Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Zoe
I wake up in David’s arms, causing me to panic.
What was that last night? How can sex be that good? What happens now?
I try to fall back asleep, but it’s no use. The longer I lie here, the more my mind races. I need to get up, to have space to wrap my head around all of this.
I move, and he holds me tighter, cuddling into my neck.
“Five more minutes,” he whispers.
A chuckle escapes my lips, and he kisses the back of my head. I allow for these five more minutes even though my head is swirling even more now. I wondered how we would be this morning, and his response right there just answered my question.
After a few minutes, I move again, and he finally gives in.
“Fine … if you have to.”
The playfulness in his voice calms my nerves slightly until I see I’m wearing his T-shirt, and if I want to put my clothes back on, I’m going to have to remove it, and he’ll see me naked, standing here.
I know he’s already seen me naked, but last night and this morning are two different situations, trust me.
Leaning down, I pick up my clothes that are on either side of the bed and walk back to where I was sleeping, placing them all there.
“You don’t have to change. Just take my shirt. I’ll get it back before we leave,” he says in a sleepy tone with his eyes still closed.
“I can’t just walk out of your room in nothing but a T-shirt,” I deadpan.
“Hmm … ultimate walk of shame,” he teases, then jumps up and grabs me, bringing me back down to the bed.
“Only there is no shame in what happened last night.” He kisses me softly.
“There’s nothing weird between us this morning, so let’s just make this clear right now.
I want this. I want you. We’re going to do this. ”
He stares in my eyes, nodding his head ever so slightly, waiting for me to do the same.
When I grin and nod as well, he brings me on top of him, slaps my ass, and says, “Good because sex like that should be repeated over and over and over again.”
I feel him growing underneath me while he keeps hold of my hips, gliding my body over his.
It takes zero-point-two seconds to get both of us going again, and before I know it, he’s inside of me, rocking my world for a second time.
Whatever is happening between us only proves two things: David and I are truly soulmates, both behind the screen and in person, and I’m totally fucked if he finds out who I am.
After I’ve showered and gotten ready, we drive to the airport to head back to work and back to reality.
We get checked in and walk to the gate to wait to board the plane. We sit next to each other, and he grabs my hand, bringing it to his knee and holding it there.
“I like this,” he says, giving me a sincere expression.
“Me too,” I answer, just as genuine.
“Please tell me this is Zoe,” I hear a woman say with a ton of excitement in her voice, taking us out of our special moment in a shock I was not expecting.
David drops his head in a laugh, then stands. “Katie, meet Zoe.” His smile is from ear to ear, like he just won first prize in a tournament instead of introducing me—his coworker, whom he just slept with for the first time—to a woman in the airport who obviously knows who I am.
My mind is a dumpster fire of confusion, and then it hits me.
Katie. His sister. She’s coming to New York with…
I stand and see three other people approaching us as well.
Katie squeals with excitement, causing my anxiety to intensify as I wonder what’s going on.
When he says, “Hi, Mom,” my head literally explodes.
“I just knew there was something between you two,” Katie admits, pulling back to get a good look at me.
“Um, how did you know I even existed?” I try to sound playful, but even I don’t buy it.
“For the last year, you’ve been the only girl he’s mentioned, like, ever. Well, until recently, with this app thing, but never mind.” She waves her hand like she’s trying to erase what she just said from our minds.
My eyes open wide, and thankfully, his mom says to me, “Don’t mind her. She tries to get as involved as possible in David’s love life even though we live over two thousand miles away.” She engulfs me in a hug. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Mary, but you can call me Mom—everyone else does.”
I hug her even though I feel like I’m about to throw up. Here I am, all confused and nervous about what happened last night. I had no idea how this trip was going to go, but meeting his family was definitely not on my bingo card of things that could happen.
She lets me go and turns to the two younger girls standing next to her. “This is Gemma and Cindy.”
I wave my hello, and they wave back.
“So, you two are a thing, I take it?” Katie jumps on her toes, like she’s two and hoping to get a piece of candy from the store.
“Leave these two alone. They’re obviously in the new stage,” her mom answers so we don’t have to.
I breathe a sigh of relief, grateful we dodged a bullet, until David says, “Yeah, we finally admitted our feelings to each other last night.”
Visions of exactly what happened last night flash through my head, and I know my face instantly turns bright red because I can feel the heat coming off of me, so much so that they could probably hold their hands up to get warm too.
“Ooh …” Katie shimmies her shoulders back and forth, making me want to die right here and now.
The last thing I want while meeting David’s mom for the first time is her thinking of the possibility that we fucked each other’s brain out last night in our hotel room because, come on, everyone knows hotel sex is just different.
“Stop embarrassing the poor girl,” Mary says.
I force a smile, wanting to hide my face in my hands, but knowing if I do, I’ll just look more guilty than I do now.
My eyes shift to David, who’s just standing there, smug as ever with a cheesy grin. I open my eyes wider, sending him a Bat-Signal for help, which he thankfully picks up on and changes the subject.
“Here, I saved you guys some room to sit with us.”
He moves the bags he’d put on the chairs next to us so they can sit. When he set them there, I thought he was just being a weirdo, not wanting people to be so close, but now I see he had this all planned the entire time.
“Why didn’t you tell me they were going to be here?” I lean in to whisper.
