28. Melissa
28
MELISSA
“ Y ou sure you’re awake?” Jase asked as he stretched his arm across the back of my seat.
I nodded, tilting my head to rest on his shoulder as I bit back a yawn. My four back-to-back twelve-hour shifts had kicked my ass. Going back to work after having checked off a few bucket list items and landing myself a dreamboat of a boyfriend was an act of sheer determination.
The upside was that we were sleeping together every night. The downside was that we were just sleeping. But a day off had my lady temple roaring like a wildcat. I was horny and wanted to spend my twenty-four hours of freedom between the sheets.
Jason, however, wanted to take me out on a date. The jerk .
He dropped his hand from the back of my seat and slid his palm between my thighs, giving it a solid squeeze.
His Rubik’s Cube slid across the dashboard as he turned out of the apartment complex and headed toward Beaufort.
I picked it up and fiddled with it, my mind wandering back to the night we had gotten drunk on cheap tequila. When he put the puzzle into my hands and told me to wreck it. When he’d matched his ministrations inside my pussy to my turning the colored squares.
My clit pulsed with need, and I squeezed my thighs together to ease the ache.
Jase chuckled. “I felt that.” He slid his hand closer to the apex of my thighs, stroking my bare skin with his thumb.
“It’s your fault,” I whined, tugging my ponytail a little tighter. “I’m the one who wanted to stay in all day. Besides, it’s too hot to go anywhere.”
“What happened to being an adrenaline junkie? What happened to wanting adventure?” he teased, tugging me across the bench seat. My seatbelt pulled back, stopping me from going any closer. I loosened it just a bit and scooted over.
“You haven’t even told me what we’re going to do,” I yawned again.
He kissed the top of my head. “That’s because it’s a surprise, Goose.”
I couldn’t stop the next yawn. “Do I have time for a nap?”
“You just woke up.”
“You woke me up early,” I protested. “On my day off. We don’t all have the luxury of retiring at thirty-eight.”
He smirked and adjusted his Aviators. What a cliché. All he was missing was the leather bomber jacket, though I was almost certain he had one. I kind of wanted to see him in it—do the fantasy right.
“What can I say? I missed my girl. How was work yesterday?”
“Fine.”
“Mel.”
I sighed.
Work had been a shit show. That was the thing with the emergency department. You never know what you’re gonna get. “We were understaffed like normal, Joint Commission decided to show up wearing their asses for hats, and I discharged three patients to Jesus.”
He didn’t say anything after that. Jase twined our fingers together and brought the back of my hand to his lips.
We crested the bridge between Morehead City and Beaufort in silence. Even the radio was off. I stared out the window, watching tiny boats cut through the water below us. The sky was a clear Carolina blue. Not a cloud in sight. Sunlight sparkled on the water.
It was the kind of day I would have taken advantage of, going to the beach or sweating it out on a paddleboard. But after the day I’d had at work yesterday, I just wanted a drink.
That was the real reason I worked out so much. It was either hit the pavement in my running shoes or hit the bottle. Sometimes I did both.
Jase took a sharp turn and pulled into the airfield.
“What are we doing here?” I asked. “Did Pops need you to do something?”
“Nah, this is what we’re doing today.” He parked beside one of the hangars and hopped out. “I’m taking you flying.”
I hopped out with him. “For real?”
Jason laughed, a bright smile flashing wide across his face. “Does that sound like something I’d joke about?”
“No, I just—” I stammered, then blushed and bit my lip.
“What?” he asked as he rounded the hood of the truck. Jase braced his arms against the door behind me, caging me in. the strong line of his nose nudged mine as he leaned in. “Tell me.”
I looked down at the mix of gravel, grass, and dirt beneath my Converse. “It’s nothing.”
“Baby,” Jase murmured, his rumble sending shivers up the back of my neck. His lips nuzzled the shell of my ear as he pressed the bulge in his cargo shorts into my belly. He skated his hands up my sides, slipping under the low-cut sleeves that ended at my waist. His thumbs grazed the black lace of my bralette.
Damn him. He could get anything he damn well pleased with that voice and those hands. I was putty in his hands. No—not even putty. I was pudding.
