We fall silent for a beat, just sitting, staring. The heaviness of my past crushes my chest, weighing down my limbs and making me feel like an awkward teenager for the first time since high school. The only reason anyone knew who I was back then was ’cause of Johnny. He wasn’t an all-bad guy, just broken and misguided. But everyone sure as hell knew who he was. And since I was his best friend, or rather his only friend, they all knew me, too.
The captain’s voice comes over the speakers and announces we’ve got a takeoff slot. He reiterates the need for our seatbelts, but his voice turns to background noise as the sharp intakes of breath by my side drown out everything else around me.
What is this woman’s damage?
Her hand seizes around mine. I clamp my lip between my teeth in a bid not to yelp out loud. I’m a strong guy, but it turns out that when Savannah Bowen is propelled by crushing fear, she’s pretty savage herself.
As the plane judders and starts moving, my stomach sinks. I admit, when I’d seen her sit down next to me and heard the captain announce a delay, I was convinced this was my very own forced proximity romance novel come to life.
If I was writing the story myself, our plane would have been canceled, she’d have beaten me to the last car at the rental place, and I’d have somehow convinced her to let me tag along for the ride. Maybe bribed her with snacks and candy to let me go with her.
We’d have snarked and bantered our way through as much of the 272 mile drive as we could before we got to a hotel for the night. A hotel—which of course would be in a place that was booked out for the holiday—save for one room, with one bed, that we’d have to share.
The story writes itself in the back of my mind as her trembling hand clutches mine. I wish I had use of all of my appendages so I could grab my laptop from under the seat in front of me and start pounding the keys. I can’t help it—the muse wants what the muse wants. And right now, since there’s no chance of my very own love story with the beautiful woman next to me who happens to hate my guts, I want to write it.
In my fictional, forced proximity story I’d of course be a gentleman at the hotel and offer to sleep on the couch, or the floor, hell, even in the bathtub if it made her feel comfortable.
But it’s the Midwest, right? So it would be cold, really fucking cold. Like freak blizzard cold. The heating could be broken in the hotel, and the icicles around her heart would eventually thaw and she’d let me lie on the double or queen bed with her.
Crap. I need to stop this thought process as my dick likes this story more and more.
The plane trundles toward the runway, and the closer we get, the louder and shallower Savannah’s breaths become. Her ashen face had tiny beads of sweat on it before, but now there are large droplets running down her face and trickling down the side of her nose.
Why would anyone do this to themselves? Why would anyone put themselves in a position to be so utterly terrified? Why didn’t she just drive?
My questions pop up like moles in Whack-a-Mole. I try to smack them down while I frantically search for something, anything I can do to distract her from her fear. I’d love to say it’s because she looks like she’s going to puke all over both of us, but I can’t take the waves of suffocating emotions rolling off her. And it’s all I want to do, absorb it all so she doesn’t feel any of it.
She’s muttering to herself now, something about changing doctors and never flying again. I don’t think she realizes that she’s rocking back and forth and looks like she might be summoning a demon from the depths of the underworld.
If I was writing this, right now my hero would kiss the heroine to snap her out of her traumatized state. He’d just grab her by her gorgeous sweaty face and lay one on her, right there during takeoff.
But this isn’t a romance novel, and I’m not sure I could grab her face even if I wanted to. My fingers are turning blue as pins and needles stab through them. She may be cutting off the circulation to my brain, too, and that’s why I can’t think of something else to talk to her about.
“Savannah?”
She shakes her head, still muttering under her breath, the roar of the engine and the rattles and shudders of the body of the plane drowning out whatever she’s saying to herself.
She scrunches her eyes as the wheels lift off the tarmac beneath us, and her cheek flexes so much I’d be amazed if she didn’t crack a tooth.
I could never do what she’s doing. I’d have said “fuck this shit” and walked the 272 miles rather than go through what she’s going through. She’s so fucking brave.
Fuck it.
I slide my arm around her shoulders and pull her close. Her whole body trembles as I hug her to me. It’s awkward over the armrest, but I can’t flip it up right now, and even if we’d leveled off in the air and I was allowed to, Savannah is now clinging to me like a freakin’ spider monkey.
Her nails dig into my thigh, pinching through my pants, her face is burrowed into my shoulder, and her hair tickles my nose. She smells of pineapple. I don’t know if it’s her lotion, her shampoo, or something she uses on her lips but all I can smell is pineapple. I kinda want to lick her to see if she tastes like it, too.
The plane shakes from side to side and her nails sink deeper into my skin. That’s going to leave marks. I shush her, sliding my hand up and down her spine, over the bumps of her bra strap and back down, rocking her back and forth.
I’m sure she has a return flight, and I know she won’t tell me when it is, but maybe I can convince her to coordinate somehow, or maybe she’d let me drive her back. Oh! Maybe I could ask Mom to ask Aunt Jennie if she could pick up a horse tranquilizer from the vet office she works at, and I could shoot her up with sedatives before she gets on the plane.
Her fear has exhausted me, so when she falls asleep on my shoulder and her body goes limp against mine, I’m not surprised. In fact, relief courses through my veins but I’m afraid to rest my head against hers in case she wakes up with a start and hits me with a head-butt.
I want to bury my nose in her hair, though. I want to brush my head from side to side in her soft locks and take a deep inhale so the hairs tickle my nose again. I want to drown in the scent of pineapples.
Do I have a sudden and consuming crush on the woman in my arms who hates me? Absolutely.
It seems to be my calling card, falling for unavailable women. Getting myself into awkward situations with people I barely know. Feeling more for people than they feel for me.
