Page 58 of Due South

She holds my hand as we wait in the line, and we both mumble pleasantries to the agent staffing the desk and the flight attendants welcoming people. We find our seats in first class, and Lucy settles in with exaggerated pleasure.

“This is nice. You get to do this all the time?”

“Not all the time, but a lot.”

“You deserve it,” she says and leans over to plant a kiss on my cheek. A warm flush spreads all the way through me because she means it. She thinks I’m pretty great, and with a steady diet of her telling me so, I’ve started to believe it.

“So do you.” I return her kiss, and she smiles at me. We’d finished up a hard week at work yesterday—the second year of the PRA bond project and two more contracts to function as municipal advisors we’d signed after pulling that clusterfuck off. I’ve got reason to believe I’ll be getting a promotion and a good-sized bonus when we get back. If that ends up working out—and whatever else she may be, India’s a woman of her word—I’m going to buy a new car. Preferably one with a bigger backseat, because banging in the car has become a bit of a pastime for us.

It’s possible I get a bit carried away, not just pressing my lips to her cheek, but trailing kisses behind her ear, down her neck, and nipping at her shoulder.

“Are you thinking about what I’m thinking about?”

Her whisper makes me smile against her freckled skin. “Probably.”

I’m thinking about the pilot costume I bought online last week in anticipation of this morning. It’s possible there was some roleplay and rather energetic shagging in her apartment’s coat closet earlier. We’re both too—what’s a cute word for uptight?—to actually have sex in an airplane lavatory—also, it’s called a lavatory, which is not a sexy word—but it sure was fun to pretend. And I only got poked in the ear by a hanger once.

Speaking of being poked, this box in my pocket is not comfortable. It’s reminding me with every dull jab, every unpleasant poke, that I have a whole part of my future in my pants. Not in a genetic material kind of way, which I guess would also be true, but in a hopefully-making-the-woman-of-my-dreams-my-wife kind of way.

I make it until we level out, and then I can’t take it anymore. The stupid box pokes me in the thigh again as I wave the flight attendant over and ask for some champagne.

“Fancy.” Lucy makes big eyes at me, and I have to chuckle.

“Drinks are free in first class, Luce. You should get whatever you want.”

“Oh, right.” She blushes, because why would she know that? She’s basically glued to her desk while India jet-sets all around, and I’m not much behind the boss lady on frequent flyer miles.

The flight attendant is back quickly with two flutes filled with generous pours, and she gives me a bit of a suspicious look when she hands over mine. I try to use all my mental faculties to shove down the blood rising to my cheeks, but my body’s uncooperative. Before I can get any more flustered, I turn to Lucy and offer her a clink of my glass. We manage not to spill any, and she wiggles after her first sip. She’s so cute.

“So, Luce, I wanted to ask you something.”

My heart is pounding in my chest; she’s got to feel the vibration from here. I feel as though I’m shaking so hard I might down the plane. Which would be so awkward… I can see the headline now:Plane forced to land in soybean field due to a passenger’s panic attack, caused by proposing to his girlfriend. She, of course, said no.

But Lucy takes another dainty sip of her champagne and beams at me. “Don’t worry, my brothers probably won’t challenge you to a push-up contest for real.”

I almost choke on the bubbles, because honestly, that hadn’t even occurred to me. I’m in decent enough shape for someone who spends his life on a laptop, but those farm boys could kick my ass along any dimension.

“That wasn’t…” If I could get through this without spluttering, that’d be amazing. I think about calling up that cocky guy, the one who’d pretended he flew planes and took people’s lives in his hands every day and felt entitled to bang a smoking hot redhead in a goddamn lavatory thirty thousand feet in the air, but I don’t think that’s who Lucy would want to propose to her.

She likes that guy well enough, sure, because he’s fun and apparently isn’t so bad in the sack, but this is about spending the rest of our lives together and I don’t want to put on an act. I want her to say yes to awkward, fumbling Evans, because let’s face it, that’s who I am most of the time.

Shaking my head, my brow furrows, because I’m going to get through this even if I have to hurl what champagne I’ve managed to swallow into the airsick bag. “That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

Her perfectly done nails come to rest on my forearm, and she squeezes, scratching lightly over the cotton of my shirt. “I was teasing. Go ahead. What did you want to ask?”

“I was wondering, if you might, if you would…” Dammit. With one hand trapped by hers, and my champagne in the other, I have no hands to dig the damn box outta my pocket. So I have to ask her to hold my glass and then rummage around in my pants, which god, can’t make a pretty picture, but when I finally extract the box, her pretty lips part and her eyes go as big as I’ve ever seen them. “Lucy, will you marry me?”

The entire first-class cabin, including flight attendants, has gone silent and still. At least I’ve got people waiting with me. But if she says no, this was a terrible, terrible idea. Because sitting next to the person who refused your proposal in an enclosed space for hours isn’t awkward at all.Way to go, Evans. You smooth operator, you.

She’s still staring at me, and I want to grab my champagne glass back from her and bolt it to dampen my nerves or drown my sorrows or celebrate, depending on what exactly she’s going to say. If she says anything at all, which is seeming less and less likely.

“Did you—like, for real?”

Thank goodness I’m not the only one in this relationship who’s unbearably awkward.

“I did.”

She nods, and then I can’t help it anymore. I grab the glass and chug, and when I’m done, she’s still blinking at me.

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