“One bag to check.” I set my luggage down on the metal scale at the Iberia Airlines ticketing counter and took a step back.

For a moment, I studied my scuffed khaki duffel bag, weighed in kilos, wondering if I should just pick it up and head back home. Was I being crazy? Did I really have to be the one to do this?

Yes. It was my duty. She hadn’t responded to my email, and I needed to go in person anyway. Signing up for Dani’s class would allow me to stay there, subsidized by the G.I. Bill. I could stay all summer. It might take the whole summer to work out everything I needed to with her.

The woman behind the counter took my passport and started clicking on the keyboard. “Your gate is E-6,” she said. “Right over there past security.”

After tagging my bag, she let out a groan as she hefted it from the scale to the conveyor belt. She handed me back my passport and boarding pass, which I put in my back pocket next to the letter I carried from Degan. My forlorn bag trundling down the conveyor reminded me of when I went off with it for the first time. I had that same feeling in my belly. Like I was going off into the unknown, bringing along a few bouncing metal springs in my stomach to make me sick. This time, though, I stooped as I walked, lacking the energy I had the first time I went on a military flight.

For the second time in my life, all I had was a plane ticket, a backpack with my laptop, some clothes in a bag, and a fervent desire to get something done. Although this time, no one I knew was flying with me, and it made my throat scratchy and my chest tight. I kept my earbuds in and listened to “Party in the USA,” the upbeat song keeping me from wallowing about my missing travel partner.

Actually, I already was wallowing. Only now I had a mission to accomplish that distracted me from completely falling into depression.

I headed off to the security line, texting a goodbye to my parents and a thanks to Hernandez. An elderly couple in front of me was saying something in Spanish. Growing up in California, I was used to hearing the language, but now I tried to understand them and had no idea what they were saying. While I’d taken classes in high school, I hadn’t used it ever in real life. I’d thought that my language skills were passable. Certainly, I could order in Taco Bell with no problem.

But now as a Spanish student, well, I had a lot to learn.

I put Degan’s letter in my backpack for safekeeping and took off my boots and belt, walking through the scanner in my white T-shirt, jeans, and socks. After breezing through security, it didn’t take too long to board the plane. I was grateful to be alone in the aisle—no one to talk to, no one to bring up any distressing subjects.

Looking out the window at my last glance of California, following the instructions of the flight attendant, I ensured my seat back and tray table were in the full upright position, and prepared for takeoff.

Funny thing. Since I’d been airborne in the army, I’d taken off in an airplane forty-seven more times than I’d landed in one. The other times I’d used a parachute. Staying in an airplane the entire time was novel.

Several hours later, the lights of the plane had darkened, and passengers in other aisles slept. I blinked away my fatigue, fighting off sleep. Sleep had become hell with my nightmares.

Better to just stay awake.

I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and scrutinized her picture. Degan, Dani, and I had sat in the photo booth in that pizza parlor before we left, making goofy faces. We each took one of the four pictures, with one left over, which I’d stashed at my parents’ house. The one I ended up with had Dani gazing at me with kiss-stung lips and wide eyes, while I grinned at the camera and Degan shrugged.

How many times had I looked at Dani’s face? Her smattering of freckles and her dark eyebrows.

What would I say when I saw her again?

My hands gripped my seat rest, and I gulped for air. Whatever was gonna happen in Spain would be bad because I had to tell her right away about Degan.

Thinking about him made my lungs constrict.

While I didn’t look forward to what I had to say to her, I couldn’t wait to catch my first glimpse of her. How had she changed? I’d see her in less than twenty-four hours. My heartbeat quickened. What was she like now? Would she bring out the most primal part of me like she always did? The part that wanted to do nothing but watch the way she rounded words with her soft lips. The way her hips swayed when she moved?

Fuck. Now I was getting hard on the plane. Thankfully I had a dark blue polyester blanket over me so I wouldn’t be showing off my boner, but this was getting uncomfortable.

I closed my eyes and saw her. Imagined stripping her out of her clothes and seeing what was underneath.

Why was I tormenting myself?

I glanced around. The entire plane was asleep. Even the flight attendants were sitting in the back, chatting.

I unbuckled my seatbelt, got up, and headed to the airplane bathroom, my pulse racing.

Once I got in, I leaned against the sink, staring at myself in the mirror. My face was flushed and my breathing shallow. I didn’t want to be a pervert, but fuck, I had to take care of this. I undid my belt and my pants, stroking myself over my black boxer briefs, unable to stop thinking about her. A long vein throbbed in my cock. I pushed down the elastic of my underwear, and my hard dick sprung loose.

Four long years in the army, and I’d never succumbed to hiring a prostitute. I hadn’t had any girlfriends. I hadn’t had any hookups. All I wanted was the girl in that picture.

Fuck, Dani.

I stroked harder.

What would it be like to see her again? Why did it have to be under these circumstances?

Faster and faster, I rammed my cock into my fist, thrusting my hips, needing the release, needing to get out all of the fucking tension.

I was getting close. A groan escaped my lips. My cock grew harder, more pointed. I threw my head back, the muscles in my arms tensing, my orgasm headed to me like a heat-seeking missile, nothing stopping it now, and with a pause and a moan, I let go, spilling onto my cupped hand. My body pulsed, my cock still hard.

Nothing had changed since the pizza parlor. I wanted her. I only hoped that after everything I had to tell her, she’d want me, too.

