Fly With Me (17 page)

A moment passed, and then Easy pulled me into a side hug, the carton of ice cream between us.

“Thanks.” He released me, picking the spoon up. “Go back to Noah. I'm going to drown my sorrows a bit longer.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

He nodded.

I squeezed his hand again and got up from the couch, heading down the dark hall to the bedroom. I stopped short as my body nearly collided with Noah's. I stifled a shriek.

He leaned against the wall, pajama pants slung low on his hips, cotton T-shirt rumpled. Pieces of his hair stuck up at weird angles from just getting out of the shower. Clearly he'd been listening to my conversation with Easy. He tucked me against his body, his arms at my waist. His lips brushed my hair, and then he whispered in my ear, his voice achingly soft.

“I love you.”

I froze, those three little words suddenly life changing.

I pulled back, my face tipping up to stare into his, my hand reaching up to trace the stubble at his jaw. His eyes closed as he leaned into my touch, and a whole other part of me melted.

“I love you, too.”

It just came out without thought or design. It just was.

“I don't ever want to lose you,” he whispered.

“Me, either.”

“Promise me we'll find a way to make this work.”

“I promise.”

We stood still, our limbs wrapped around each other, our heads bent, foreheads pressed together.

His grasp on me tightened. “Thanks for being nice to Easy,” he whispered.

“I was wrong about him. I didn't understand you guys before, but I get it now. He's a good guy.”

“Yeah, he is.”

Noah jerked his head toward the bedroom. “It's late. Come to bed.”

He clasped hands with mine and we walked down the hall to the room that was beginning to feel like
our
room, to the life that was beginning to feel like
our
life.

It was funny how three little words could change so much, and yet, somehow they did.

NOAH

The weekend went by quickly, and then I was back at work on Monday, four flights scheduled for the week.

“You got a second?”

I looked up at Joker standing in the doorway of my office.

“Yeah. What's up?”

“I just got a call from the guy who runs the Fighter Porch.”

“About me?”

One guy at the Fighter Porch handled all of the Air Force fighter assignments. We were put in groups known as VMLs based on the months when we arrived at our current assignment and then we received our new assignment based on our VML. Mine was still two VMLs away so it was weird that they'd call my squadron commander.

“Yeah. They're still fighting manning issues in Korea. Osan and Kunsan. They're nonvolling guys who have been on station for at least two years in their current assignment.”

Oh, fuck.

Joker saw my face. “Sorry, man. I know the timing sucks.”

“Sucks” didn't begin to cover it.

“When?”

He winced.

“Three months. Your Report No Later Than Date is July thirty-first.”

Motherfucker.

“Which base?”

“Osan.” Joker sighed. “I know this is a kick in the nuts personally, but he did tell me that they want you up at the Wing. Wing Weapons Officer.”

It was a good opportunity for me. I'd been stationed in Korea before, and as assignments went, it wasn't high on my list, but working at the Wing level was the kind of career advancement that would look great when my promotion board came around. But fuck, the timing couldn't have been worse.

“We're going to be sorry to lose you, man.”

I nodded, still processing this. A year ago, it wouldn't have fazed me. If my Air Force career had been defined by anything, it was that the one thing you could expect was the unexpected. But now?

Joker left and I sat there, staring at the phone, wondering how the hell I was going to explain this to Jordan. I'd always told her I had a year left in Oklahoma. We'd never even broached the possibility of my next assignment taking me outside of the United States. Or that it would spring up on me like this.

Fuck.

It was a two-year assignment. And I'd only get thirty days of leave a year. So even if I could take leave, which with the high ops tempo would be difficult to say the least, that meant
we'd only have thirty days a year to spend together. How did you sustain a relationship like that? Especially a new relationship?

Sure, we loved each other, but it wasn't like we were married. How could I ask her to wait two years for me? Two years of having a boyfriend and spending holidays, birthdays, anniversaries alone. Two years of me not being there for all the things that mattered in her life. How long would it be before she met a doctor or lawyer who worked normal hours and had some semblance of control over his life? How long before she got tired of waiting around for me and found someone who could make her happy and give her the things she wanted? She was thirty. She wanted kids, wanted to settle down.

When would I be able to give that to anyone?

