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She beamed and nodded once, then we parted ways. In the lounge, I went straight to the vending machine and bought a Snickers before plopping down on the black leather sofa. I pulled my phone out again. Nothing from Zac, but he was probably barely arriving on the scene at this point, so I shouldn’t have expected to hear from him anyway.
Navigating through my contacts, I called Shelby. I needed a distraction, and since Paul and Will were leaving on deployment tomorrow, I wanted to check in on her and make sure she was doing okay.
“Hey,” Shelby answered after the first ring.
“Hi, friend. How are you?”
Shelby let out a noise that was a cross between a groan and a sigh. “Oh, you know, hating life. Paul’s packing right now and the floor is covered with gear and clothes and stuff he says he probably won’t even use. And I’m just sitting on the couch watching him. Anyway, I mean, I’m fine. I’m hanging in there. You know.”
I didn’texactlyknow, since Zac had just gotten back from a deployment when we met, so I hadn’t experienced any as his girlfriend, but I could definitely relate. Especially now that we were back together, and I’d been thrown into this world again so suddenly.
“I do,” I replied. “Is there anything I can do for you? Maybe we should have an emergency girls’ night this week so you and Aria don’t have to be alone.”
“That would be really nice. Aria and I are probably going to need all the girl time we can get for the next seven months.”
“You got it. Whenever you need us, you know we’ll be there.”
Shelby chuckled. “Well, I don’t know. Lyndi and Aria, yes. But you’re in a brand-spanking-new relationship now. I bet you’ll want to spend all your free evenings with Zac, right?”
“It’s so weird to think of it asnewwhen it’s him. But, yeah, we’re really trying to treat it that way.”
“I get it. I think it’s smart. And for what it’s worth, I think that hypothetical thing was brilliant on his part. A-plus for sure.”
“Agreed.” Blushing, I remembered how sweet he was that night and how hard he’d worked to win me over. Hopefully, it would work out exactly as he’d thought it would. No drama, no problems, just happily ever after. But since trust took time to build, we’d have to wait and see.
My phone beeped to signal that someone was on the other line, so I pulled my phone away from my ear to look at it. “Hey, Aria’s calling me on the other line. I’ll call you tomorrow to check on you. Keep hanging in there. I love you, and don’t worry, time will fly!”
“Thank you. Love you too.”
I clicked over, grinning into the phone. “Hey, speak of the devil.”
“Are you on your free period?” Aria asked, her voice frantic.
“Yes, what’s wrong?”
She sniffed. “Ugh, I’m a mess. Will just left to go get stuff for dinner tonight, and he spent all morning packing his gear, and I just don’t think I can handle this deployment.”
I stood up to pace, summoning all of my supportive friend vibes. “Yes, you can. You are a strong woman, Aria Bris— I mean, AriaPaxton. You’ll make it through this one and all the others, and then when he retires, you guys will be golden after going through all of this.”
She sniffed again, but she also let out a small hum. “What if something happens to him? He works on the flight line, and it’s a dangerous place.”
“Nothing is going to happen to him. And you’ll have us here to remind you of that every day. I promise. I was just talking to Shelby before you called, and we’re going to have a girls’ night this week. We can have one every week if we need to.”
“I’d say every day would be nice, but Zac might take issue with that.”
I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “You and Shelby spend too much time together. She practically made the same joke.”
“Well, can you blame us? It’s so exciting that you guys are back together. I bet you want to spend every minute together. As you should.”
“Sort of. We’ve been texting constantly since Saturday night. But we’re trying not to jump in too fast, you know? I didn’t hang out with him on Sunday because of Grayson. We want to make sure this is going to work before Zac tells him we’re together.”
Aria thought about it for a minute before she answered. It seemed like both of my friends were enjoying talking about me and Zac so they could get their minds off the looming deployment, and if that was what they needed, I was happy to do it. It helped me, too.
“Zac seemed pretty confident it would work out at the wedding, so it’s cool that he’s taking it slow.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
My belly tightened as I remembered his conversation with Paul about us getting engaged. He’d seemed so sure it would happen, and I desperately wanted to believe him. But I couldn’t help it. Some part of me still had walls up, and I had a feeling that part was my still wounded heart.