“It’s stupid,” I said, letting my fingers creep up the Navy t-shirt that was stretched tight across his chest. The screen printing was flaked and faded after years of washes and wear, but the fabric was soft. If it wasn’t so fucking hot outside, I would have snuggled up to him.
He kissed behind my ear, the warmth of his lips lulling me into a trance. “I don’t care if it’s stupid. I wanna know what’s on your mind.”
Ah, what the hell? I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned back against the truck. “You remember when we were kids and you, me, Bee, and Chase would come out here and watch the planes take off?”
“Mhmm.”
“When Pops started taking you flying, Bee and I would come out here and watch.” I lost myself in the deep green pools of his eyes. They were a kaleidoscope of flecks of forest, olive, and moss green. “I used to think about flying away with you.” My cheeks burned hot, and it wasn’t from the sun.
Jase reached down, sliding his hands behind my ass. Without breaking a sweat, he lifted me so that I was sitting on the hood of the truck. Before I could close my eyes, his mouth was on mine, teeth sinking into my lower lip, tugging me closer. I let a soft moan slip out as my body revved up, raring to go.
Kissing Jason didn’t feel natural.
It felt like teetering on the edge of a roller coaster about to launch. Heart pounding, hands clammy, blood roaring in my ears .
It felt like flooring it on a long stretch of highway with cotton candy skies and warm air whipping all around. Kissing him was the biggest rush.
“What was that for?” I asked when we finally broke apart, chests heaving as we gasped for air. I fingered his t-shirt, drawing him closer.
After the best first date in the history of first dates, I’d felt like I was living in a daydream. Jason McGrath was mine. I was his girl.
Instead of answering, Jase kissed me again. It was long and deep as he lapped a long line down the side of my tongue with his.
He punctuated the kiss with a peck. “I think that’s the first time you’ve admitted to thinking about me the way I thought about you.”
A poisonous cocktail of nerves and uncertainty hung in my throat. I didn’t have a reason to not believe Jason when he said he’d always wanted me. After all, isn’t that what every girl wants to hear?
Instead, I felt guilty that I hadn’t seen him the same way. Sure, he was all kinds of teenage boy hot when we were in high school, but he was off-limits. My parents had a strict no-boys rule that I occasionally tested.
Besides, Jase had been so much older than me. In my teenage mind, four years might as well have been an eternity. Jase always had girls hanging off his arms, and I was just his kid sister’s friend.
I cherished our stolen conversations under cover of darkness. They were the only things that gave my imagination fuel for the daydreams I had of him and me ending up together.
The sputtering of a motor snapped us out of our hormone-crazed haze. Pops rolled up on a John Deere tractor wearing overalls, a white undershirt, and a Vietnam veteran hat. There was a walking stick wedged behind his seat.
He cut the engine with a trembling hand. “Little Melly Jacobsen,” he said with a raspy chuckle and a smile that felt like family. “Do my eyes deceive me, or did this whippersnapper finally get the courage to ask you to pencil him in on your dance card?”
I giggled, and Jase helped me down to my feet. “You know, you’re the only person on this planet who I let call me Melly.”
I walked over, popping up on my tiptoes to hug him. He smelled like Old Spice and jet fuel. Always had. So much had changed since I moved to Beaufort the first time, but Pops hadn’t.
“How’s your heart been?” I asked with my hands on my hips. “You followed up with your doctor, right? You’ve been taking all your meds?”
He patted his heart. “Ol’ ticker’s still going. It’ll take more than a little episode to take me out.”
I frowned, not liking how flippant he was about his health. A massive heart attack was more than a little episode .
Pops wasn’t having my mother-henning today, though. He eased out of the tractor seat and grabbed his walking stick. “You taking the Bonanza up today?” he asked Jason.
Jase nodded as he hauled a cooler out of the back of the truck. “Yep. Figured we’d fly up to MQI. Might do a hop to FFA. Weather looks clear. We should be back around seventeen hundred.”
Pops nodded. “I’ve got her all fueled up. The runway’s clear for the next hour. Just holler when you’re ready to go.” As he sank back down into the tractor seat, he said, “And Jason?—”
Jase waited with bated breath.
