I go through all the motions…check-in, checking my baggage, security and finally buying a coffee to wake my ass up before I collapse on the germ-infested vinyl seats and miss the announcement of my flight boarding.

I’m boarded and in my seat, which I upgraded to first class because I need something in my life to not suck right now. The flight attendant comes by, but I decline anything. All I want is sleep and the promise that this shattered feeling inside will stay in Chicago and disappear when the plane’s tires land in Utah.

First class is empty, probably because the ski season is done for the year. The tourists start to dwindle before there’s another rush in late spring and summer for golf, horseback riding, and fishing. It’s really perfect timing for me to return since I’ll have a few weeks to keep a low profile.

Sleep evades me. I try to picture my life without her in it and it just seems like a vast wasteland. Maybe we were always headed for this moment—the point of no return. Perhaps even if we hadn’t slept together, push was eventually going to come to shove. Everything I did to make sure she’d remain in my life one way or another seems futile now.

Grady’s voice rings loud in my head.

Am I really leaving her with scars?

This entire time I was worried about her leaving me, and what it would do to me. It’d strip me bare if I put it all out there and she rejected me. But she was there for my taking, ready to jump in with both feet and I’m the one who left her all alone. I was the asshole. I acted like my own fucking sperm and egg donor. I made her feel like I’ve felt my entire life.

“Fuck!” I yell.

“Is there something wrong?” The flight attendant walks down the aisle to me and bends down to speak with me.

“How much longer until we land?”

She glances at her watch. “Probably an hour or so.”

“Shit. Any way we can land this thing?”

She laughs, her perfectly shaped eyebrows rising. “Um, no.”

Worth a try, unless I want to feign a heart attack or something. “Then how do I get a ticket to board the next flight back to Chicago after we land?”

She scrunches her forehead and sits down next to me. “Are you on the wrong flight?”

This isn’t some Home Alone bullshit and with how many times you have to show your damn boarding pass it has to be nearly impossible for that to happen, doesn’t it?

“No, I have to get back to Chicago.”

A smile forms on her lips. “A girl?”

Okay, I’m over the advice column shit now. The light bulb over my head is finally on and could act like a lighthouse if I wanted.

“Yeah,” I say sweetly with the hope it might earn me some romantic brownie points and score me a ticket at not triple the cost. Not that Skylar’s not worth it, but it just means there’s less I’ll have to spend on her.

“Okay, let me find out for you.” She stands up.

I take the phone from the headrest, punching in her cell phone.

Voicemail. Shit.

“Sky, please don’t go out with Mauro. I’m coming. I’m sorry. I’m a fucktard. Please, please, this is the last time I’ll tell you to wait for me. I promise.”

I end the call, the flight attendant handing me a glass of scotch.

“Nah, just anything with caffeine. Alcohol, me and this girl don’t mix.”

She laughs, taking her scotch back with her but I swear she chugs it down before she moves past the partition.

“Okay,” she says when she returns, handing me a soda. “This plane will be heading back to Chicago after refueling and clean up. You have to get off, buy your ticket, and then you can re-board. Give me your luggage tags.” She holds her hand out.

I dig in to find the luggage tags in my wallet and hand them to her. She heads back up to the front and gets back on the phone, returning a minute later.

“You’re all set. Now it’s just a waiting game.”

The minutes tick by like hours. Could I really not have figured this out while still in the airport?

An hour later, the tires land in Utah. I do everything the flight attendant told me and I’m surprised how smoothly it all went. I couldn’t get first class, so I’m sandwiched between a mom with a baby and a business guy on the return flight, but I’m not about to complain.

“Sorry to both of you, but there’s a lot of calls about to be made.”

They each just stare at me, so I swipe my credit card and pick up the phone. Organizing everything I need for tonight. When I land in Chicago, I won’t be coming to her, she’ll be coming to me. That is if Demi and Dax can stop fucking for ten minutes to do what they’re supposed to.

If I’m going to jump, I’m doing it with both feet and no parachute. What better way is there than to go big. Big always is better.