

I take some deep breaths and squeeze his hand as the plane goes down the runway. My stupid brain keeps imagining it crashing and going up in flames.

“Think about something else,” Garret says, as if he can read my mind.

“Like what?”

He kisses my cheek. “Our house.”

I’m clutching Garret with one hand and gripping the seat with the other. “We’re not going to have a house because we’re going to die when this thing takes off.”

“It already took off. It was so smooth you didn’t even notice.”

I lean over to look out the window. All I see are clouds. Wow, that really was a smooth takeoff.

“We could die during landing,” I tell him.

“We can’t die,” he says. “We have to be here for our kids.”

“We don’t have kids.”

“Not yet. But we already put in our order, so they’re coming, which means we need to be around for them when they arrive.”

I don’t know how Garret does it, but he always makes me laugh when I don’t at all feel like laughing. “Are you still thinking the stork brings babies, Garret?”

“Just because you haven’t seen him doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.”

Garret’s so serious, it makes me laugh even more. “And who put this order in? Because I know I didn’t.”

“I did. You have to get on his list years in advance.”

“And how many did you order?”

“Two. That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah, two’s good. You didn’t tell him to bring them both at once, did you? Because I don’t think I could handle twins.”

“We could handle it.” He kisses me. “But no, I told him to space them apart.”

“How much apart?”

“I didn’t specify. Did you have a timeline in mind?”

“I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe a couple years apart?”

“That works. I’ll send him a note and let him know.”

I laugh again. “You have his address? Where exactly does he live?”

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