Page 156 of Whirlwind

Beck slid his arm over my shoulders, and I leaned into him and breathed in his scent. Cinnamon gum, sandalwood and musk. On the airplane, we’d held hands almost the entire time. Maybe we shouldn’t have had all that champagne to kick off our long, long transatlantic flight.

In the dark, we’d snuggled, we’d started kissing, which had turned into feeling each other up under the thin airplane blankets. Then Beck had gotten a massive hard-on, and I’d insisted on easing his pain by giving him a long, slow hand job. The feel of his cock throbbing and pulsing in my grip, his cum filling my hand, his breath going all jagged, his rough whispers of“Baby, baby…oh, Violet.”

Him coming had sent my clit pulsing hard, and suddenly he’d slid his hand in between my legging-clad legs, his palm pressing exactlythereand I came instantly, moaning into his mouth. His eyes were filled with water, and he’d turned away, his fingertips digging painfully into my thigh.

Leave bruises on me, Beck, please.

Nothing like the seats in First Class.

Now the small luxuries and psychological ease of First Class were a far away faded memory as we stood in line in this vast warehouse of a room humming with anticipation, nerves, and fatigue to gain entry to the United States of America.

The playing field of life was now leveled.

A big industrial clock on a wall ticked away the seconds the minutes, pushing us forward.

I pressed my face into the hard, smooth plains of his chest. Soon it would no longer be mine to nestle into, to call home, refuge. To lick.

His phone rang, and I took a step back as he fished for it in a pocket. It was then I realized that unlike everyone else around us who had opened their phones, adjusting them to the new time zone and American service carriers, we were the only ones not checking our messages, our email, our Facebook, our TikTok, our Instagram. As they stood motionless waiting in line, everyone around us scrolled and scrolled and scrolled.

Not us.

Beck snaked his arm around me as he answered his phone. “Hey, Dad. We just landed in JFK. Waiting to go through passport control.”

“What? What happened?” His body stiffened. He released me. “No, no, no.” A hand to his forehead. I clutched his waist. Our line was moving, and I kept us and our stuff moving along with it.

“Is he alive?” Beck’s voice broke.

Oh my God.

“Tell him I’ll be there tonight. You tell him… No, it’s okay. I’m glad you told me…Shit, I can’t believe this… Let me know how he is after you see him. Text me, okay? Okay. Okay, yeah. Bye.”

“What is it, Beck? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Jude.” He looked around us and leaned in to me, lowering his voice. “Jude’s in the hospital, he collapsed at a party, probably overdosed.”

My hand flew to his arm. “Oh my God.”

His face paled, his jaw tight, sunglasses back on his face.

“Step this way, please. This way, this way,” a security agent directed half of our line toward a newly opened booth. We scrambled with our stuff to the new line.

“My dad’s on his way to the hospital to see him, find out what exactly is going on.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“Next!” The security guard pointed to the open booth in front of us.

“Go on, Violet,” Beck said softly, his gaze riveted to the floor.

Grabbing the handle of my small suitcase, I went up to the passport control agent. “Hello.” He only nodded, his face neutral, unreadable as his trained gaze quickly took me in. What kind of picture did I present right this very moment? As messed up as I felt inside?

His grim gaze shot to my passport in my hand, and I slid it under the glass. He grabbed it, cracked it open, looked at me again and placed the dark blue booklet on a computer screen at his side where it got lasered.

I glanced back at Beck. Standing there behind a bold demarcation line, in pain, anguish. Alone. An ache erupted in my chest. Longing and sadness fissured through me. I wanted to rush at him, take him in my arms, tell him it would be okay, Jude would make it. But those were all words, words, words.

I wanted to comfort him. Be there for him to lean on. Do for him. Support him.

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