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“Right,” Solo agreed, and then frowned. “So what do we know?”
“Well, we know we have a week until graduation.”
“Right.”
“And I’m pretty sure after last night we decided we want to try this thing out permanently.”
“Pretty sure?”
“Definitely sure.”
Solo smiled. “That’s better. What else do we know?”
“Uh… I think that about covers the known factors.”
“And the unknown would be”—he let go of my hand and began ticking the list off with his fingers—“we have no idea where we’ll be sent off to after graduation should we choose to accept our orders. We have no idea how long those missions will last or when we’ll see each other again.”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing hard now that we were throwing our future out into the open to dissect. “So we just… I don’t know. Hope we end up within a thousand miles of each other? FaceTime on the regular? Visit during our time off?”
“I guess so.”
“I mean, what other options do we have?”
Solo looked down at our hands and stayed silent for a long time. So long that I began to wonder if there wasn’t some other elephant in the room I didn’t know about.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said. “Just rip the Band-Aid off.”
When Solo’s eyes met mine, there was such a look of determination mixed with apprehensiveness that it made me wonder what the hell he was about to say.
“I’ve been having some thoughts,” he said slowly, as if whatever he was about to say was so foreign he had to roll them around on his tongue first. “What if…we made a different choice?”
29 Solo
IF SOMEONE HAD told me that during the last week of training at the Elite I would be contemplating anything other than kicking ass, taking home the trophy, and getting my orders to fly off to God knows where for my next mission, I would’ve told them they were fucking crazy.
But as I lay there next to Panther, the only thing I could think about was how we could be together if we were a million miles apart. Sure, there was the whole long-distance thing. But the idea of not being able to see him every day, of not being able to touch him, talk to him, and share my highs and lows was like a dark cloud hovering over us—one I had a feeling I wouldn’t shake if it became permanent.
“A different choice? Other than flying?” Panther’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“Yeah. I mean, flying would have to be part of it—can you really imagine trying to ground me?”
Panther shook his head and laughed. “Not in a million years. Wouldn’t want to, either. Flying is in your blood. It’s who you are.”
“It is, but the missions? The kills? They get harder every time.”
Panther’s expression turned serious. “Have you had many of those?”
“Four.” I kicked the sheet down from our waists and rolled to my stomach.
Panther reached out to run his fingers over the star tattoos decorating the back of my thigh. “That’s what these represent?”
I nodded as Panther traced one of the stars from one point to another. “I got them so I would never forget, but they’re painful to look at, so—”
“You put them back here.”
“Right.”
Panther leaned over toward me, and I craned up to meet his lips. The kiss was gentle, almost reverent, and when he raised his head, the wonder in his eyes made my heart thump.
“You constantly surprise me, you know that?”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Panther pressed another soft kiss to my lips and then propped his head up on his palm. “Actually, I’ve been feeling a bit of a disconnect myself lately.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm.” Panther started to fiddle with his dog tags. “I mean, like you, I can’t imagine not flying in some capacity. But the idea of being shipped off somewhere you’re not? I…I hate it. God, is that crazy? That after a handful of weeks with you I can’t imagine even a day without you?”
“Grant?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” As a blush bloomed on Panther’s cheeks, I chuckled and scooted over to kiss him. “And guess what?”
“What?”
“I want to be where you are too. So…now what?”
Panther shifted to his back. I moved into the crook of his arm and placed a kiss to his chest, and he smiled down at me.
“Now we think. We finish out our training, and then we look at our options.”
A silence fell, heavy but not uncomfortable as we each thought about what the other had said. This was big. As in life-changing. Here we were, two guys who came into the Elite Academy with one goal in mind: to come out on top. We wanted to rule the air, be crowned the king of the sky, and walk away with every opportunity such a prestigious title would afford.
Now? Now we wanted all of those things, but so we could choose what we wanted next with each other, and that was huge.
