Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Tyler
The plane is so loud. Every dip, turn, or judder freaks me out.
The only thing keeping me even halfway to calm is Emmet’s hand on mine, and his soft, grounding voice.
We’ve been in the air for almost an hour, and he hasn’t stopped talking to me.
The man is a saint. I’m so lucky to have ended up sitting next to him.
The air stewards have served the evening meal.
I have to admit, it looks and smells better than I was expecting, but I have no appetite.
“You should eat,” Emmet prompts.
He’s almost finished his meal. All I’ve done is sip water.
I shake my head. If I eat, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up throwing up.
I’m not convinced the paper sick bags we’ve all been provided with will do the job they’re intended for.
Besides, it would be mortifying to vomit while sitting next to a gorgeous guy.
Good looking, kind, and patient. It’s like Emmet stepped off the pages of a romance novel or something.
“Try to eat. Start with the bread.”
Relenting, I sigh, pick up the small bread roll, tear it apart, and nibble on it. It’s plain enough that it helps settle my stomach a little.
“You said it was the first time you’ve been on a plane?” he asks.
I nod.
“It’s the first time you’ve been abroad?”
“Oh, no. I’ve been to France and Amsterdam. The Eurostar is great.”
He chuckles. “It is a pleasant way to travel.”
“I guess I should have tried a short flight first, huh? It’s just… once my parents set the wheels in motion for this trip, I couldn’t pull the brakes.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Oh?”
“We wouldn’t have met if you had.”
My heart flutters. “Ah, but you can’t miss something you don’t know exists.”
“True. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“The friends you’re staying with are twenty-seven?”
I gaze at him in wonderment. He remembered. “Yeah, about that. Well, Zeke and Rett are. Their husband, Micah, is older.”
Emmet arches an eyebrow.
“And you’re—?”
“Thirty-five.”
Eleven years older than me. No wonder he’s so much calmer than me. That and he’s not scared of flying.
He continues chatting to me while I finish the bread. I try the chicken, which is nice but too rich for my stomach right now. The air steward who’s been looking out for me checks on me again as she clears our trays away.
“We’ve got some bread rolls left if you want another?” she offers.
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
She smiles, nods, and carries on with her work.
“Maybe I should watch a film or something,” I muse. “Then you could do whatever it is you usually do on flights, rather than worrying about me.”
“If you want to. You don’t have to. I’m enjoying myself.”
It’s sweet that he keeps saying that, but I don’t see how it can possibly be true.
The plane shudders, judders, and rumbles. I’d finally relinquished my grip on the seat, but now I grab the arms again, clinging on so tightly it hurts.
“It’s just a little turbulence. It’s nothing to worry about,” Emmet says.
“It feels like the plane’s going to drop out of the sky.”
“It’s not. I promise.” He gestures to the flight attendants. “See how they’re still working?”
I nod.
“If there was a problem, they wouldn’t be clearing trays without a care in the world.”
His logic is sound, but it doesn’t comfort me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve apologized to him.
“You don’t need to be.” He gives me a sympathetic look. “Turbulence can be scary, but the plane is built to withstand it. It’s bumpy air. That’s all.”
“How can air be bumpy?”
“I think it’s to do with changes in air pressure. Something like that, anyway. I’ve always thought of it like driving along an uneven road.”
“We have lots of those in the UK,” I mutter. “I don’t drive, though. Never learnt.”
The plane stops rattling. I breathe deeply and slowly to calm myself. It helps, but not as much as Emmet stroking the back of my hand.
“Do you think you could sleep?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“What if I helped?”
I frown. “Helped how?”
He unfastens his seat belt and retrieves his bag from the overhead locker. “You can borrow these, for a start.” He hands me a pair of expensive-looking over-the-ear headphones and an eye mask, which is soft and cool. Is it satin or silk? Wow. “They’re noise-canceling headphones.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Yes, you can.” He leans down and retrieves one of the blankets from the spare seat next to him and removes it from the plastic wrapper. “I find being all tucked up helps me relax.”
“All tucked up?”
“May I?”
I nod. Emmet has been taking care of me since I bumped into him. He might be a stranger, but I trust him. He arranges the blanket over me and tucks it in, cocooning me up to my neck. Even my arms are snugly beneath the blanket.
