Page 52 of I Hear You

“I’m a writer. I like to know things. Can you just tell me what’s happening so I can visualize what I can’t see happening?”

Anything Madison ever asks me to do, I’m going to do it. This girl has had me wrapped around her finger for longer than she even realizes. So I explain to her we’re taking off. The sounds she’s hearing are the plane's wheels being lifted and put away, and we are in fact turning, but it’s a slow, deliberate turn. When we’ve been in the air for about an hour, she starts to relax and look around. I’m pretty sure this is the first time she’s actually seeing where we are.

Emmett’s parents' airplane is stupid nice. I’ve only been in it once before when I went to Disney World with him for his twelfth birthday. There are four rows of seats on each side of an oversized aisle, only two seats per row. The seats are a lot bigger and a lot nicer than on commercial airplanes. The bathroom is three times the size of the shoe boxes I’ve had to piss in on your standard plane and one of the best features of this plane, a queen size bed in the back of the plane.

I don’t think this is the time for me to be thinking about joining the mile high club and my chances of it happening are pretty much zero with how pissed off Madison is with me. Although she hasn’t let go of my hand yet, even though she seems to be much calmer.

“Henry.”

Hearing my name jolts me out of my inappropriate daydreaming about Madison and the bed.

“Yeah, Mads?”

“How richisEmmett’s family?” She asks, her eyes wide as she takes in the opulence we’re surrounded by.

I do laugh now, just a little.

“Well… I don’t know for sure because they’re not braggers despite owning a personal jet–but if I had to guess, I would definitely say they’ve got more money than we will ever even see in our lifetime, rich. And that’s including if I ever sign an NFL deal.”

She nods, says nothing, and gets a little more comfortable in her seat. The pilot announces we can take our seatbelts off, and Madison realizes she’s still holding my hand. She jerks it away. The spell is broken.

“I really wish I would have used the restroom before we left. How long is the flight?” Madison asks me, her knee bouncing up and down.

“There’s a bathroom on the plane. It’s at the back. We should land in about four hours.”

She turns in her seat and looks to the back of the airplane, biting that damn lip of hers again. I get lost in thought, staring at it. I’m pretty sure my jaw is slack and drool is threatening to escape my mouth. I pull myself together.

“Would you like me to walk back there with you?”

She nods and I stand and hold out my hand to her. She takes it hesitantly and I walk her back to the bathroom.

Another hour passes and we’ve been sitting here in silence, mostly. I’m hoping I’ll magically grow some balls big enough to ask her if she wants to talk about the fact I lied to her–well, that I wasn’t honest with her. Nope. I lied. It was a lie by omission. Madison apparently has bigger balls than I do–.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were when you found the email in your truck?”

She’s not looking at me when she asks this. She’s sitting with her legs crossed and tucked up on the seat, her hands in her lap, fingers fidgeting.

I guess we’re having this conversation now, and I need to do my best to be honest with her.

“Well, at first I was in shock. I mean, what are the odds of you ending up in my hometown? The odds have to be even lower that I’d run into you on the day you arrived. And then the paper must have fallen out of your bag–it was all way too crazy to even believe at first.”

I pause, gathering my thoughts, knowing I have to be honest with her, but my honesty may end up pissing her off more. She doesn’t push me to keep talking. She sits there patiently, waiting. I’m so scared of losing her, even though I’ve never really had her.

“When the initial shock wore off I–I got it in my head, if I could get to know you in real life as Henry, and you could get to know me–maybe you’d care enough for me as Henry I wouldn’t have to tell you, or if I told you eventually, you’d somehow get over it because you’d already fallen for me. I know, it’s stupid and wrong and deceitful. I just —”

I hang my head, rub the back of my neck, and let out a sigh.

“Once I had you here, in real life, right in front of me. I didn’t want to give you up. I didn’t want you to run for the hills–or I guess the beach since you live in California–”

She gives me a half smile, almost a pity smile, at my joke. Trying to be funny right now probably won’t work in my favor. Get it together, dude.

“When you stopped responding to my emails, I was gutted, Mads. I left everything on the table and you walked away from it. You just fell off the face of the earth. When I felt like I had a second chance, I ran with it. I know this isn’t fair, but I thought, if I could get you to love me as Henry, maybe–I don’t know. And then the kiss —”

I let out a rough moan without even thinking. I look at Madison. Her eyes widen and she sucks in a breath. I notice, but just barely, when she flexes the muscles in her thighs. Our eyes meet but she averts hers, turning her attention back to her hands in her lap that are still twisting around each other. Just being in her presence, breathing the same air as her, sets my skin on fire.

I take a deep breath and try to finish my thoughts.

“I know not telling you right away was wrong, and for that I am truly so sorry, Mads. I’m not sorry though about anything I wrote in that email because I still feel all of it. I feel it even more now. And I am sorry for running away like a little bitch, but I’m not sorry for kissing you. I could never be sorry about kissing you.”

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