Panic clawed at me. I loved her. I loved her and I was terrified that this would be the tipping point and I'd lose her. I'd screwed up when I'd missed her sister's wedding, was getting ready to go to Alaska for a fucking month and a half. And then when I returned, we'd have less than two months together before my ass would have to be on a plane to Korea.

Fuck.

JORDAN

I curled up on the couch, Lulu sitting on my feet, showing me her sad eyes, begging to be petted. I scratched her ears as she head-butted me, giving me soft little kisses.

Today had been a shit day. A really shit day.

Work had been hectic and I was exhausted by the time I got to my parents'. Only to be blindsided by another attempt
to “fix” my love life. I'd sat there for a fucking hour, listening to my mother throw some major shade about Noah missing Meg's wedding and all the ways he was wrong for me. Not to mention her not-so-subtle attempts to fix me up with pretty much every single guy left in town. At this point, I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that she'd set up an online dating profile for me and started vetting the future father of my children.

Ugh.

I definitely shouldn't give her any ideas. She'd jump on that one.

I would never have admitted it, but the truth was, her barbs were unbearable because I felt them. I knew I loved Noah, and he said he loved me, and yet I'd been burned enough times to question it. And I missed him. I hated that he was never here. Hated the distance between us. And now with this trip to Alaska coming up . . .

It just felt like I would always come second to the Air Force. And while part of me—the rational, adult part—understood that he couldn't help it, another part of me wondered what I was getting myself into.

In a way, my mother was right. Ugh. That never got easier to say. There was an element of this that screamed,
Danger: Heartbreak Ahead
. I didn't know how to love him and not want to be with him. And at the same time, I loved my job, had worked hard to get where I was. I loved my family, loved my life in Florida. Giving that up to follow Noah seemed foolish. Or at the very least, terrifying.

Love was scary enough. Loving a military man was something else entirely. Because it wasn't just a matter of did he love me, or could he make me happy? It was did he love me
enough
to make me giving up everything else worthwhile? Could he make me happy
enough
to make it
worth me giving up a career that fulfilled me? It was a lot of pressure to put on anyone, especially on a new relationship, and it seemed like the questions I needed answers to were the ones that required a giant leap of faith.

Why did adulting have to be so freaking hard?

I grabbed my cell, ignoring Lulu's soft growl of protest when I stopped scratching her. I needed to hear Noah's voice to erase the sound of my mother saying things like,
What are you doing with your life?

It was still kind of early in Oklahoma, and considering how late Noah usually worked, I figured the odds of reaching him were iffy, but I didn't care.

When he answered, I felt the first surge of relief.

“I wasn't sure if you'd be still at work.”

“I cut out a little early. I needed to come home and deal with some stuff.”

His voice sounded funny again.

“Are you okay? Did you have a bad day at work?”

Silence.

“Noah?”

A sinking feeling spread through my stomach. Something wasn't right.

“Are you okay?” I asked again, worry filling my voice.

“We need to talk.”

Those four words knocked the wind right out of me. This was it. Maybe I should have realized sooner that if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was. Hell, fifteen years of dating had taught me that if nothing else. Chupacabra, my ass.

My voice got tight.

“What's up?”

Did he meet someone else? Was he tired of long distance? Was he just not into me anymore? What the ever-loving fuck?

“I'm PCS-ing to Korea.”

That was one I hadn't heard before.

“PCS-ing?” I squeaked the word out, my mind racing, everything off.

Noah cursed. “Moving. It's my next assignment.”

I couldn't.

“For how long?” My voice sounded like it was far away, like part of me was drowning.

“Two years.”

I was going to be sick.

“I don't understand. You told me you weren't going to move for another year.”

“I wasn't supposed to. But they need guys to go to Korea and it's not necessarily a popular assignment right now. Especially for guys with families. So they've started nonvolling guys, which basically means in my case, that because I've been in Oklahoma for two years, they're able to move me to Korea even though I wasn't in the cycle to move and I didn't volunteer for the assignment.”

I couldn't get my bearings, couldn't even come up with anything to say in response. It all just sounded so bizarre. I mean, yeah, I'd accepted that he lived in a world that was unlike any I'd ever known, and one I'd probably never understand, but this was just so unexpected, so fucked up. I couldn't process it. It felt like he was delivering this news to someone else. I heard the words, but I couldn't wrap my head around how they related to me.

“When?”

How much longer did I have with him?