“Take good care of this one,” he said, pointing a gnarled finger at me. “She’s a keeper.”
He cracked a smile. “I think so, too.”
Pops left us to get our things loaded in the plane. Jason had brought a cooler of drinks and snacks for the trip. I sat patiently in the left-hand seat of the little Cessna as he went through all the pre-flight checks and filled in the pilot’s log .
“So, what was that about an episode ?” Jase asked as he scribbled something into the logbook.
I looked through the windshield to where Pops was tinkering around in one of the hangars. “He didn’t tell you?”
The pen froze in his hand. Slowly, Jase resumed writing whatever he had to, then closed the logbook. “Tell me what?”
I sighed. It really wasn’t my place to say anything, but Pops was like a grandfather to Jason. Hell, he’d been in Jason’s life more than his own father had.
“A few months ago, Pops had a heart attack. A big one.” I swallowed the lump that was warbling my voice. “He was brought in on an ambulance. I was working in the ER that night. Ended up having four stents put in.”
He strangled the pen in his hand. “All he said was that he ran into you a while ago when he had a health scare. ”
“You know Pops. He doesn’t exactly do well asking for help.” I fiddled with the headset Jase had given me. “I was surprised when he told me he was going to start looking for someone to take over this place.”
That got Jase’s attention. “He said what now?”
“Pops knows he’s not immortal, Jase,” I said gently, placing a soft hand on his thigh. “Last time I saw him at Jokers, he said he was hoping to find someone to take over. Otherwise, he’s gonna sell.”
I looked around. We had so many memories here. I couldn’t imagine it becoming some commercially run regional airport.
“Hey,” I said as Jase steered the plane, lining it up to take off down the runway. “Where’s your head at, flyboy?”
He was too quiet. Jase near any kind of plane was like a kid in a candy store. But right now, he had a look on his face that I had never seen before. It was hardened and determined. Brows drawn in forming a deep groove over his nose, eyes laser-focused .
“Jase…” I reached out, running my fingers through the golden strands along the back of his skull. “Talk to me.”
“You think that’s why he’s been asking me to help out around here?” he asked. “Because he can’t handle it anymore?”
Jason had kept himself busy while I was at work. Nearly every day, Pops would call him up and see if he wanted to come down to the airfield to do something with one of the planes.
Just yesterday, he’d come home talking about how Pops thought it’d be a good idea to start instructional flights again. Jase had the experience he needed to be a flight instructor. All it would take was a little paperwork to get the program off the ground again.
I slipped my hand into his. “I think it’s because he knows this place would be in good hands with you.” I hesitated before adding, “Maybe it would be more fulfilling for you than flying cargo hauls for that lab company…”
His eyebrows raised. “How’d you…”
“Word gets around,” I said. “I just didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to think that I’d resent you for leaving again.”
“Baby—”
“No, Jase. If that’s something you want, go for it.” I looked around at where we were—sitting in a plane about to joyride to Manteo and Kill Devil Hills just for shits and giggles. “Flying is in your blood. I would never want to take that from you, but maybe…”
A small smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe?”
I fitted the headset over my ears and adjusted the microphone in front of my mouth. He did the same. My voice crackled in the headphones as I said, “Maybe this would be a compromise, you know? The airfield. Helping Pops.”
He shook his head and began rolling down the runway. I didn’t have the slightest clue what he was doing, but it seemed like he could do it in his sleep. I felt the push of gravity against my body as the nose of the plane tipped up, and we ascended into the sky.
“I would’t be a compromise, baby girl.”
I wanted to hold his hand, but flying a plane seemed like a two-handed job. So instead, I rested my palm on his thigh as I stared out the window. Beaufort grew smaller and smaller as we lifted off and headed north, up the coastline. Barrier islands and green marshes speckled the edge of the state.
He smiled at me as the plane leveled out to cruising altitude. There was something so calming about him in the air. Jase was so competent. So natural. He was like a bird, finding his way back home, back to where he was supposed to be.
“It’s only a compromise if concessions are made. I didn’t bring up the job because I had decided to turn it down. For you, I would stay. But getting you and working for Pops at the airfield? Sounds like a win-win to me.”