He kisses my cheek. “I didn’t want you to overthink it.”
“You thought this would be better?” I chuckle even though I’m still in panic mode.
“No. I knew, either way, you would freak out, so …” He winks, and I want to smack the shit out of him.
Then it hits me.
This is how he’s always acted toward me. Did he really just like pushing my buttons?
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I forcefully whisper.
He holds up his finger and thumb to show me an inch of space between the two. “Just a little.” We all sit down, and David whispers to me, “Don’t worry. They aren’t sitting next to us. They’ve had this trip planned for a while.”
“And you thought it would be fun for us to be on the same flight home?”
“Well, yeah. They are staying with me, so this worked out perfectly. Besides, I didn’t expect this”—he motions between us—“when I booked the flights. So, though I’ve loved watching you battle internally the last few minutes, this part was not planned.”
I roll my eyes, and he laughs even more, grabbing my hand and holding it there before turning to his mom.
“Did Dad drop you off, or did you just leave the car in the parking garage?”
“I didn’t want him to have to drive all this way, so we drove here,” she responds.
“How far away is Red Lodge from here?” I ask.
David turns to me with his brows furrowed, obviously questioning how I knew they lived in Red Lodge.
I only remember that’s where he grew up because it was such an interesting name for a city, so I looked it up and ended up doing a deep dive on the location and discovered how unique it was.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll now start boarding group three for our flight to JFK in New York City,” we hear a woman call over the speakers.
“It’s only an hour or so from here,” she replies, then quickly follows with, “Girls, that’s us.” Mary stands, knocking over some bags as she does.
I close my eyes, trying to calm the panic racing through me.
How do I keep slipping up?
David jumps up to help his mom while Katie comes my way.
“We’ll see you when we land, but I just wanted to say again how excited I am to see David finally getting his head out of his ass.”
A laugh escapes me more out of surprise than anything else, making David turn toward both of us.
“Really, Katie?”
She shrugs with a smirk covering her face. “Just stating facts.” She waves at both of us. “See you in New York.”
My phone rings, and I’ve never been so happy for the disruption or for Macy’s face to flash across my screen.
I step away from where we’re sitting to answer the call. “You have no idea how perfect your timing is. I’m going to fuck this all up. Help. Me.”
“Well, good morning to you too!” She giggles.
“Stupid me keeps saying things I shouldn’t know about him! He’s going to catch on.”
“He’s going to think that your name isn’t your name and that out of the thousands of people in New York City, you two just happened to be matched up on this Mystery Match thing?”
“Yeah, sounds as crazy as real life happening right this very minute!”
She laughs even harder. “This is truly the best. So, what happened last night?”
“Oh boy, do I have so much to tell you …” I look up, taking a deep breath in, fighting the urge to jump him again right here and now.
“And you’ve been holding out on me?”
I feel my face flush from the memories of last night. “Well, I couldn’t call you if I was wrapped up in his arms all night.” I glance to where we were sitting and see David staring right at me, his expression of pure lust sends chills down my back.
“You didn’t!” she yells.
“Oh, yes, we did. But I have to go board the plane now, so I’ll have to call you back.”
“You bitch. You can’t drop that, then board a five-hour flight!”
“Ha! Sure can. Bye. Love you,” I singsong, then hang up.
I walk to David, and he plants a kiss directly on my lips.
“Did you tell your friend about us?”
I try to act nonchalant. “That was a business call.”
He leans in to whisper in my ear, “Bullshit. The way you just looked at me had nothing to do with any type of business we’re in at least.”
I have to close my eyes and give myself a minute to recover from both his closeness and his words. When I feel his lips touch mine again, I almost melt right here, and thankfully, he wraps his arms around me to hold me up.
“Now boarding group seven. Group seven can now board,” the lady over the intercom announces.
David steps back, making me instantly miss his touch. “That’s us. Let’s get this show on the road.”
My mind is mush from lust, anxiety, and now confusion. “What did you just say?”
He chuckles under his breath. “It’s my dad. He says stuff like that all the time. I guess it just stuck with me.”
I smile, loving how much his family has shaped who he is.
Being an only child of parents who worked a lot, leaving me alone or with Macy’s family more often than not, I never really realized what I had been missing until David talked about his big family or after I got to meet them right now.
A family gathering isn’t much when there’s only three of us.
We all get situated on the plane, his family smiling sweetly as we walked by since they boarded before us, and then panic hits me in a different way.
Flying.
I pull my bag back out from under my seat in a frantic motion, trying to remember where I put the earbuds when David stops me and holds up a new package.
“I grabbed these from the flight attendant as we boarded.”
I sit back in awe.
He’s so sweet. How or why did I hate this man so much before?
“Thank you.” I take them from him and plug them in and start scrolling through the options of what movie to watch.
We push back from the gate, and he reaches for my hand to hold.
We make our way to the runway, and he softly rubs his thumb over mine in the most soothing manner I’ve ever felt.
When the pilot thrusts us forward, racing down the runway for takeoff, David leans over, grabs my head with his hand, and pulls me toward him to kiss me until we’re floating in air, both literally and figuratively.
I should be on cloud nine right now, but all I can think about is how I’m going to tell him who I really am and just how pissed off he’s going to be that I hid it from him this entire trip.