Page 72 of Meant to be Mine

KENSEY

“You’re going to love this,” Drew said as the car pulled onto the actual tarmac.

When he invited me to go to San Francisco, I was thinking a little puddle jumper packed with thirty people. It never dawned on me he meant we were flying private.

“A private jet.”

He looked at me. “You’ve known me for over a decade. You know how we roll. Or fly.

“And somehow, in all that time, you never put me on a plane.”

“To be fair, most of our time together was spent driving around Los Angeles eating burgers.”

I shook my head and reminded myself this was his life. I had grown up in a perfectly comfortable middle-class house in the same neighborhood I’d ridden my bike around until I was thirteen. And now I was standing on a tarmac about to board a private aircraft.

“Is this yours?” I asked.

“Family plane,” he said, carrying both our bags. “It gets shared around. Callum used it last week. My parents went to New York the week before.”

“So it’s just sitting there when nobody needs it.”

“Essentially.”

“Drew.” I stopped walking. “Why the hell haven’t you flown me somewhere before?”

He turned around, grinning. “I told you. It’s not my plane.”

“You could have called dibs at any point in the last ten years and taken me to Paris.”

“Paris,” he repeated, like he was filing that away. “Noted.”

“I’m just saying. I’ve been eating airport pretzels and dealing with ridiculous delays like a peasant for years while this thing was just sitting here.”

He grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the stairs. “Get on the plane, Kensey.”

The interior was cream leather and warm wood paneling with gold accents. I could feel the luxury. It was understated, but that just made it louder. Four wide seats arranged in two pairs facing each other, a small couch along one side, a bar setup built into the wall that looked better stocked than most restaurants I’d been to. It smelled faintly of leather and maybe cedar. Nothing like the sweat, farts, and stinky feet of the last airplane I’d been in.

I sat down in one of the seats and immediately ran my hands along both armrests.

“This is obscene,” I said.

“Comfortable?”

“Shut up. This is nicer than the first apartment I had in New Jersey. I think it might be nicer than the apartment I have now.”

He dropped into the seat across from me and stretched his legs out. He was in dark jeans and a polo shirt, sunglasses pushed back on his head. He looked completely at home, which made sense because he basically was. I was the one sitting there running my hands over the leather like I was petting a very expensive dog. That’s when I noticed the screen on the wall. A big one.

“You have a TV on here?” I asked.

He turned his head. “Of course. Need something to pass the time.”

“You’re purposely being obnoxious.”

He flashed that cheesy grin and winked. “Wait until you see what the inflight snacks look like.”

“It’s an hour flight,” I reminded him.

He shrugged. “Guy needs snacks.”