“How is that?”
“Nice.”
He smiles. “I’m going to put the eye mask on you next, all right?”
My brain stutters. For a moment, I imagine we’re in a bedroom, rather than a plane, and he’s a Dom, asking to blindfold me.
Heck, he’s already effectively restrained me.
Wait. He didn’t bat an eyelid when I mentioned Micah is a Daddy.
Or that he, Rett, and Zeke are all in a relationship together.
And he’s been taking care of me. Is Emmet a Dom?
“Ty?”
Oh, right, he’s waiting for my permission. My permission. Emmet’s a Dom.
I almost blurt out ‘green’, but instead manage to stutter, “Y-yes. That’s fine.”
The last thing I see before he puts the eye mask on me is the kind sparkle in his eyes and his gentle smile. The eye mask blocks all light.
“And now the headphones,” he says. “I’ll be right here, Ty. I’m not going anywhere.”
“For the whole flight?”
He chuckles. “Yes. Although I reserve the right to go to the bathroom.”
I laugh nervously. “Thank you.” I bite my lower lip to stop myself from calling him ‘Sir’.
He puts the headphones over my ears. It’s weird.
They cut out almost all the noise, replacing it with what I can only describe as a vacuum of sound.
It’s not silent, just oddly quiet. He puts his hand over mine, making me wish the blanket wasn’t separating his skin from mine.
I recline into a slightly more comfortable position.
Emmet must have put my seat back. He strokes my hand through the blanket, a calming, comforting motion that helps me drift into relaxation.
The compression of the blanket, the darkness of the eye mask, and the muffling effect of the headphones make me oddly weightless.
For the first time since I boarded the plane, my heart rate settles into a normal rhythm, my breathing calms, and everything drifts away.
“Ty.”
I wake with a start. “Huh?”
Emmet chuckles as he removes the eye mask and headphones. Light and sound crash into me, an overwhelming cacophony that takes a moment to adjust to.
“We’ll be coming into land soon,” Emmet says, putting the mask and headphones away.
“We— What?”
He stows his bag in the overhead locker. “You fell asleep.”
“And missed the whole flight?”
“Most of it, yes.”
I gape at him. “Are you a magician or something?”
He laughs. “A magician?”
“Yes! I was terrified, and then you worked some kind of magic and sent me to sleep.”
“It wasn’t magic.”
I’m not sure I believe him. “You’re amazing,” I whisper.
The plane dips, and there’s a thunk. My heart goes into overdrive again.
“That was the landing gear going down. Look out the window.”
I obey, staring with wide eyes at the glittering lights of a city below us. It’s beautiful. I made it. I’m in New York. Sort of. Almost.
“Would you like to hold my hand during the landing?” he offers.
“I might break it.”
“I doubt it.” He holds his hand out.
I extract myself from the blanket and grasp his hand.
Landing is as terrifying as taking off. The roar of the engines fills my ears.
I’m pressed against my seat. As we touch down, the plane jolts, chattering my teeth together.
The tires screech on the landing strip, the plane rumbles.
For a few, heart pounding moments, I’m convinced we’re never going to stop.
Then we’re slowing down, and the plane feels like it’s under control once more.
I guess it was never out of control, no matter how it seemed.
Through it all, Emmet held my hand. His fingers are still tangled through mine.
“You did it,” he says, once we’ve stopped at the terminal and the sky bridge is attached.
“Only because you were here.”
He squeezes my hand. “I’m glad I could help.” He lets go and takes a business card out of his pocket. “In case you need anything while you’re in my area.”
I blink slowly. “Need anything?”
“A tour guide. Company. Anything.”
My head spins, but this time it isn’t due to fear.
He gives me the business card. “It was nice meeting you, Ty.”
“And you. Emmet.”
“Who knows? Maybe we’ll see each other at the Pride march.” He raises his hand and skims his fingers against the tips of my hair. “Or maybe you’ll call me.”
Emmet stays with me until we reach the passport control lines. He squeezes my hand one last time.
“Take care,” he says, softly.
“You too.”
Then he heads to the line for US citizens, which is much shorter than the queue for foreign nationals.
