I FELT LIKE A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL, crazy over the boy who wore a leather jacket and was always getting detention in high school. That might have had something to do with the fact that I was getting felt up in the corner of an airport magazine stand when Carter thought no one was looking.
“Stop,” I whispered in warning, but couldn’t stop myself from smiling. Carter stood behind me as I faced a magazine rack, one hand discreetly slipped under my shirt as he fondled my left breast.
“I totally get the appeal of traveling without a bra now. In fact, I insist you never wear one again when we’re together. Being able to reach up and cup this luscious tit…” He squeezed. “…whenever I want, is fucking amazing. Burn your bras, Perky.”
I chuckled. An older man walked up to the rack and stood beside me. Rather than remove his hand from my shirt, Carter decided to pinch my nipple. Hard. A cross between a moan and an ouch came out, and I tried to cover it by faking a cough. “Excuse me,” I said when the man looked at me.
I elbowed Carter in the ribs when the guy walked away. He groaned, yet somehow managed to get a last tweak of my nipple in before pulling his hand out of my shirt. “We’re in a public place. Stop that.”
Carter took the shell of my ear between his teeth and bit down as he whispered in my ear. “You love it, and you know it.”
He was absolutely right. I did love it. Although Carter was the type of man you could never let know that. He’d have no qualms with a public groping session. And if I’d learned one thing about how I react to him physically, it was that I should be careful what I start because once we get going, it was next to impossible to stop myself.
“I’m going to hit the head before we board. Pick out your magazines. I’ll be right back.” He reached in to the rack and pulled a paperback copy of Fifty Shades of Grey off and handed it to me. “Let’s buy this, too. You can highlight the dirty parts, and then when you decide to come home with me, we can act out some scenes.” He winked.
I was just finishing up picking out the last of my magazines for the plane ride when Alexa approached. Captain Alexa. I hated that just seeing this woman could make me feel so unsettled.
“Kendra. How nice to see you. Have you lost Trip already?” Bitch.
“It’s Kendall, and Carter will be right back.” I picked up a magazine and did my best to ignore her, returning my full attention as I thumbed through.
She stood next to me for another moment before speaking again. God, the bitch even smelled good. “Você leu holandês?” she said.
“Umm…Huh?”
She laughed. No, actually, she didn’t laugh. She cackled.
I walked to the register confused, until I looked down and realized I had been pretend reading a Dutch language People magazine.
Carter appeared when it was just the two of us left in line. Captain Bitchface was standing behind me. “Alexa. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh?” Her voice perked up.
He wrapped his arm around my waist possessively. “Would you mind giving me about ten minutes once we’re ready to board? I want to show Kendall the cockpit. Give my girl a tour.”
“Ummm…sure.”
The minute we walked away from the newsstand, I stopped Carter. Throwing my arms around his neck, I kissed him long and hard in the middle of the terminal. When we finally broke, both of us breathless, he smiled and said, “I’m not complaining, but what was that for?”
“Nothing. Can’t your girl just kiss you whenever she wants?”
ABOUT THREE HOURS into the flight, I decided to put my seat back and try to get some sleep. I’d pretty much done nothing but obsess about what I should do once we landed since Carter mentioned he wanted to take me home with him to Florida. I closed my eyes, but should have known my brain would never be able to shut down and rest. Instead, I began visualizing what it might be like at home with Carter in a sort of half-awake-half-sleep daydream.
What would the place he lived in look like? I’d never been to Boca, so I wasn’t sure of the architecture or the layout, but somehow I pictured him in a tall, sleek, modern, high-rise. Maybe even the penthouse suite. We’d walk through the impressive glass and steel lobby, say hello to a uniformed guard, and head straight to the waiting elevator. Carter would slip a keycard in the slot on the elevator panel and we’d shoot straight to the top floor without stopping. He’d smile at me in the reflection of the shiny silver doors, and I’d smile back, excitement coursing through my veins as I waited to be in the privacy of Carter’s home. Arriving at the top, the doors would slide open—giving us direct entry to his apartment.
