Page 2 of Always Us

He pulls me back into a hug. “I had no idea you were so innocent.” He kisses my head. “I might have to dirty you up a little. But not too much. I like you sweet and innocent.”

I peek over his shoulder and see that the old lady has gone back to reading her book. She’s obviously seen porn or she wouldn’t have given me those looks. So she’s seen it and I haven’t? I need to go online and check this out.

The flight attendant walks by. “Tray tables up. Seatbelts fastened. We’ll be landing in a couple minutes.” Her head moves left and right as she checks that we’re all following orders, then she takes a seat up front behind the cockpit.

Cockpit. It sounds like a dirty word now that I’ve got porn on the brain. Cockpit. Cockpit. Cockpit. Cockpit. The word keeps repeating in my head, sounding dirtier each time. I start laughing and can’t stop.

“What’s so funny?” Garret’s smiling at me. “Thinking about the neck rub?”

“No. Yes. Kind of.” I’m still laughing. “I think I just need to get off this plane.”

“We’re landing right now.” Our hands are joined and Garret squeezes mine a little. “You good?”

“Yes.” I close my eyes and feel the wheels touch down. I get nervous on planes, especially the takeoffs and landings, but Garret always calms me down.

The plane comes to a stop and Garret reaches overhead to get our stuff. We’re in first class, so as soon as they open the plane door we get right off.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” I say, as we walk through the airport.

“And informative.” Garret puts his arm around me. “Learn something new about you every day, Jade.”

We go down the escalator and I see Frank and Ryan standing there.

“Welcome home.” Frank gives me a hug while Ryan says hi to Garret.

“It feels like I haven’t been here forever.”

“We ordered up some snow for you,” Frank says as I give Ryan a hug.

“It snowed already?”

“No, but it’s supposed to on Saturday night,” Ryan says. He looks at Garret. “You up for shoveling? You’re part of the family now, which means we put you to work.”

“Sure, I don’t mind.” Garret takes my hand as we walk to baggage.

“You guys need to get a snowblower,” I say to Frank.

“We already have one. Ryan’s just testing your husband.”

Ryan laughs. “I wanted to see if pretty boy would agree to shovel.”

“Hey.” I punch Ryan. “Be nice.”

“And enough with the pretty boy shit.” Garret smiles as he says it. “I don’t get why you call me that, but keep it up and I might have to come up with a nickname for you.”

“We should totally give him a nickname,” I say to Garret. “What should it be?”

“Okay, kids,” Frank says, all Dad-like. “Everyone be nice. This is Thanksgiving.”

“Ryan started it,” I say like a kid would.

Frank shakes his head, smiling. “This is going to be a long weekend.”

We all laugh.

Garret takes our suitcase off the conveyor belt and walks with Ryan toward the parking garage. “You gonna let me drive the new car?”

“It’s not really new anymore, but yeah. We can go when we get home.”

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