Chapter 25
Adelaide
Something feels wrong about this.
I’m in an Uber with Connor, heading to a mystery destination. The car pulls away from the rear entrance of the Cosmopolitan, and when I glance sideways at Connor in the back seat next to me, I feel . . . guilty. And I think I know why, but I don’t want to admit it to myself.
Because I know, deep in my gut, that if it were anyone else keeping me company tonight then I would not be having these guilty thoughts.
If it were Tyler or John here with me instead, I’d believe they were just being a good friend to Liam, looking out for their buddy’s future wife.
But it’s different with Connor. I have history, albeit ancient, with Connor.
And something tells me Liam would hit the fucking roof if he knew we were alone together right now.
That would be irrational though, wouldn’t it? Because there’s nothing there with Connor. No justifiable reason for Liam to feel insecure and threatened.
Yet the guilt creeps into every crevice of my chest . . . Because I know the way Connor looks at me and the way my heart pounds when he does.
Swallowing hard, I lean forward in an attempt to steal a peek at our Uber driver’s phone on the dashboard mount. Before I can read the destination Connor supplied when booking the ride, the driver tsks at me in the rearview and plucks his phone off the dash, stashing it into the cup holder instead.
“The pickup notes tell me this is a surprise,” the driver explains with a coy smile.
“Are we going far?” I ask, glancing at Connor with trepidation.
What if he’s dragging me off to the Grand Canyon or something?
That’s like a million hours away, but it wouldn’t even surprise me.
Connor was always adventurous like that.
Loved spontaneous plans, loved exploring.
It’s why he joined the Marines—to see the world, to live a big, brave life.
Connor smiles and shakes his head. “Not far at all.”
We’re heading south down Las Vegas Boulevard. Mandalay Bay, the southernmost resort on the strip, rises quickly before us, gold and glittering in the night sky. Palm trees race by either side of the car, and then I spot something unmistakable approaching. All neon lights and impossible to miss.
“Are we going to see the sign?” I guess.
On an island in the middle of the boulevard, the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign is electric and dazzling. Crowds line up, patiently waiting their turn to get that iconic shot in front of the landmark. As the Uber drives on by, Connor shakes his head no again.
“I mean, we could go see the sign later, but for now, no. We’re not going to see the sign.”
“Then where?” I groan, because it seriously looks as though we’re leaving Las Vegas behind in the rearview. The bright lights of the resorts shrink away and nothing but quiet highway lies ahead of us.
“Right here,” Connor says, just as the Uber driver flicks on his turn signal.
We pull across the boulevard into a parking lot next to a small, private terminal building on the outskirts of the airport’s airfield.
On the corner of the building, there is a raised 3D outline of a helicopter.
I gasp and instinctively grab Connor’s arm across the back seat, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.
He releases a soft laugh as the Uber pulls up outside the entrance to the terminal.
He steps out of the car, and with my hand on his arm, I slide across the back seat and follow out behind him.
It’s quiet, no one else in the parking lot, and as our Uber drives off, I turn to Connor and stare at him.
The night is silent around us except for the low hum of aircraft maneuvering nearby and the distant roar of jet engines powering up for takeoff.
“We’re going on a helicopter?” I ask, my voice pitching high with excitement.
“We are,” Connor confirms with a nod. Then, he narrows his eyes curiously at me with a slight tilt of his head.
“If you want to go on a helicopter, that is? I’m not sure how you feel about things like this these days.
Maybe you can’t think of anything worse than flying over Vegas in a chopper.
If so, tell me, and I’ll cancel the flight. ”
“You’re talking to the girl who once rode Space Mountain at Disney World five times back-to-back with you,” I point out, recalling the time shortly after Connor got his driver’s license, when we took off for Orlando one weekend and spent the day at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, chasing the adrenaline rush of rides and fighting all that motion sickness. “You know I’m not scared of anything.”
Except letting my father down when it comes to carrying on the Hartman that I’ll never forge my own success as a realtor and will forever be stuck watching from the sidelines; that my marriage to Liam won’t work out in the end.
Scared, ultimately, that I’ll fail at building the perfect life for myself that everyone expects me to have.
