“I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow night,” Denver said, pushing my bedroom door closed behind him and plopping down on my bed so hard the whole thing bounced.
“Plans changed.”
After two of the longest days of my life with my family, I’d finally found time to make contact with Cat. I’d been backstage at the bachelor auction, and she’d been at work, and despite my best efforts to lay eyes on her face directly, all I’d gotten were a few measly texts.
I needed more. So, like any good athlete, I found a way to make it happen.
“Earlier practice?” he asked, spooning a mouthful of ice cream out of his deep burgundy bowl and closing his lips around it until they touched again. He’d been sold to Gerdie Hawthorne at the auction, and after finding out via their initial meeting that she was handsy as hell, had been drowning himself in cookies ’n cream ever since.
I couldn’t say I blamed him.
“No.”
“Team meeting?”
“No.”
“Weight-lifting session with one of the guys?” he pushed, cycling through all of the things I filled my days with on a regular basis.
“No.”
It was only a matter of time before he figured out—
“So…a woman, then.”
And there it is.
“Denver,” I warned, feeling anxious about discussing a woman I’d just met. I didn’t want to jinx it, didn’t know what to say—I didn’t even know what I was doing, much less how to explain it to an outsider.
“Oh, come on, Quinny. You know this is the only traditional guy talk I get to have. It’s like everyone else thinks I play for the girls’ team because I’m gay. I’m not going to tattle if you tell me the reason you like her has nipples. I can do tit talk. Lay it on me.”
“Den,” I hummed through a rough chuckle, shoving a folded clump of shorts into my bag and squishing it down. “The reason I like her doesn’t have nipples, and I don’t ever do tit talk.”
“So you do like someone!”
“Denver, drop it,” I ordered, tossing the rest of my shirts into the bag and whirling the zipper around the perimeter. One thing I was certain of: Jilly would be happy as hell my mom had had the housekeeper do my laundry.
“Are you kidding me? Why? This is the best thing you’ve given me since you’ve been home. Something to focus on. Something to work with. Something to peck over.”
“Denver.”
“Quinn.”
I sighed. I knew that tone, and I knew my brother. When he got in pecking mode, I better goddamn give him a carcass, or he would turn me into one.
I sighed, shoved my bag aside, and dropped down onto my bed in the spot I’d created. “Her name is Cat.”
His eyes sparkled. “Yesssss. Cat. Meow. Love it.”
When I didn’t say anything else, the sparkle in his bright green eyes dimmed noticeably, and he sat up to slam his bowl on my nightstand. The spoon clattered loudly with his rough movements. “That’s it?” he snapped. “What are the plans, Quinn? I need to know where you’re taking her, what you’re wearing, what other fabulous people will be there.”
I rolled my eyes.
“There aren’t plans, per se,” I admitted. “She’s a flight attendant, and she’s working the 8:15 a.m. from Birmingham to JFK. And now, I’m also on that plane.”
“Stalking her at work?” he practically trilled. “Finally, this is getting good.”
“I’m not stalking her.”
Am I?
“I’m just strategically arranging my schedule to coincide with hers.”
He clasped his hands together, his face going waxy as he got excited. “Tell me she has another lover, and you’ll have to fight him for her. It’ll be all over the news and social media, and the air marshal will have to get involved. You’ll end up in—”
“Stop talking,” I instructed, shoving him back into the headboard with a splayed hand to his chest. “There’s no other guy.” Suddenly, I frowned. “I don’t think.”
“You don’t think?” Denver whispered elatedly. “You don’t know if she’s dating someone else?”
I rolled my eyes and picked at some imaginary lint on my shorts. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious. “We talked for a night. I didn’t get around to asking her if she was dating anyone.”
“How pretty is she?” he asked, and I glared.
“Okay, so, pretty. Duh. Sorry.” He pretended to wince. “She’s definitely seeing someone, then.”
“You don’t know that,” I contradicted, feeling a tiny stab in my chest as I worked to convince myself he was wrong. “I’m not bad-looking, and I’m not seeing anyone.”
He scoffed. “You’re an Adonis, and you’re seeing several someones. Next.”
“Den—”
“I said, next!” he shouted.
“You’re going to wake up Mom and Dad,” I threatened, and he lowered his voice immediately.
“Fine. But don’t you have to wake them up? You’re not sneaking out and leaving the goodbye to me!”
“I already told them I was leaving early.”
“Wow,” he remarked, turning his head and pursing his lips in offense. “I see you’ve been planning this for a while.”
