Zelda
Isettle back into the plush, first-class seat and wrap my fingers through Sawyer’s. His eyes are shining with joy.
“I never thought in a million years—”
“That you’d be with me?” I tease.
“That I’d get to fly first class.”
I’m still laughing when he leans over and plants a quick kiss on my neck.
This is a dream come true. I didn’t expect anything like this to happen while we were driving to the airport, but now that it has, it seems too fitting. And still surreal, somehow.
A flight attendant with a big grin on her face and red hair swept up into an elegant twist approaches. “Would either of you like a beverage before takeoff? How about complimentary champagne? I heard you had quite the proposal out there.” She gives Sawyer a wink.
“Proposal?” He smiles back at her. “That wasn’t my proposal. I was chasing after the love of my life.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
She disappears back toward the front of the plane and comes back a minute later with small flutes of champagne.
“We should reunite every time we fly somewhere,” I say in a low voice.
Sawyer gives a noncommittal shrug. “I’ll do it if you want to.” But his huge smile gives him away.
I sip at the champagne and settle in to my seat. “This is the life.”
“Sitting in first class?”
“Sitting next to you.”
I let myself bask in it for a moment, and then I sit up straight. “So, tell me the entire thing.”
“What entire thing?” Sawyer’s not wasting any time drinking the champagne, and I follow his lead.
“How’d you get a job at Stanford? You don’t know anybody in Palo Alto. Do you?”
“Not a single person. Except you. In about three hours.”
“Then—”
“I begged.”
“You begged?”
“I spent most of yesterday on the phone.” He shakes his head at the thought.
“I called everywhere that might have an opening, but I spent most of my time calling the university. And this guy there, Jason, he agreed to give me a chance.” Sawyer looks into my eyes.
“That’s the might part of the equation. I have to meet him today for an interview, and then he’s willing to give me a two-week trial if that goes well. ”
My entire body goes warm. “What kind of job is it?”
Sawyer finishes off the champagne. “It’s a security thing. Night watchman for one of the buildings there.”
“Wow—putting your security experience to work already.”
He laughs a little. “It’s not really experience I can claim, so it was a miracle he even agreed to meet with me.” He shrugs. “Plus, it was lunchtime. And I was persistent.”
“You don’t have to do that for me, you know.”
“Do what for you?”
“Work some—” I can’t bring myself to call the job crappy. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but a university job usually comes with benefits, even if the salary isn’t high and the hours take place in the middle of the night.
“Shitty job?” Sawyer’s eyes crinkle at the corner. “Look, I want you to see that I don’t have to rely on a life of crime to get by. I want you to know that I’m not going back.”
I lean my head against his shoulder. “I know that.”
“It’ll be a good change, anyway. A legitimate paycheck. And if it doesn’t work out—”
“What happens then?”
“I have some savings. The most important thing is being with you.”
I take it all in for a long minute.
“I really, really meant it, out there in the terminal.”
He pulls back, raises his eyebrows.
“I meant that I love you.”
Sawyer leans his head down next to my ear. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve loved you almost as long as I’ve known you.”
“Almost?”
“Well, your friend was a bit of a distraction during the first few minutes.”
“Oh, Carly.” I laugh, remembering her in the club that night, and then I sigh. “I’m going to miss her.”
“Tell her to visit us.”
I look right into his eyes. “Us, as in Palo Alto? Or us as in—”
“Us as in our own place.” There’s a question in his gaze. “If that’s something you want.”
Relief washes over me. I’m excited to start over, to be in a new place, to try something different, but the thought of getting my own apartment didn’t thrill me. I’m ready to have some consistent company. Sawyer is really the only company I want. “Yes.”
“Glad you think so.”
“I do.” I take a deep breath as people start filtering in down the aisle. One man lets out a whoop as he goes by. “We have to start planning.”
“We haven’t taken off yet!”
“I have hotel reservations for two weeks, but beyond that…” Something else occurs to me. “Do you have an interview outfit?”
Sawyer reaches down and pats the duffel bag under the seat in front of him. “I have a date outfit. Think that’ll be nice enough?”
“If we get you a tie when we land.”
“Okay, first item on the agenda. Buy a tie at the airport.”
“Second item…”
“What should the second item be?”
“Get to the hotel?”
He gives me a wicked smile. “If we go to the hotel first, I don’t think I’ll make it to the interview.”
Heat rushes down between my legs. “Don’t look at me like that—it’s a long flight, and I’m already—”
“Turned on?”
“You’re evil.”
“Not nearly as evil as you.”
We both laugh, but there’s a sexy undertone that makes me absolutely desperate for this flight and the interview to be over with so we can go somewhere alone. I squeeze Sawyer’s hand.
“I won’t say anything else.” His tone is earnest. “Except…I know what we should do after we get the tie, after I go to the interview, and after we spend some time together at the hotel.”
“Go to the pool.” I joke.
“We can do that,” he says, looking down at me, eyes blue and clear and everything I’ve ever wanted. “But afterward, I think we should spend our lives together.”
“I’m going to need more details,” I say, pretending to consider the ceiling of the plane. “Our entire lives? Every single day that we’ve got left?”
“Every single day we’ve got left. And who knows? Maybe a few after that, too.”
I kiss him again, deeper, harder, taking it right to the point of no return, and then pressing myself back against my seat, fingertips to my lips.
“Every day,” Sawyer whispers into my ear. “You can bet on that.”