Chapter 26
JAXON
Being back at the hangar with my tools in hand and grease covering my clothes, it felt like my time in Fiji had been nothing but a dream. Almost like I’d spaced out during my last conversation with Kavan and was coming to with all these made up memories of things that hadn’t really happened.
The heaviness in my chest and a deeper tan on my forearms as I worked were the only evidence that it had really happened and that I wasn’t likely to forget about it anytime soon.
Big Mac’s advice not to forget about it at all turned in my head, but it was better if I did.
The sooner I let it all go, the sooner I’d start feeling like myself again.
Kavan walked in about an hour later, his face breaking out into a grin and his arms widening to his sides when he saw me. “Welcome home, brother. When did you get in?”
“Yesterday.” I tightened the bolt I was busy with, feeling his gaze heavy on my back. “I don’t want to talk about it. How’re Shira and the baby?”
“Doing well. We’re counting down the days until the little princess arrives.
” He walked around me and leaned against the engine I was working on, concern furrowing his brow as he folded his arms loosely over his chest. “What exactly don’t you want to talk about?
Fiji, or your fake marriage while you were there? ”
“Both.” They were so rolled up in each other that there was no telling how to speak about one without the other. “All that I’m willing to say is that I wished it had ended differently.”
“How did it end?”
I scowled at the metal under my hands, even though it was completely innocent in all this. “With me leaving in the pre-dawn hours without saying goodbye.”
Kavan made a strangled noise at the back of his throat, his brows shooting up. “Seriously? You of all people sneaked away under the cover of darkness? What the fuck?”
“I didn’t sneak away.” I scoffed, giving him a narrow-eyed glare. “She said she didn’t want to say goodbye to me in the morning, so I didn’t make her say goodbye. I caught the first flight out and here I am.”
He covered his face with his hands, groaning and shaking his head. “Dude, I don’t know this woman, but I doubt she meant that as literally as you took it.”
“What?” I snapped. None of this was Kavan’s fault either, but I was in a shitty mood, and he was pushing for information I’d already told him I didn’t want to give.
“If she said she didn’t want to say goodbye to you, it meant she didn’t want your time together to end. Not that she literally didn’t want to do the goodbye part.”
“You know what? You’re right.” I turned my glare on the engine again. “You don’t know her.”
My friend, who was obviously in the mood to get a fist to his jaw because he kept pushing, let out an exasperated sigh. “Maybe not, but I know women and I know relationships. I’ve only been with Shira for over a decade. What was your longest relationship again?”
“You and Shira were meant to fucking be. You never went through anything like this.”
Blue eyes turning to ice, his jaw tightened and his fingers curled into a fist on the engine.
“Your memory seems to be failing you in your old age. Maybe we didn’t meet in a tropical fucking paradise and our biggest obstacle wasn’t how to tell each other that we wanted to keep seeing each other.
You know what our obstacles were? Continuous deployments for the first few years we were together, my injury, her not knowing whether I was alive, my rehab, depression when I got discharged, trying to build a new life for ourselves, fertility issues and treatments.
The list goes on and fucking on, but why don’t you tell me again that I don’t know what I’m talking about because we never went through anything like that? ”
My anger and frustration deflated like he’d popped the ever-growing balloon with a pin. I shoved my hands into my hair and looked up at him properly, letting out a sigh as I tilted my head toward the ceiling.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget all that shit, but when you summarize it all like that, you two really have been through a lot.”
He nodded, clenching and unclenching his fingers and rolling his neck. Then he let out a deep breath of his own. “Let’s go get some coffee and you can actually talk to me without pretending like you’re the only person in the world to ever have had problems with a woman.”
“Still don’t want to talk about it.” But I was already placing my tools back in their container and following him to the break room.
He turned his head to the side to look at me over his shoulder, making sure I could see his exaggerated eye roll. “Do you know how many times I’ve said those exact same words to you? You kept coming at me anyway, and it helped. I’m returning the favor.”
“Would you like to braid my hair while we’re at it?” I smirked, knowing I was being an asshole but really wishing he’d leave me the fuck alone about this.
