27. Fasten Your Seatbelts for Takeoff
27
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS FOR TAKEOFF
Elodie
Don’t get me wrong—TSA pre-screen is one of life’s greatest inventions. But why does it have to be more crowded than regular security on a Sunday morning at five-thirty? We’ve been trudging through this line for forty-five minutes already, and my nerves are frayed as thin as my cuticles.
I check my phone for the departure time. Again.
Gage peers around the coil of bleary, annoyed travelers ahead of us, trying to get a view of the checkpoint. “We should be fine. We still have forty minutes,” he says reassuringly, but all I can think is forty minutes to back out, forty minutes to walk away .
I haul in a big breath. “So, this will just be for?—”
But before I can even recap the rules of this marriage of convenience one more time, the line starts flowing. Suddenly, we’re moving along, then we’re showing IDs to a sturdy TSA agent. With eagle eyes, she stares down at Gage’s driver’s license, then back up. Down, up.
My pulse gallops.
What is it? Does his face not match the ID? I try to check his license to figure out the issue. I catch a glimpse of his middle name, but I don’t even have a second to ask him about it because the agent’s suddenly satisfied, dismissing him and nodding to me. “Next,” she barks.
I stick mine out at her. She gives a serious perusal. My stomach churns. Has my license expired?
No, of course not. But I feel like it has.
A nod my way, then a gravelly, “Next.”
All business, Gage urges me over to the security checkpoint he’s picked, reaching for my purse. I hand it to him and he sets it on the conveyor belt with a chill that I simply don’t possess. I don’t get how he can be so…calm when I’m so frazzled.
My purse slouches onto his neatly folded leather jacket. Even his jacket looks cool, while my bag is chaos as they trundle away.
I hustle through the scanner, then out the other side, but right when I’m grabbing my phone and purse from the belt, he’s pulled aside for a random screening.
“Are you kidding me?” I mutter.
But there’s no joking at security.
Five minutes later, his hands have been wiped down, his jacket scanned, and his tablet confirmed unthreatening. He tips his forehead to the row of departure screens as announcements ring out overhead.
“The international terminal is this way. The flight to JFK is now boarding. Please don’t leave your luggage unattended.”
I check for our flight, my shoulders dropping. “They changed gates.”
“It’s at the end of the concourse,” he says. “And it’s boarding.” His eyes travel quickly to my shoes. Converse sneakers today. “Can you run?”
No. God no. Running is awful. “Of course,” I say, then he grabs my hand and we’re trotting through crowds, weaving through parents tugging toddlers and couples in sweats wearing neck pillows.
As we race toward the last gate at the end of the concourse, I’m certain this is how I’ll die. My lungs are staging a mutiny. My thighs are screaming obscenities at me.
And yet, I choose this moment to try again. “We’re just doing this for the length of the lease, right?” I say as we jog past a shop selling I left my heart in San Francisco sweatshirts. Or maybe my mind , in my case.
He’s not even startled by my abrupt return to the rules of the road. He nods, cool and controlled. “Yep. We’ll get that guy to back off and then we’ll just…” But he trails off, maybe uncertain for the first time since he offered his hand last night.
My worry skyrockets. Is it us he’s freaking out about? Something else?
“Get a divorce,” he finally adds, as if the word tastes like sour candy on his tongue. “I don’t know if we can get an annulment after two months. I’ll have to look that up.”
“Or I can,” I offer as we race past gates like partners in…romantic crime? “I guess people have gotten married for less,” I say, trying to normalize the insanity of this choice.
“People get married on a dare from their friends. People get married because they’re drunk. People get married and then they just get divorced as soon as they can.” He lists off reasons steadily, a man in charge once more. “At least we have a reason.”
I picture the insidious look on Sebastian’s face less than twenty-four hours ago. His parting words. The power he possesses to ruin me by revealing our lie. Somehow, he’s so threatened by my modicum of success, and by my no , that he’s declared me his enemy. With his fat bank account and his suspicions, he could take me down.
