31. Kate
Chapter Thirty-One
Kate
The moment the plane’s wheels touched down, my stomach flipped so hard I thought I might be sick. Although, my stomach was flipping a lot lately.
I’d barely slept the night before. Between the adrenaline, the anxiety, the overthinking, and the waxing, tanning, blow drying, and exfoliating, I was barely functioning.
I’d practically been sandblasted into looking “effortless.” Because I wasn’t about to fly across an ocean to see a man like Jordan Taylor without looking hot as hell.
Not when he’d just spent a week in L.A., the capital of surgically enhanced temptation.
God, even thinking that made me feel petty. But still.
I hated how much it got to me. How it sat there in my throat like something sour, dragging me back to that night in his flat in London. The why me conversation. I’d been raw then, stripped bare in ways I didn’t expect, and now that same stupid insecurity was curling up inside me again.
I’d spent years piecing myself back together, telling myself I was enough. That I didn’t need to be anyone’s fantasy to be worth loving.
But I’d never been fully at ease in my own skin. No matter how much I tried, there was always a part of me quietly picking myself apart.
And then he came along, knocking me off my feet in the best, most terrifying way.
Gwen and I had absolutely Googled his past girlfriends, obviously.
But there hadn’t been much to go on. A few blurry photos with models at events.
A rumour about an Australian actress. Nothing that painted a full picture, except one thing that was hard to miss: he clearly had a thing for blondes.
Maybe, just maybe, he really was the man he’d been showing me all along. I had to trust him, but I kept reminding myself I’d known him less than a month.
God, I was trying. But just in case, I’d packed an entirely new wardrobe, five pairs of heels I had no intention of wearing, and more lingerie than I’d worn in the last year combined.
As I stepped off the plane, I tried not to replay the argument with my parents from the night before.
I’d told them I hadn’t quit my job, I was just taking some time.
A pause to reevaluate, to decide what I really wanted.
But my mother had hit the roof, her voice sharp with the kind of disappointment that still made me feel sixteen instead of thirty-four.
She’d all but called me a groupie, hinted I was having some sort of midlife crisis, like following the man I loved could only be reckless or small.
And it stung. Not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t understand. They never had. Even now, even after everything, they still didn’t trust me to know my own mind, to make choices that were mine and mine alone. That lack of faith cut deeper than I’d ever admit.
There’d been a moment, a dark, hollow one, where I’d nearly given in. Nearly stayed behind, let the weight of their disappointment press me back into the neat, little box they’d always wanted me to live in. It would have been easier. Safer. But it was too familiar.
It also would’ve meant giving up on myself. On him. On us.
Gwen had tried to reassure me. “This is your life, not theirs,” she’d said. And she was right.
But the guilt lingered like smoke. So I went. Defied them completely for probably the first time in my life, because the thought of not going to him was probably going to end me.
Passport control took forever. Then I collected my stupidly overpacked suitcase and followed the signs toward Arrivals, my hand suddenly clammy around the handle. I was all too aware I’d been holding my breath.
My eyes scanned the crowd quickly, searching for any sign of him. Hoping to God he still fancied me when he saw me.
My heart thudded so hard I could feel it in my ears.
Then I saw him, and my heart stopped. Time stood still.
He was leaning against a post near the edge of the crowd in that Jordan uniform I’d come to crave the sight of—hoodie, shorts, and that familiar, well-worn baseball cap pulled low.
Those unmistakable long, tanned legs. His head was tilted slightly down, looking at his phone, like he didn’t want to be noticed, but I saw the moment he looked up and spotted me.
I’d never forget the look on his face.
A slow, stunned smile. The way his eyes lit up. The kind that spread across your face before you even knew it was coming. The kind that was completely free of pretence.
I thought I ran, but I didn’t remember moving. Then suddenly, I was in his arms.
He lifted me like I weighed nothing, spun me once, and kissed me right there in the middle of Arrivals like we were in the kind of film I’d always rolled my eyes at, but secretly hoped to live in.
“Did you get more beautiful while I was gone?” he murmured, his eyes dancing with somewhere between disbelief and hunger.
I laughed, completely giddy, like I was sixteen again and completely smitten over a boy. Except he wasn’t just a boy. He was the one. The one I hadn’t even realised I’d been waiting for.
His arm slid around my waist like it belonged there, and the kiss….that kiss after two agonising weeks of wanting to taste him was worth every second we’d been apart.
When he reluctantly pulled back, he grabbed my suitcase with his free hand and led me toward the waiting car, like it was always supposed to be this way.