It’s okay. I’m on the ground. I’m no longer on the verge of a panic attack and, thanks to Emmet, I’m rested.
That might not have been the most sensible plan, as I’m likely to be awake all night, but it made the flight go faster.
I’m still smiling about the way he gently restrained me to help me relax.
The blanket was a restraint. There’s no other way to describe it.
He put me in sensory deprivation, so the thing I was most aware of was his calming touch, and it was wonderful.
If he’s not a Dom, I’ll eat my non-existent hat.
If he’s not a Dom, he damn well should be.
Eventually, I get through passport control and retrieve my baggage.
As I head into arrivals, I spy Rett, Zeke, and a good-looking blond guy holding a sign with my name and ‘Welcome to NY’ on it in bright bubble writing.
Rett and Zeke have changed since I last saw them.
To be fair, that was years ago, when we were all in secondary school.
I was thirteen when they went to Sixth Form.
By the time I was old enough to go, they’d left.
I saw them from time to time on base until they went traveling around the world, but it’s been eleven years since I’ve spent any real time in their orbit.
They didn’t need to put me up. I’m practically a stranger.
“Nice hair,” Zeke says. He’s American, but his dad was posted in the UK while he was growing up. His accent is different to Emmet’s, but I don’t know enough about US accents to be able to place it.
“Good flight?” Rett has a gentle, lilting Oxfordshire accent, similar to mine.
“Uh…” I glance around, hoping to catch sight of Emmet, even though he’s probably long gone. “Yeah, in the end. I was pretty nervous, but this guy took care of me.”
“Took care of you?” Zeke asks. “Well, aren’t you the lucky one?”
I rub the back of my neck. “It wasn’t like that.” Was it? Emmet’s business card is burning a hole in my pocket.
“Tyler, this is our Daddy, Micah,” Zeke says, his voice low enough that no one will be able to overhear.
“Pleased to meet you,” Micah says in a posh English accent, the kind you tend to hear in movies. The one everyone outside of the UK thinks is how we all speak, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“And you,” I reply, shaking his hand.
“We’ll get a cab home,” Zeke says, pointing toward the exit.
I follow them outside, where we get into a taxi pretty quickly.
“So, tell us about the mystery guy who took care of you,” Zeke says.
“His name was Emmet, and I collided with him when I almost didn’t board.” I relay the whole story to them, finishing with, “And he gave me his number.”
“You should call him,” Zeke says.
“He sounds really nice,” Rett adds.
“He sounds like a Daddy,” Zeke says knowingly.
“A Daddy?” I glance at Micah.
He smiles and nods. “I agree.”
I rub my neck. “I figured he might be a Dom…”
“Daddy,” Zeke says. “And he likes you.”
My face heats up. “You can’t know that.”
“Ahem. He gave you his phone number.”
“He was just being polite.”
“You’re in the US, now. People aren’t polite for the sake of it. They’re more direct than you Brits. If he asked you to call, it means he wants you to,” Zeke says. “So, you should. Unless you’re not into him?”
“I was. I am,” I stammer. “He was incredible. So kind and caring. I still can’t believe he took care of me for the whole flight. He didn’t need to do that.”
“Daddy,” Zeke and Rett say in unison.
Micah chuckles.
I stare at Emmet’s business card. “You really think he wants me to call?”
“Yes,” Zeke replies.
I recall the way he touched my hair, right before he gave me his card. At the time, I was too jittery to comprehend that he was flirting with me. But he was, wasn’t he?
“You could ask him to show you around New York tomorrow,” Zeke suggests.
“Or we could, if you’d prefer,” Rett offers.
“I think we’ll be too busy,” Zeke says.
“We will?” Rett asks.
“Yes. With work.”
“But we—”
“Busy,” Zeke says almost sternly.
Micah cracks up laughing. “You’re a real brat when you want to be, Zeke.”
“I’m not being a brat.” He folds his arms and pouts.
“Yes, you are.” Micah kisses him. “And I love you for it. Seriously, Ty, we can show you around tomorrow, if you want.”
“Or you can call dreamy Emmet and see how well you get along when you’re not afraid for your life,” Zeke says.
I focus on the business card. Do I want to call Emmet? Yes. Will he really want to spend time with me, or was he just being polite? There’s only one way to find out.