Chapter 13 – Catalina
“What did you bring? Oh my God. You brought pizza on this plane, Jensen?” I whisper-shout.
Jensen’s grin is far too big for his handsome face, and his hazel eyes are bright with amusement. Balanced in his arms are a miniature bottle of red wine, a bottle of water, and a plate piled high with two giant, steaming slices of pizza.
He has absolutely no regard for the fact that we're flying first class and they'll be serving us food, or that his pizza is currently perfuming the entire cabin at five o'clock in the morning when most sane people are eating breakfast.
He drops into the seat beside me, elbow bumping while I slide down from embarrassment. Then he pulls out another plate and a wad of questionably squashed napkins from his armpit like he’s unveiling fine cutlery before flopping them half on my lap and half on his.
“You sure know how to make an entrance,” I huff out.
There’s something about this man that has my body half buzzing and half confused most of the time. He just… shows up. Like a hot disaster in motion. Like a bull in a china shop and it somehow always works out for him.
His light brown hair has absolutely not been brushed this morning, just shoved beneath a baseball cap like he wrestled it on mid-jog through the terminal.
His plain white T-shirt has actual, visible grease fingerprints on it—his own, no doubt—his Wrangler jeans are molded to his perfect, fit ass, and he's not carrying a single bag with him.
Not even a backpack. Not even a sad plastic convenience-store sack.
I'm guessing he checked his luggage before he got to the airport simply because he couldn't bother with dragging one more thing around. That or he just has enough leftover belongings at his grandma's to carry him through our off week in Tennessee.
“Here.” He plops a greasy slice of pizza onto the empty plate that's now resting on my lap.
Under normal circumstances, the way he lives his life—chaotically, unsupervised, borderline lawless—would send my inner germaphobe sprinting for the emergency exit and a large bottle of hand sanitizer.
I’d be obsessing over the fact that he absolutely did not wash his hands after touching every disgusting surface in LAX to get to me.
I’d be thinking about doorknobs and security bins, and God forbid, the flight attendant’s palm he probably high-fived on the way onto the plane when I heard them loudly chatting about his next planned ride.
And now those same fingers have made direct, uninvited contact with my breakfast. Which I should mention, I've already eaten. Coffee and a bagel with egg and sausage. My usual this early in the morning. Not pizza.
But watching him try to fold his way into the first-class seat beside me on our flight from Los Angeles to Nashville has me smiling.
Because he's so tall and big and he's different. So different from any other man I’ve ever spent time around. Which is weird. I don’t smile at chaos and mess.
Ever. And I definitely don’t find it charming.
Jensen Grant is a lot of things—loud, unbothered by hygiene standards, cavalier about his physical wellbeing, currently adjusting his crotch with the same hand that he touched my pizza—but one thing he absolutely isn’t is boring.
And after spending years under sterile OR lighting, a clean, overly lit apartment that I shared with a man who threw away my loyalty like it was trash and running my life like a checklist, maybe I’m enjoying this little streak of unexpected spontaneity.
He catches my gaze like he knows that I'm thinking about him, holds it, then slowly lifts his slice to his mouth and takes a huge bite, crust first.
“Why?” I deadpan, wrestling down a smile that I fail to control.
He chews the crust dramatically, hazel eyes sparkling like a kid doing something forbidden. “It tastes better this way.”
I burst out laughing. “No, it doesn’t. Look at the mess you're making. Your fingers are covered in marinara from trying to hold it like that. You're doing this on purpose because of what I told you."
He doesn't break eye contact. Just keeps chewing. Then starts again. Another big bite. Crust first.
"You’re antagonizing me. This is not a good way to start out this trip. We're already annoyed with each other, and it hasn't even started.”
His grin widens. He takes another aggressive crust-first bite, making a low growl in his throat that sounds dangerously like the noise he made between my legs two nights ago.
I squirm in my seat, pretending not to be affected by whatever that sound was. I liked it.
I point a finger at him. “It’s your funeral. It's bad for your health, remember?”
He throws his head back, laughing loudly, chest rattling with pure joy. “We both know you're full of shit for that. Wait—I got you one more thing.”
He tries to reach into his back pocket, wiggling his hips, cursing under his breath about the sling on his right arm that’s currently restricting his movements. It would be comical if it didn’t make every muscle in my body remember what that body feels like over mine when he’s turned on.