He flipped me off and sent me a warning look. “Cut that shit right the fuck out. I’m about to have a little girl. Those condescending types of comments about what they do aren’t going to fly with me anymore.”
“You really think it’s condescending?” I scratched my chin, thinking about his statement as a distraction from my own bullshit.
“Of course, it’s fucking condescending,” he growled and slammed the empty pot into the coffeemaker. “Now pull your head out of your ass and start talking.”
“I think I’d rather have you braiding my hair.” I got out our mugs, as was the routine, but walked back and dropped into one of the threadbare couches. “This might come as a surprise to you, but that tone doesn’t exactly invite candor.”
“Quit stalling.” He turned with his back toward the counter housing the coffeemaker and gripped the edge of it as he stared me down. “You’re not getting out of this, so you might as well get it over with.”
“Such an asshole,” I muttered under my breath.
“Takes one to know one.” He pretended to blow me a kiss, but his eyes were firm and impatient on mine. “Can you please quit stalling now? I have work to do and I’d really like to get back to my wife at some point this week.”
“I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted. “My sides just feel so empty.”
“Your sides?” He looked thoroughly confused. “Pro tip, don’t start there. That makes no fucking sense.”
“It makes sense to me.” Starting from the beginning, even if I knew he’d already heard some parts of it, I told him everything that had happened between Lindsay and me, ending with how I’d gotten so used to having her curled up into one of my sides that it now felt weird having only my arms next to my body.
Understanding washed over his features when I explained that part. “Okay, I get it now. You said earlier that you wished it had ended differently, so why didn’t it? You’ve never been one to just let the chips fall where they may.”
“Honestly? It would’ve killed me to know she was in the same city but that she wasn’t mine anymore. Even if she never really was.”
“What would you have done if she could’ve been yours? If she is in Houston, why not go after her?”
“She’s not the kind of girl who’s going to jump into the next relationship when she’s still reeling from the last. She deserves time and space to work through it.”
“No offense man, but that’s not your call to make.”
“Isn’t it?” I tipped my head to the side. “I promised her I’d protect her. Her relationship and her wedding fell apart a little over a week ago. Jumping into something with her that she isn’t ready for, or forcing her to make a decision about it right now, isn’t fair.”
“Making the decision for her isn’t fair either,” he countered. “Yet you had no problem doing that.”
“I didn’t make the decision for her. She didn’t want to say goodbye, so I fixed things so she wouldn’t have to. Done. End of our story. Now she can move on with her life without any complications while she figures out how to do that.”
His reply was interrupted by my phone ringing. The name on my screen when I fished it out of my pocket belonged to my supervisor at the airline. “Shitty fucking timing, but I have to take this.”
The timing could’ve been way shittier, to be fair, but that didn’t mean I wanted to speak to him right now. I answered anyway. It was my job, after all.
“Where have you been?” he asked after exchanging terse pleasantries. “I checked with the HR department, but there was no vacation time authorized for you this week.”
“Funny. I did put in for it.” I’d sent an email to the general account for the department while waiting for my flight. “I had a ton of time off saved up. I’m sure they’ll just take it off.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.” His tone was filled with regret, and my gut clenched. “I have to send your file up for termination, Jaxon. You can’t just take off without any notice. It’s against our policies and procedures.”
“But—”
My protest fell on deaf ears. “It’s out of my hands. There are disciplinary procedures that must decide your fate now.”
He ended our call abruptly shortly after, not budging an inch despite anything I said. Kavan had a worried crease between his brows and he lifted them at me when I tossed my phone down on the rickety coffee table.
“Trouble at work?”
I nodded, staring at my friend in complete disbelief.
I really hadn’t thought it would be an issue.
I had the time saved up and I’d sent them an email.
Fine, I hadn’t waited for a reply and I hadn’t really asked so much as tell, but it was only a few days longer than I would’ve been home anyway, so it wasn’t like I’d missed any scheduled flights or they had to replace me at short notice.
“I’m going to have to call the HR department myself. This is fucked up. They’re trying to fire me for going to Fiji.”