A real marriage neutralizes the threat of a fake engagement. I swallow past a knot of fear.
“Flight Thirty-two to Las Vegas. All groups must board now,” a tinny voice rattles as we reach the busy gate, packed with people.
“I can’t believe there are this many people going to Vegas on a Sunday morning,” I say, though what I’m really thinking is I can’t believe I’m going to Vegas less than twelve hours after you proposed to me for a second time .
I lean closer, trying to lighten the mood, to slow my still surging pulse. “Are they all plotting their fake marriages?”
He tugs on my hand, his eyes darkening, his mouth serious. “This one is real.”
I’m speechless for several seconds. “I know,” I say, my stomach flipping with nerves.
“Real for two months,” he adds, like a reminder, but it hardly seems like a reminder for me.
It’s more like he’s reminding himself.
We reach the jetway, where a man in a starched blue suit gestures to the scanner. “Boarding pass, please.”
Gage scans his mobile phone. “How you doing?”
“Good. And you?”
“Great,” Gage says, but does he mean it?
The man smiles. “Good luck.”
After I scan my pass, we walk down the jetway in silence. My worries crawl back up my throat.
“Hey, you okay?” I ask. “You can back out.” Maybe he needs a parachute. Maybe he regrets his throwdown. “I’m the one who needs this. Sebastian’s after me. Not you.”
Gage’s head tilts my way. His eyes study me. “He’s after us. We’re in this together.”
My heart pounds mercilessly. “We are?”
“We are,” he says, strong, certain. “One hundred percent.”
“But you really don’t have to do this,” I say. I’ve never seen anyone step up like he has. I didn’t know that was a thing men did. Or people.
“You’re looking at me like you think I regret this.”
Busted. I purse my lips as we near the mouth of the plane. “I just thought maybe a few minutes ago…you were regretting it. When you sort of trailed off.”
He squeezes my hand again. “I was thinking. That was all. Just about…”
“The last time you got married?” I supply.
His smile is soft, a little wistful. “You’re a great listener. And yes, I was.”
“I had a feeling,” I say.
“But I’m sure of this,” he adds, curling his arm possessively around me like he did yesterday. “We have a plan and it’s a good one. A Special Edition Marriage.”
With our plan and our chutzpah, we step onto the plane on a Sunday morning. We’re not even going to stay overnight in the city of sin. We’ll be back in the early afternoon. Amanda spent the night at Ally’s house. Eliza is with her grandmother. There were no appointments today in San Francisco to get a marriage license, so this was our best option for a quick marriage.
We find our seats quickly in the twenty-third row, my engagement ring glinting from the sun rising outside the little window, my phone buzzes with a text.
This confirms your wedding at 10:00 AM at The Extravagant Chapel. Congratulations, and we will see you soon.
I breathe out, talking back to my buzzing brain that’s telling me I’m still so impulsive. It’s no big deal. It’s for less than two months. It’s just to save my business and, you know, my life.
I steal a glance at Gage, at the steadiness in his eyes, the sturdiness in his broad shoulders, the calm in his handsome features.
No, it’s our business. We’re in this together.
“Thank you,” I say, my throat tightening with emotion. Then I add, “Gage Reginald Archer.”
He dips his head, laughing. “You were checking out my ID?”
I shrug playfully. “Maybe I was. Is that a family name?”
“My grandpa’s. Margo’s late husband. He taught me how to throw a fastball. What’s your middle name?”
I wish mine had such a good story. “Calliope.”
He waits for me to say more.
“My parents claimed it was for the muse,” I explain, and I don’t hide my skepticism.
“And…?”
“But I found a photo where they met. A bar named Calliope.”
He nods, seeming to take that in, then adding thoughtfully, “We met at a bar.”
“Your bar. You weren’t drinking. Neither was I,” I point out.
“And I’m stone-cold sober now,” he says.
And marrying me anyway.
“Please fasten your seatbelts,” the cheery voice of a flight attendant says overhead. “We’re about to take off.”
Yes, we are.