“Can’t reach,” he grumbles. “I’m too big. Get it out for me.”
“You just want me to touch your ass.”
His smile turns wicked. “I like it when you’re playful.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not playful.”
“You can touch something else when you're down there.”
That makes me laugh. I reach behind him, careful not to touch anything more than whatever's in his pocket. My fingers wrap around a soft, silky strap and I tug before holding it up. A sleep mask?
I look at it. Then him. Of course he’s smiling. His favorite hobby. The guy's like a nice bull. A very gentle one, if those exist.
“Why?” I ask softly.
“Because I know you can’t sleep without one.
” He nods to the pizza slice that’s on my lap.
“Now eat your pizza and drink your tiny-ass flight of wine that I got you, red, of course. Then take a nap. It’s a long flight, and Grandma’s gonna be eager to meet you.
She's a yapper, so I need you to be on your best behavior.”
He leans back without another word, stretches those long legs out like he owns the whole plane, closes his eyes, and relaxes instantly.
And all I can do is stare at him, a silk eye mask dangling from one hand, a messy slice of pizza balanced on my lap atop a pile of crumpled napkins, and a tiny bottle of red wine sitting beside me.
Meanwhile, my heart taps far too loudly against my rib cage.
***
“What are you doing?”
“What the—?” I jolt so hard my phone nearly hurls itself onto the disgusting airplane carpet I know hasn’t been vacuumed in the last three flights. “Shit, Jensen. I thought you were asleep.”
He’s definitely not asleep anymore. Jensen’s eyes are wide open and weirdly accusing. He’s looking at me like I’ve committed a crime against him.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was watching you.” His tone is flat.
A new one for him. Gone is his usual easy smile and in its place is suspicion.
“I was wondering how long it’d take you to notice, but it looks like…
” He leans closer to me, gaze darting to my phone screen that I've peeled away from my chest temporarily.
Rookie move. I slap it to my chest to cover it again.
I don’t care if he sees. I’m not embarrassed. But for some weird reason, I feel like I’m doing something forbidden by checking the messages I’ve received on this dating app that June downloaded a few nights ago.
“Privacy? Ever heard of it?”
He ignores my tone. “Brock,” he says slowly, dragging out the name like it personally offends him. “…Had your attention. That’s why you didn’t notice me watching you.”
“I got my first swipe back.” My voice comes out weird. It doesn’t sound like me. I swear, in my twenty-nine years on this earth, I never imagined saying the words “swipe back, swipe left, blind date, dating app.”
Jensen slow claps. Loudly. It’s like thunder cracking across the cabin.
Heads turn. I panic. I grab his hands to try to stop them from connecting again, which is like trying to wrangle two oversized baseball mitts.
They’re so rough and so freaking big. A memory flashes of the way his fingers felt inside me. It felt a lot like his cock.
I never thought I’d like rough hands like this on a man.
Mine have always been taken care of. Never manicured since you can’t wear nail polish in surgery, but lotioned gently every night and morning.
My fingers are long and lean. All the piano lessons my parents put me in as a kid paid off with great dexterity and strength.
I swear Jensen’s never met a bottle of lotion in his life.
“You can’t clap like that while the plane’s in the air!” I hiss.
He forces his hands to connect again, but instead of making the clapping noise he ends up just pinning my fingers between his.
“Your hands are so big it sounds like someone fired off warning shots in the cabin. Or cracked a whip!”
His glare softens into amusement. “I like how much you point out how big I am. This is like the fifth time on just this flight that you've made a point to bring up my size.”
“I don’t do it that much.”
“Yes. You do. You’re always pointing out my big arms, my big feet, my big hands,” his voice pitches higher to mimic mine. “’Oh Jensen, you’re so big and manly.’”
“Your big head." I flick his cheek playfully. It doesn't land the way I thought it would. Instead, my fingers end up grazing the stubble on his jaw. He chuckles.
"It’s hard to miss your size. You take up half of first class.”
His grin deepens.
“Stop smiling like that! I’m not complimenting you. It’s just a fact.” He’s right. I do point out how big he is too much. That's something I'll work on stopping.
He shifts, turning toward me, shoulder brushing mine. “So, you got a match then?”
I nod. “I did. I texted June to ask what happens next and she said I’m supposed to message him and make a date.”