Clint laughed. "Much better after-party than the Navy Ball."
"You're telling me." I touched his face. "But I guess that worked out too. Gave me an excuse to give you a ride home after work."
"So was that your devious plan all along?"
"Totally."
"Well, it worked." He pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. "And now I keep coming home with you."
"To be fair, I go home with you too."
"Hmm. Yeah. Seems pretty fair and balanced to me."
Our eyes met, and we laughed.
"To be serious," I said, "I like how things have worked out. It's been . . . it's been really nice."
"Yeah, it has."
And how long can I realistically expect it to last?
I shoved that thought away. "Listen, um . . . You have plans for the holidays?"
"Not at the moment, no."
"Well." I hesitated again. Oh, to hell with it. "I'm going down to San Diego for a few days. Spending Christmas with my old RIO and his wife. Do you want to come along?"
"Really?"
"Yeah." I shrugged as if it were no big thing. "Could be fun, you know?"
"Are you sure your friends wouldn't mind?"
"Oh hell. I could bring the entire command to their place, and they'd just put more leaves in the table." Truth was, I'd texted them earlier to be absolutely sure. And of course, because that was their way, they'd responded with We'll put another leaf in the table.
Clint pursed his lips. "Are you flying or driving?"
"Flying. No way in hell is my back tolerating a drive that long."
He grimaced. "Oh yeah. I can imagine."
"Is that okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah." He exhaled. "Just, um, really don't like flying." He laughed self-consciously. "And I'm saying this to a pilot . . ."
I touched his face. "It's understandable. I'm not a real big fan of it myself. So, bad experience? Or a phobia?"
"Phobia."
"Damn. And I'd be happy to drive down, but . . . my back . . ."
"No, no. I get that. Flying is fine. Just, uh, don't be surprised if I'm not real chatty." He avoided my gaze. "It's not a long flight. I'll be all right."
"Are you sure? You can say no if it's-"
"No." He lifted his head. "I'd love to go. I can handle the flight . . ."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." He put his hands on my waist. "I'll buy a ticket tomorrow. And thanks. For the invite, I mean."
"Don't mention it." I smiled. "All right. Great. I'm looking forward to it."
"Me too."
I wrapped my arms around him. "Well, with that taken care of, we're already here." I gestured toward the stairs. "Want to call it a night?"
Normally, one of us hesitated, but this time, he nodded. "Sounds good. I am beat."
"God, me too."
He must've been exhausted, because he faded fast. In minutes, he was back to slow, steady breathing-probably out cold.
I smiled and kissed his shoulder, wincing as that motion strained my neck. The pain lessened, though, and I closed my eyes.
This wasn't the first night we'd spent together, but it felt different. Less temporary, in a strange way. More normal.
It was like we could relax into this now because we'd passed a bunch of tests. We'd been out publicly as a couple in front of our coworkers. My best friend thought Clint was great. We'd seen each other in the throes of PTSD nightmares. He'd had more than one good hard look at the chronic pain I tried like hell to keep hidden, and it hadn't scared him off or reminded him that things weren't going to get any better. In fact, he was the first to ever let me get comfortable so he could adapt to me.
There was no such thing as comfortable when my injuries were flaring up, but this was as close to it as I could get. Having Clint's warm skin against mine, and his arm slung across my stomach, was nice. Kind of addictive, but that was no surprise-everything about him was addictive.
Okay, so we'd see how things went, and for the time being, I had this. And hell, as long as my back was keeping me awake tonight, I'd damn sure spend the time enjoying the crap out of lying here next to him.
Smiling to myself, I kissed the top of his head.
Yeah, there were definitely worse ways to spend a night.
It was cheaper to fly out of Portland than anywhere else, so we drove up the night before and stayed in a hotel. Early the next morning, we left my car in the airport's long-term parking, grabbed our bags, and headed inside.