In my semi-conscious dream state, I took a deep breath in and prepared to step inside. It was then my dream turned into a nightmare. Standing just inside, in front of the floor to ceiling windows of the sunken living room, stood three flight attendants. All three were naked from head to toe, except for navy stilettos and little pillbox-style hats tilted to the side.
My eyes sprung open. Oh God.
No matter how hard I tried to remember the man that I spent time with, the man who was sweet and attentive, never looking at another woman when we were together, my fears just kept coming back to haunt me. Is this how it would always be if Carter and I somehow managed to keep in touch? What would happen to the man with the insatiable sex drive when I was big and fat, seven months pregnant and carrying a baby that wasn’t his? Would he want me? Could we even make things work if I move forward with my plans?
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt the teardrops fall from my face and wet my hand. What was I going to do? How could I continue this journey with this man and fall even more? Worse, an equally harder question was, how could I not?
Miraculously, I fell asleep a little while after that. I woke up to a hand at my cheek. “Hey, beautiful. A little less than an hour left.”
I stretched my hands up over my head. “Carter. Why aren’t you in the cockpit?”
“I needed to see your face. It’s been driving me fucking insane the last six hours knowing you were sitting back here thinking about what was going to happen next between us.”
I smiled. He looked like he was hoping I’d give him my decision, but I still had no idea what I was going to do. “I’m sorry. I don’t have an answer yet.”
“It’s okay. I need to go back. But I wanted to tell you something before we land, and you made up your mind.”
“What’s that?”
He took my hand. “After Lucy died, I decided I wanted to go to school to be a pilot. But I was scared I wouldn’t be able to hack it. I was partying all the time and screwing around, basically acting like an immature jerk. I got accepted into the aviation program and wasn’t sure what to do. Flying a plane is a big responsibility, and I doubted I was capable. So I did something I’d never done before. I dug out the old poems Lucy had written for me when we were together and re-read them. I’m not sure what I was looking for, or what I expected, but it felt like something I needed to do. Anyway, I read them all—there must have been fifty of them—unsure of what I was even looking for. It didn’t become clear until I read the last one.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t remember the exact words, but the ending went something like this: Your wings already existed; now you must learn to fly.” Carter shrugged. “It’s silly, but I took that to be a sign. I mean, what are the chances Lucy’s poem would be about learning to fly when I was trying to decide to become a pilot?”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all. I truly believe that sometimes God directs us to read signs to guide our decisions. They’re always there, but He makes us see things at certain times in our lives. I think that’s what I was hoping would happen on this trip when I started out. I’d find the signs that would guide me to make the right choice.”
Carter grinned. “I’m glad you feel that way. Did you happen to read the article about one of those Kardashians in your tabloid magazine?”
I furrowed my brow. “I think I did. Something about one of the twins meeting a rapper?”
He kissed my lips. “I gotta get back. Take another look at the article. Maybe it’s your sign.”
Confused, I chuckled. “Okay.”
“See you on the ground, beautiful.” He stood and began to walk away when I called after him.
“Carter?”
“Yeah?”
“Do any flight attendants live in your building?”
He gave me a sexy half smile. “Definitely not.”
“Is there a uniformed doorman?”
“Nope.”
“Do you live in a penthouse?”
His half smile widened to a full-fledged grin. “Not even close.”
“So naked women don’t meet you at your door when you get home wearing stilettos?”
He laughed. “Thank Christ, no. You have no idea how funny that question is. If you decide to come home with me, remember what you just asked.”
“Okay.”
After Carter disappeared back into the cockpit, I took out my magazine and flipped through the pages until I came to the story about one of the Kardashian kids. Curious as to what he thought could be a sign for us, I reread the entire article. The story was about Kendall, so there was that commonality, but that was about all I could seem to find that could possibly point me to anything. She had met a new guy, that was sure as heck nothing new, and the article had a few pictures of them kissing and roller skating. Apparently they were on a trip to Miami, so there was a faint Florida connection, too. Unable to break his cryptic message, I figured I’d ask Carter about it when we landed. But then I closed the magazine and his sign hit me right smack in the face.