After a few moments, my breathing came under control. My brain felt clearer, my body relaxed.

Jesus, I was headed to Spain to tell my best friend’s sister that he died, and I joined the mile high club with my fist.

Degan would be proud.

I cleaned up, then opened the door. A pretty, dark-haired flight attendant stood right outside, as if she’d been waiting for me to get out.

God.

Had I made any noise? How long had I taken?

Red heat burned my cheeks.

Cool it, Milner. Pretend it’s nothing.

I gave her a chin lift and headed back to my seat.

* * *

“Flight attendants please prepare the cabin for arrival.”

My gummy eyelids opened to the cabin lights on and a flight attendant holding out a plastic trash bag to pick up my water cup. Had I slept? I didn’t think so.

Those metal springs inside my belly started to vibrate wildly, from anticipation. Either that, or I’d be sick.

A few minutes later, with the wheels of the plane extended, I peered out the window. The sun shone clear this morning, and the sky seemed a different color blue. A bluer blue than what I knew. The earth was a bright, rusty red like a brick. Foreign. I’d expected Spain to be different than home, but not this different. Afghanistan had looked more like California than this.

I held my breath. My stomach lurched up. Then gravity slammed the back of my head against the rough fabric of the airplane seat, communicating our reentry to earth to my skull.

We landed.

No parachute needed.

The wheels chirped on the runway, then touched down for sure, friction removing rubber and leaving it on the hot, bouncy concrete. After a few more seconds, with a whoosh of air and roar of the engine reversing, the plane came to a halt in Madrid. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and stretched out my boot-clad feet, my body creaky.

“Bienvenidos a España,” the flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker. Welcome to Spain.

My Taco Bell-level Spanish understood that, but going forward everything else would be a crapshoot.

Fuck. What was I getting myself into?

We taxied along the runway, as I double-checked that Degan’s letter was in my backpack. I sighed. It was safe.

Once the plane doors opened, I exited onto the tarmac and got my luggage. In a tired mind-fog in sweltering June heat, I made my way through customs while people all around me smoked and jabbered in another language. One I barely understood.

I pulled out money from an ATM, got a SIM card for my phone, and let my parents know I’d made it. Made my way to a taxi. To the train station. And I boarded the train to Granada, exhausted, but too wired to sleep.

I’m almost there, Degan. I’ll tell her for you.

* * *

Leaving the grimy train station in Granada, I shoved my spent ticket in my back pocket and faced a street of gray modern high-rises that appeared nothing like the pictures of Spain that advertised the translation school. Where was the quaint cobblestone?

It surprised me, but frankly I didn’t care what it looked like, so long as I got to her.

People passed me right and left speaking Spanish while I stood searching for my hostel on my phone. Cocking my ear to understand those around me, I caught phrases here and there, but nothing substantial. This was gonna be a challenge in more ways than one, but I’d handled worse.

Of course the few Americans with big backpacks near me were easy to understand.

“Dude, Granada has the most bars per cubic meter of any city in Europe.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. Some don’t even open until two in the morning. So dope.”

I shook my head, stuck my phone in my pocket, slung my bag over my shoulder, and aimed for the center of town on foot. Class started tomorrow, Monday. I could do this. I’d just pretend my throat and lungs weren’t sore from keeping all the feelings in.

The compact buildings edged up directly next to each other with no space between them, like they were built with a muted-hue Lego set. A change in color and a different door were the only clues designating a different building. Retail space took up most of the ground floors, with apartments on top. You had to look up a lot.

I didn’t like that. Someone could do quite a bit of damage in a small area if they wanted to. I found myself scanning for snipers on rooftops. Goddamn Afghanistan. Man, the army had fucked with my head.

Making my way into the central part of the city, the heat beat down on me like I’d said something bad about its mother. The buildings got older, and I finally saw cobblestone. Checking my phone, I came to the block where I was staying.

Drained from travel, passports, foreign money, different cities, train travel, and finally finding my way to a place to stay, I pressed the doors open to the hostel. I found myself in a cool, small room that smelled like smoke. The ugliest cat in the world, white with a weird black spot on its hind leg, snoozed on the dark wood counter.

A slight, young, dark-haired woman with a broad smile and a toddler on her hip entered from a room to the side.

“Hola,” said the toddler, and proceeded to babble away, telling me in really, really good Spanish, welcome and good afternoon.

“Hola,” I said, “me llamo Trent.”

“Me llamo Carmen,” she replied.

Carmen spoke better Spanish than me, even though I had twenty more years on the planet than her. I shook my damn head.

The manager sat the child down, gave her a drink, and asked for my passport and a credit card in English. After I signed the papers, she handed me the key to my room and told me the times for meals. I trudged up two flights of stairs and opened the door. The tiny room barely fit me and my bag. It had a spartan twin bed, a sink in the corner, and a window opening to the middle patio. I’d be using a bathroom down the hall.

Good enough for me.

I flung my bag on the bed and my backpack at the foot. We’d all arrived safely, me, my luggage, and Degan’s letter. I’d traveled halfway around the world, chasing a girl. Tomorrow, I’d see her for the first time in four years, and I dreaded what I had to do.

Please, oh please, let this not destroy her.

For now, I was so tired, I scooted over my bag and snuggled up with a scratchy pillow, not wanting the sleep, but needing it just to make it to the next day.