Page 43 of Only Time Will Tell

“I’m sorry, Alex. I guess I needed a nap,” he apologized, and squeezed my hand.

“Come on, let’s head to the gate. At least this time we have an hour before we board,” Thankfully, we’d checked our luggage for this trip so we wouldn’t have to drag it around LAX.

“Ooohhh, Starbucks,” he sang and bolted right for their kiosk.

I rolled my eyes and followed. The urge to buy one of those child leash/harness sets for him was strong.

We grabbed a seat where the gate was in view after getting our venti boosts of caffeine.

“Where to next?” he asked.

I pulled the boarding passes for leg two of our trip from my backpack and handed him his.

“Indonesia?” He crinkled his nose.

“Really, Charlie? Are you going to be a total shit for our entire honeymoon?”

The next flight was sixteen hours. If he didn’t chill the fuck out, I was going to find a Sky Marshal and ask him to shoot a tranq of Xanax up Charlie’s ass.

“And for your information, that’s stop two of three and it’s a long fucking flight, so you may want to consider keeping your nasty comments to yourself.” I turned away, choosing to people watch in lieu of arguing with him.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, while pulling his iPad from his backpack and diving into his latest literary obsession. Thank the literary gods for that.

I dozed off as soon as we were in the air for a couple of hours. When I turned to face Charlie, he had his feet curled up beneath him, sucking on his bottom lip, completely enthralled in his book. Seeing him like that erased the anger I’d harbored throughout the morning.

“Hey,” I said, rubbing his knee.

“Hey, yourself.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I’m really sorry for being such an ass this morning. I hope I didn’t ruin our honeymoon.” Those sad little puppy dog eyes got me every time.

“We were both tired, and over stressed. Let’s chalk it up to that and start over. Okay?” He raised the armrest between us and lay against me, my wrapped around him. “It’s okay, baby,” I said, kissing the top of his head.

He resumed reading while I stared out the window, waiting for our meals to be served. As soon as the dinner service was over we dozed off, waking with stiff necks and knotted backs. Next time I’ll consider upgrading to first class.

“Ugh, what time is it?” Charlie asked, stretching out the kinks.

“Two a.m. in Seattle. I think where we’re going is about sixteen hours ahead of us. We should be landing in Indonesia shortly, but we’ll have a short road trip to the hotel when we land.” I tried my best to stretch, which wasn’t an easy feat for a man my size.

“Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!” he screamed, rousing the passengers around us.

“What’s wrong?” My eyes darted around, scanning for blood or whatever had freaked him out.

“We’re going to Bali!” He jumped up and down in his seat like a kid on a candy high.

“Jesus, Charlie, you scared the shit out of me and woke everyone up.” But his excitement at figuring it out had me smiling. “And yes, we’re going to Bali.”

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so freaking excited.”

“Yes, and now everyone around us knows it too.” When I sat back down, he tried to hop in my lap. As much as I would have loved that, I knew others around us would not have felt the same, so I gently guided him down beside me. “Save it for later, baby.”

“Oh, it’s on!” He winked, and I knew all bets were off once the door to our hotel room shut.

Charlie bounced from heel to toe throughout the airport, down to the luggage carousel, and into the awaiting car. I was thankful for the short ride to the hotel and for the fact that the driver didn’t drop us off alongside the road and into the confines of the surrounding jungle. When Charlie was happy, I was happy, but that was one of the first times I’d wished I had duct tape with me to help contain him.

“Alex, this is so gorgeous.” He stared out the car window like a dog on a road trip.

“I’m glad you like it. I was nervous you’d be upset that it wasn’t Tuscany. We’re here, babe, come on,” I said, pulling him out of the car with me. The driver unloaded our bags and was still laughing at Charlie who’d asked him a million and one questions. Thankfully, he was a nice guy. I hadn’t considered the rules regarding homosexuality here. Probably should’ve done a bit of research on that first.

“Thank you,” I said, slipping a much deserved twenty-dollar tip into his hand.