The cover had various quotes. In the top right-hand corner, there was a picture of Taylor Swift and underneath it read. Taylor: Music is better than sex. I laughed to myself thinking there was no way in hell that was a sign he wanted me to read into. Down at the bottom of the cover was a picture of Kendall Jenner. The words underneath hit me hard, and I knew exactly what Carter had been hoping I’d see as a sign. Kendall: I fell in love in Florida.
WHEN WE LANDED in Dubai, I waited in my seat until the plane was almost empty. After the last person passed, I stuffed my Okay magazine into my bag and made my way to the cockpit where Carter was standing. For the first time ever, he looked nervous. Gone was the smiling, confident, cocky pilot I knew, replaced by something that looked a hell of a lot like vulnerability.
We said nothing until I was standing in front of him. Then, he extended his hand to me hesitantly. “What do you say, Perky? Come home with me?”
I kept a solemn face as I reached up on my tippy toes to almost see eye to eye with him. “How can I possibly go against the advice of a Kardashian?”
FLYING WITH CARTER next to me was so much more fun than having him be in the cockpit where I couldn’t stare at his handsome face. The flights from Dubai to Florida were on a code share, which meant we were on a sister airline and weren’t subjected to Carter’s usual harem of flight attendants for the torturously long flights. We spent fifteen hours flying and changing planes, yet between sleeping with my head on Carter’s chest and playing touchy feely underneath the skimpy flight blanket, I actually enjoyed every moment of the flights. In fact, I felt refreshed when we exited the terminal in Miami.
We hopped a shuttle bus to long-term parking, and when we walked to Carter’s car, I realized just how much I was going to learn about the man by seeing him in his familiar surroundings.
“This is me,” Carter said as we walked to a large, black Suburban. He opened the back hatch and lifted our luggage inside, then walked around to the passenger door, opened it, and helped me hop up and get in.
I turned and checked out the inside while he walked around to the driver’s side. “This thing is huge. I can fit two of my cars inside here. I think I pictured you more in a little sporty two-seater than this bus. Yet somehow, this fits you, too.”
“Used to have exactly that. A little red 1972 Porsche Targa. Loved that thing. Traded it with a friend last year for this beast. He had back surgery and was having trouble hopping up into the high seat, and I needed something bigger for hauling crap around.”
“Hauling crap around?”
Carter put the car into drive and pulled out of the lot. “Yeah. I’m always loading this thing for one reason or another.”
“How long is the drive to your place?”
“About a half-hour. Goes quick, it’s mostly highway.”
During the drive, I went through my emails. There was one I had been avoiding for a few days—responding to my mother. I knew she was at least half loaded when she wrote it, just from her run-on sentences. My well-spoken mother tended to lose her boarding school upbringing after a pint of vodka. Rather than explain what I was really up to, I took the easy way out and emailed back telling her I was traveling with a friend still, and I’d be in touch in a few days.
Before long, we pulled off the highway, made a few quick turns, and were pulling down a road that led to a residential community. The entrance had a large fountain in the middle of a circular drive and a welcoming clubhouse building. To the left and the right, there were entrance gates that blocked passage to what looked like hundreds of condos in a neatly planned community. Carter pulled to the left and stopped to roll down his window and key in a code. The gate slowly opened, and we drove through.
A decorative sign greeted us on the other side. Welcome to Silver Shores. We’re glad you’re home safe. An older man wearing a gray jumpsuit was driving a scooter with a basket on the front and waved and yelled when we passed. “Hey, Cap. Welcome home.”
Carter waved back and smiled. “That’s Ben. He was a New York City garbage man for forty years. Still wears the jumper every day. He’d be the closest to the uniformed doorman you imagined I had.”
As we drove farther into the community, I looked around. It was nothing like I expected. Although it was clean and well manicured, it was the exact opposite of a sleek high-rise. Instead, the buildings were all simple two level condos, very standard and normal.
After a few blocks, we turned left and pulled into a parking spot. Carter smirked and pointed to one of the units on the first floor. “And that there, that would be my penthouse.”