He was silent for another beat, which I'd already figured out was his precursor for bad news.

“At the end of July.”

My stomach sank.

“That's in three months.”

More silence.

Another thought occurred to me. “You're going to Alaska for a month and a half.”

“Yeah.”

His voice sounded as bad as I felt.

“I—”

I struggled to calm down, to organize my thoughts, struggled to get my shit together.

“I don't know what to do with this.”

“I know.”

Maybe it was a good thing for him. Maybe it was good for his career. I should have been happy for him. Shouldn't have been as freaked out as I was. But we'd just said,
I love you
. We'd gotten to the point where this no longer felt like a casual fling, or a relationship in that awkward phase of where-do-we-stand, and instead felt like
something
. Something that was us trying to build a life together. And now he was leaving.

And it felt like my heart was breaking. And, oh God, I was going to start crying.

“Listen, I, uh, need to go, but I'll call you later, okay?” I pushed the words out, my voice cracking, heart hammering.

“Jordan.”

God, this sucked. So freaking much. Why couldn't I have fallen in love with a dentist? Someone with a nice, normal job. My mother was right. I was a romantic shitshow.

“Jordan,” he repeated.

“I can't talk about this,” I whispered, the first tear trickling down my face. I didn't want to put my own shit on him. Didn't want him to hear me completely fall apart. And I was like a minute away from completely losing it.

“We need to talk about it.”

I wiped the tear off my cheek. “I'm not sure what there is to talk about.”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Us.”

“What us?”

He was silent again. When he finally did speak, his words brought more tears.

“I don't want to lose you.”

God.

I closed my eyes, unable to stave off the onslaught of tears any longer.

“I don't want to lose you, either.”

He groaned. “I can't stand the thought of you crying.”

I sniffled, the sound nothing like the cute, birdlike sniffles you heard when girls cried on TV or in movies. I was an ugly crier in the extreme.

“I'm sorry. I don't want to make this worse.” I wiped at my face again. “I just wasn't prepared for this.”

“I know. I wasn't, either.”

I closed my eyes. “Is this good for you? Professionally, I mean? Are you excited about it?”

I remembered that he'd been stationed in Korea before. Maybe this wasn't as weird for him as it was for me. He was probably used to the moving and everything that came with it.

“A year ago, it would have been fine. Now . . .” He sighed. “I love you.”

That was the part that made it even worse. I could see myself being with him. Really being with him. If you stripped away the military stuff, I had no doubt that I would want to marry him. That he would be it for me. Even with the military stuff . . .

“I need to know what this means for us,” he continued, his voice thick with emotion.

“I—”

I didn't know what it could mean for us. Long distance was hard, but doable, when we were a somewhat short plane ride away. But flying to Korea? Maybe we could do it a couple times, but nowhere near as often as we saw each other now, and even that didn't feel like enough.

How did you make a relationship work if you never saw each other?

“I don't know,” I answered.

“Okay.”

The sadness in his voice pulled at my heart.

“Do you want to break up?”

And that pierced me.

“No.” I didn't even have to think about it, the word just escaped, partly in a panic. I had no idea how this would play out between us, but I did know that I wasn't ready to give up on us.

“Do you want to break up?” I asked, fear clogging my throat.

“No.”

“So what then?”

“I don't know. I know it's a lot to ask of you. It's two years. I'll get maybe a month off each year. It sucks, I know. But I promise I'll come see you every chance I get. And maybe you could come out there for a few visits.”

It wasn't much, but I knew he was trying. Seeing each other a little bit was at least better than not seeing each other at all.

So why did I feel like crying? Why did I feel like the writing was already on the wall?

“I'm so sorry.”

I knew he was. I could hear it in his voice. But it didn't make it easier, or better. And it wouldn't make up for the
fact that I felt like I was in a relationship, but not really in a relationship. Like we were playing at being a couple without the intimacy I craved. I'd been single most of my life. I wanted someone to spend holidays and special events with. As corny as it sounded, I wanted someone to make memories with. To come home to after a long day. And now Noah would be even farther away and I wondered at what point the phone calls would cease to be enough. For both of us. Hell, we had a tough enough time talking now—what would it be like with the time difference?

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

I couldn't lie.

“I don't know how we can make this work.”

He sighed. “Me, either.”

“I just keep wondering if it should be this hard.”