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He rolled his eyes. “You were the one to get me out of the bind, not the other way around. Trust me when I say that it was all my pleasure in getting you here. I fuckin’ hate teaching that class, and you saved me a week’s worth of headaches, paperwork, and dealing with bullshit.”
I imagined that I did.
“Anytime.”
With that, I tossed him the box of parts, then walked up the steps of the plane that two soldiers were holding open for me.
As soon as I passed through the door, it closed and sealed behind me.
I nodded at the pilot who was standing at the entrance, waiting for me to get on.
“Thanks for getting ‘er fixed up,” he called as I passed.
“No problem,” I said. “Try not to kill us on the way home.”
The pilot snorted. “I’ll do my best.”
I walked to the seat that my box was resting in and felt something inside of me tighten when I saw the woman that’d given me the stink eye when I’d told the joke earlier.
Her eyes were closed, so I used the time that it took her to open them to study her face.
She looked like that woman off of that country band, Little Big Town. The blonde with the fuckin’ curls.
Curls on top of curls.
The woman’s face was surrounded by them, and I wondered how the hell she ever got it tamed enough to fit it into a regulation bun.
Her face was beautiful, in an unsuspecting kind of way.
She had long, dark eyelashes, beautiful bow-tie lips, and dimples.
She had motherfuckin’ dimples.
Dimples that disappeared and reappeared as she clenched and unclenched her jaw.
The way she was clutching her hands so tightly in her lap led me to believe that she was a nervous flyer.
Great.
And when those eyes finally opened, and I got a look at the beautiful greenish/blue hue, I felt my stomach drop.
God, she was beautiful.
A goddamn knockout.
“You’re in my seat,” I said.
She frowned and looked at the seat holding my box of shit.
“What’s wrong with that one?” she asked accusingly.
“That one is too close to the goddamn wall, and I have wide shoulders,” I answered.
“Well, this guy has wide shoulders, too. You’ll be stuck either way you go about it,” she answered then.
I gritted my teeth, upset that she was partially right.
“You.” I gestured to the large man on her other side. “Go down there and switch with a small fucker in between two smaller fuckers.”
The man didn’t question me, but he probably would have had I not had authority leaking out of my every pore.
It was a weird thing, being in the military. You somehow always knew when someone was higher rank than you, or when someone could kick your ass.
Eventually you learned when to behave, and when not to.
When the kid moved, I moved my box and gestured for the girl to move.
She didn’t, and I had a distinct understanding of what she was waiting for.
“Please,” I finally gritted out.
She rolled her eyes and unsnapped her seatbelt, moving over to the next seat, and re-buckling in lightning fast. As if she was afraid that the plane would take off, and if she wasn’t strapped in safely, she’d take off with it.
I sat down and buckled my own seat, nodding at the small little woman that came to take the previously occupied spot next to me.
The woman nodded back and resituated herself, leaving me with the knowledge that I’d be stuck between two women for hours and hours on end.
Fuckin’ wonderful.
“That’s a nice shirt,” the curly blonde said softly. “Swoleminator?”
I looked down at the barfing, buff unicorn lifting weights that was also throwing up rainbows, and then shrugged. “My other shirt was fucked up after working on the plane. Some kid went to the only other guy on the base that happened to be my size, and obtained this.”
She looked like she wanted to laugh.
“It suits you,” she lied.
It didn’t.
Not even a little bit.
I wasn’t unicorns and rainbows.
Though, I was muscled.
When you had no one, lived alone, and worked for fun, there was only so much you could do. Lifting weights and eating well were just things that I did now to keep myself entertained. I liked to see how far I could push myself, and that came with a muscular body.
I was in my early forties, and nothing to show for it but a goddamn nice body, a failing career that was seriously taking more effort to continue than it should, and a life that I didn’t much see value in.
“It doesn’t,” I finally answered her.
She snorted. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
I allowed my legs to sneak out into the aisle, then crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes.
The engine began getting louder, and moments later, we were moving.
The woman on my right, the curly blonde, started to hyperventilate.