“Well, yeah, that’s what I figured,” Connor says with a grin. He gestures to the entrance, and I lead the way through the doors. “I only booked this twenty minutes ago, so we got lucky they weren’t sold out. I thought you’d enjoy it.”
“You’re the best,” I say, and there goes the guilty conscience again.
Inside the terminal, Connor and I are asked to step on some scales—something about weight disruption—and then told to take a seat as we await further instructions from our designated pilot, and I sit there with knees bouncing in anticipation, wondering how unbearably boring my night would have been spent in Liam’s hotel room, watching him sleep.
I’d have been too worried to even turn on the TV in fear of waking him, so this is exactly what I needed.
Something without Liam, something truly fun and memorable.
A pilot appears with a list of six names, including ours, and rounds us up from the waiting room.
He allocates each of us a specific seat on the helicopter—Connor and I are front row!
—and runs through a quick safety briefing.
Before I know it, we are led outside onto the airfield and ushered into one of the helicopters.
It’s something I’ve never done before, flown in a helicopter, though I reckon Connor has been in a few during his time in the Marines.
My blood spikes with adrenaline. We sit in the front row next to the pilot, with a wall of glass all the way down to our feet, offering completely unobstructed views. The ground is literally right there. Connor helps me get buckled in—and I make him triple-check—and then we don our headsets.
“Ready?” Connor mouths as the engines roar to life and the rotor blades overhead whir into action. Even with the headsets, it’s all so incredibly loud. If we wish to speak, we have to turn on our mics for anyone to have any chance at hearing us.
I bite my lip with a nod. The cabin is pretty snug, so I’m already tight up against Connor as it is, but I press in even closer to him for that feeling of protection as the helicopter begins moving.
I don’t know how I thought helicopters took off—I thought they just lifted vertically into the sky, I guess—but we gain momentum just above the ground first, gliding along the runway, until suddenly, we soar high into the air.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, but no one hears me, of course.
The Las Vegas strip lies ahead of us. It’s all luminous colors, golds and blues and pinks, the resorts like jeweled diamonds glittering against the black canvas of the Nevada desert in the distance.
Over the headsets, the pilot plays music for the cabin—“A Sky Full of Stars” by Coldplay—and it creates a lump in my throat as we gaze out of the glass windows with starstruck admiration.
We approach from the south, passing the visually stunning pyramid-design of the Luxor with its spotlight beaming from its pointed tip; the fairytale turrets of the Excalibur; the towering skyscrapers of New York, New York.
We pass over the Cosmopolitan, and next door, the Bellagio fountains are mid-show, the water dancing and cascading over the lake.
There’s the Eiffel Tower outside Paris, and the LINQ High Roller, too—the observation wheel turning slowly in a stunning neon display.
We fly all the way to the Stratosphere Tower at the very north end of the strip, before circling back.
I reach up and turn my mic on, then elbow Connor gently in the ribs to get his attention. “This is amazing,” I tell him, my voice tight with emotion.
“Fuck yeah it is!” some random guy from the back seat responds, and mixed laughter from the cabin crackles through my headset.
Connor just stares back at me with a closed smile and soft brown eyes, like he’s admiring me rather than the breathtaking sights below us, and all of a sudden I become aware of his skin touching mine.
I glance down and am horrified when I realize I’m holding his hand.
I’m gripping his fingers like my life depends on it.
“Sorry!” I mouth, instantly retracting my hand.
My face heats with mortification. In all of the excitement, I must have reached out and grabbed him.
It’s completely innocent, but still. I already felt guilty about being out with Connor tonight as it is, and I don’t need to add holding his fucking hand to my list of sins.
“You don’t need to be,” he mouths back, and reaches for my hand again, pulling it onto his lap where he interlocks our fingers. His grip is secure, confident, as his eyes remain on mine.
The world momentarily stops spinning as my heart stills.
Right now, it’s only us. Connor and me, high in the sky over Las Vegas, reality suspended below us.
It feels like hope and potential. It feels .
. . like a second chance. And I don’t want to pull away again.
I want to feel the warmth of his hand wrapped in mine until this helicopter touches down and we have to forget this moment ever happened.