Page 38 of Personal Disaster

I’m freakingout.

This is great.

But as soon as he shows me inside, my freakout fades. It’s not a big plane. It has four seats in the main cabin, two right behind the cockpit, and that’s really small.

On the other hand, the whole thing is fancy. Sleek white and black detailing, lots of leather with red stitching. This plane wasn’t cheap.

He said he’d show me who hewas.

Yeah, but I thought that meant going to his cabin in the woods and talking about our feelings. Maybe dig into why we don’t like our parents as much as we should.

“Do you like your parents?” I blurtout.

He looks up from where he’s checking some very complicated dials and switches in the cockpit. “In small doses.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Great. That’s something we have in common.”

“We have lots in common.”

“Dowe?”

He gestures for me to squeeze into the other seat in the cockpit. “Sure.”

“We don’t know each other.”

“Then we have forty minutes to fix that before we land and I kidnapyou.”

“Cabin in the woods?”

He laughs. “Not a lot of trees around my place. But it’s got a cabinfeel.”

* * *

I have to admit,skipping the four-hour drive from Denver to Rifle is lovely. And Marcus at the controls of a plane is an impressive sight. Plus we actually do get to talk about things we have in common.

Which is apparently coffee, sex, and disappointed parents, although the scale is a different.

“They liked the idea of me being a tech leader and being on the pages of Fortune Magazine,” he says quietly.

“Ah.”

“How about you? Why’d you ask about parents?”

“I, uh… haven’t had any babies yet.” My cheeks flame hot. Why did I bring up that line of conversation anyway? Ridiculous. “My brothers are younger than me, and all my cousins have kids, and… it doesn’t matter. Thanksgiving will be swell, let’s just say thatmuch.”

“You could skip it and come with me to Jake’s wedding.” The radio crackles to life, air traffic control advising him he can begin his descent, and the conversation is put on hold, which is for the best, because I don’t know what my answer willbe.

When we land, he introduces me to a scruffy kid named Jeff who is apparently going to park Marcus’s jet for him, but the rest of their conversation is totally normal. Then we head to the dusty parking lot, where his truck is waiting for us. Actually normal.

We stop at the bakery, then the grocery store, more normal, then head out of town, climbing into the hills around the valley.

I’m not surprised when we drive down a long, winding lane and find what is definitely not a cabin in the woods. “Nice,” I say when I find my voice.

It’s a modern bungalow, crawling along a ridge. Low-profile, very high-tech. Definitely contributes to the super-spy alter-ego theory I have going.

The garage door opens automatically. He parks, then we walk back out to the driveway and up the frontwalk.

He stops me in front of the main door and turns me around.

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