Page 16 of Love at First Flight

“Alright, buddy, it’s been fun watching you get into trouble, but Steph just texted me that Marie forgot her stuffie at home, so I need to make an emergency trip to Warm Springs tonight. Do you still want to get an Uber or come with me?”

Dex said he’d be fine and waved his friend off. After Jon departed, Selah stood there awkwardly. She should get going as well, but instead watched Dex as he leaned against the brick wall of the brewery with a heavy sigh.

“You doing okay there?”

“Oh, yeah. Great. I—I think it’s time to go home.”

“You okay getting your ride?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’ve got an app.” He had trouble pulling the phone from his pocket and it tumbled to the ground.

She had no obligation to the guy but, considering how the evening could have gone, she did feel one. “Come on. I’ll be your Uber and give you a lift.” It was only fair.

He stubbornly continued attempting to work his phone. “You’re also an Uber driver? Is your Uber voice similar to your piloting one?”

She laughed. “No. I’m just a”—friendwas too presumptuous and, yet, she wanted some word to describe their relationship more thana person you’ve met a few times. Unable to come up with anything, she finished the sentence with—“a person who wants to make sure you get home okay since you came to my rescue tonight.”

“You shouldn’t do that.” His gaze narrowed in her direction, as if she was in trouble, and he might need to get stern again. Her breath caught in excitement.

“Do what? Return a favor?”

“You shouldn’t give a stranger you met in a bar a ride home. It isn’t safe. There are all kinds of weird people in the world.”

“But I’m not giving a stranger a ride. I’m givingyoua ride, and I didn’t meet you in a bar. Remember?” What he said was true but, regardless of their complicated history, there was something about Dex that felt safe. She couldn’t explain it, even to herself.

“I don’t know how to argue any further,” he replied.

“Good.” She took him by the arm, leading him to her truck. “Come on, then.”

“And I want you to know that we’re even now. You witnessed my embarrassing moment and now I’ve witnessed one of yours.”

“Fine, we’re even.” Although, truth be told, she hadn’t been embarrassed. If there was anyone who should have felt shame, it was dump truck Kevin for being a creep. But if it made him feel better, so be it.

Dex did well enough giving her directions to his house on the western outskirts of Redmond, heading toward the town of Sisters. It was an older home, surrounded by a grove of juniper trees and sage brush. “Here you go. Are you going to be okay getting in?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the ride... and for not tipping the car over at the end of it.”

“Ha. Ha. Funny. I guess your opinion that I’m the world’s greatest balloonist was a lie. Now I know what you really think.”

“You’re still the best one I’ve flown with.”

“That’s very sweet but—” She was about to finish with,but you’ve never flown with my dadand caught herself in time. As far as she knew, Robert had never tipped the basket and landed on top of a client. He was a real professional.

Dex didn’t make a move to exit the vehicle. He stared at her as though trying to commit her face to memory. “Goodbye, Selah.”

It did feel like a true goodbye, like their paths were never to converge again. It made her sad. “Goodbye.”

There was an instant when his focus dropped to her lips, and her heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t her date... at least not the date she started the evening with. She knew he wasn’t going to try anything, but there was a part of her wanting him to try, anyway, to close the gap between them and give her some of the same dark fire and tenacity she’d witnessed earlier at the brewery. The idea of it made her insides want to fizzle with anticipation.

Disappointingly, he snapped from his trance, opening the door to the truck and promptly fell out, landing in a heap on the ground with anOof. “I’m okay,” came a muffled reply, but he didn’t make any effort to get up as though the ground was as good of a place as anywhere to spend the night.

“God.” Selah put the truck into park, shutting it off before getting out of the vehicle to help him, where he was a pile on the ground. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. You didn’t see that, did you? I don’t want us to be uneven again in embarrassing moments.”

“I didn’t see anything. Here, let’s get you inside.” She helped untangle his limbs, getting him upright and offering support to him as they walked toward his house.

“This isn’t smart. You shouldn’t help weird men to their houses. You hardly know me.”

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