“An hour, Den. I’ve had this plan for an hour.” A tiny discomfort from his implication of manwhoring niggled at me. It wasn’t that I hadn’t partaken in my full quota of sexual activity. I had. But I hadn’t run up the number in a while. “And I’m not seeing several someones.”
He raised an eyebrow dramatically, his disbelief too pure to require a verbal statement. “I haven’t seen one single someone since before preseason.”
He smiled, finally convinced. “Well, then, this is exciting. Though the idea that you were coming up with a plan to sweep your lady friend off her feet while I was being sold to a friend with a little too much lady for my tastes is kind of depressing.” I frowned, but he pushed onward. “I wish I were coming with you. I want to see her.”
As much as I’d love to have my brother with me, I wasn’t so sure it’d make my plays any easier this early in the wooing game. “Den—”
“Relax. I’m not coming with you.” He rolled his eyes. “I have to go back up to the high school for more football. Yay.”
I shook my head at my little brother and gave him a shove in his. “Maybe some other time.”
“You’re staying in a hotel tonight?” he asked.
“At the airport. Just to make it easier to make the flight in the morning.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands at his chest. “Take me with you.”
I laughed at his desperation and then shrugged. “You can come to the hotel with me if you want.”
He smiled at me affectionately and then shook his head with resigned determination. “I can’t. I promised Dad I’d go back to the final tryout in the morning.”
My heart swelled for my brother. He was such a good guy. After all my parents had put him through, he still took things that were important to them seriously. He kept his promises, and he honored his responsibilities.
“You’re a good man, Den. Really. When you’re not annoying the shit out of me, I’m really proud to call you my brother.”
He laughed. “So flowery.”
I put out my fist and waited for him to touch his to mine. “Until next time, bro.”
“We’d like to welcome Zone One for RoyalAir flight 2209 to board at this time. Passengers in Zone One,” the gate agent announced. Of course, most of us were already lined up like a bunch of fucking cattle.
I wasn’t sure where the urge came from to be on the plane for longer than absolutely necessary, but all but one or two stragglers left in the seating area seemed to have it.
However, I, myself, had something else driving me to get on board.
Several somethings with wings and little fucking antennas, and they were flying all over my fucking stomach.
I hadn’t been this nervous since my first game as the starting quarterback for the Mavericks. I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of seeing Cat again or my brother’s words about stalking her, but angst was my new pet—and it lived within me.
She won’t think I’m stalking her, will she? I mean, I have to fly back to New York, right? I live there. I work there. This is normal.
I moved with the line and stepped up to the scanner, turning over my phone to scan my boarding pass and listened for the beep that said I could move down the jetway. The machine did its magic, and the woman behind it gave me a professional smile. “Welcome aboard, sir.”
I smiled back and hustled away, stretching my steps out to be long and slow as I marched down the little square tunnel.
I tucked my phone into my bag and prepared to duck as I approached the metal doorway, eager to make a better entrance this time. Walking and texting yourself into injury in front of people is really only funny the first time you do it.
I had to keep my neck craned to the side as I stepped across the threshold since I was too tall to stand all the way up, but I smiled anyway. I’d managed to make it in without hitting my head this time.
Step one, accomplished.
Almost as if on cue, Casey’s head came up from his spot across the galley, and his eyes widened slightly. Recognition ripened the air between us.
“Well, well. Back for another ride, Quinn?”
I almost laughed at his double entendre—a pun I was absolutely certain he’d made on purpose—but I was too busy hoping the reason he remembered my name was because Cat had been talking about me.
“What goes to Alabama, must come back,” I teased, and he smirked.
Cat came charging up the aisle right then, several bagged blankets in her hands, and my breath caught in my chest. She was even more beautiful than I’d recalled.
Thankfully, Casey didn’t seem to have the same problem as he breathed out a taunt with ease. “Oh, Catharinnnne. Look who it is!”
I smiled—at least, I tried to smile as my cheeks turned into some form of flesh-colored Jell-O—and waited for her to meet my eyes.
Panic, pungent and swift, gripped my every muscle and threatened to paralyze me.
What if she looked disappointed to see me?
Up and up, her eyes climbed my body until they found my own, flaring more with every inch they passed. She knew the ridges of my stomach and the soft swell of my chest, she knew the line of my throat as I swallowed in anticipation, and she knew my eyes when she found them. It was even better than I could have hoped.
Wide-eyed and beautiful, she caught her toe on the edge of the aisle runner, and she went tumbling—right into me. The bagged blankets in her hands shot out in all directions, falling unceremoniously onto the seats in her close proximity.
I caught her against me, chest to chest, and watched up close as her pupils dilated at my touch.
Yeah. I’d made the right decision.
This flight was going to be fun.