Being Christmas, the lines were obscene even at our airline, which had automated check-in kiosks. Of course we'd arrived here way early, but as I scanned the thick crowd waiting to check in, I wondered if we'd given ourselves enough time. I could only imagine what the security lines would be like.
"Think we'll make it?" I asked.
Travis scowled. "I hope so."
The line crawled forward. The people around us grew progressively bitchier and less patient, probably for the same reasons Travis and I kept checking our watches and phones. Over and over, I told myself we'd be fine. We still had almost three and a half hours between now and when our flight would start boarding.
I glanced at Travis, and my stomach tightened. If we were down to the wire, I had no problem sprinting across the airport. The thought of that would probably make Travis turn green. And for God's sake, his back wasn't bothering him today, so I prayed to the gods of air travel that everything went smoothly so it stayed that way.
And while I was at it, I added a couple of prayers for the plane to take off, stay in the air, and land gently at the other end without reducing all of us to a smoldering wreckage of metal and Christmas gifts.
I shuddered.
"You okay?" Travis asked.
"Yeah." I fussed with the strap of my carry-on bag just for something to do. "I'm good."
He eyed me uncertainly, but didn't push. I'd briefed him already on my fear of flying, and for a man who used to rocket around the sky in a fighter jet, he was remarkably sympathetic.
Of course he's sympathetic. He's survived a crash before.
My heart stopped.
How many crashes do people get to survive in one lifetime?
Is he tempting fate by pushing his luck and flying again?
Is he insane?
No. No, I was pretty sure he wasn't the insane one in this line.
I pulled out my phone and perused my email, social media, sports scores . . . anything that didn't involve air travel and plane crashes. I'd already resigned myself to getting on this plane, and assuming the line moved in the near future, I'd get on it, I'd get to San Diego, and I'd be fine. People flew every single day without incident. The odds were completely in our favor. We'd be fine.
Hopefully.
The line started moving faster-it looked like the airline had opened up a few more kiosks-and before long, we were at the front. We printed our boarding passes, and since we had no bags to check, headed for security.
Naturally, the line was three miles long. People who'd probably quietly stewed in their check-in lines had given up all pretense of going with the flow. In the back, there were loud comments about missing flights for sure. Closer to the middle, those comments were laced with increasing amounts of profanity. Near the front, we had apparently hit the jackpot, and were surrounded by at least a hundred people who were mystified by the notion of shoe removal, liquid restrictions, or body scanners.
Travis and I got separated in the shuffle. One minute, we were right next to each other, and the next, we were directed to different conveyor belts.
"Meet you on the other side," I called over my shoulder.
He offered a two-fingered salute, and we moved to our respective lines to dump everything we owned into trays.
My line was short, and I got lucky-I wound up behind the only people in this airport who seemed to know what they were doing. Shoes, belts, phones, change, wallets, laptops-everything went into the trays and onto the belts, and each person went through the body scanner in no time flat.
On the other side, after I'd collected my things, I sat down to put my shoes back on. I looked around for Travis, but he hadn't come through yet. By the time I'd finished putting myself back together, he still hadn't appeared. What the hell?
I glanced at my watch. We had less than half an hour to get to our gate. Hopefully they hadn't decided to strip search him or something. Maybe I'd give him some hell later about looking like a suspicious shady bastard, but that could wait until we were out of the airport. We didn't need to wind up in a TSA office getting questioned about exactly what suspicious shady bastard meant.
Where the hell are you?
Then I caught sight of him. He was standing on the other side of the body scanner, arms folded and features hardened like they were when he was chewing someone out at work. And in front of him, keeping him from getting through the damn scanner, was a well-dressed man arguing with the TSA agent. Travis couldn't go around him, especially since his bag had already gone through the X-ray machine.
He looked my way and rolled his eyes. Just what he needed.
I got up and collected his things for him. A moment later, the obnoxious passenger finally moved, and Travis stepped into the scanner.
As he joined me, he grumbled, "About fucking time."
"What was his problem?"