Afraid to Fly

by L. A. Witt

  He trailed his fingers up and down my chest. “Your heart’s going crazy.”

  “Of course it is.” I laughed. “You just made me come.”

  He lifted his head, grinned wickedly, and kissed me. Then he rested his head on my chest again and draped his arm over me.

  He didn’t need to know right now that it was more than my orgasm making my heart race like that.

  It was . . . this. Being with him. I suspected my pulse would’ve been going crazy even if we’d been lying here fully clothed and hadn’t laid a hand below each other’s belts. Though there was definitely some of that postcoital euphoria, and my body felt fucking fantastic now that he’d worked his magic, this excited nervousness was becoming my natural state when he was in the same room. Even if we were in a meeting, or passing in the halls, or sitting across from each other and talking about nothing over lunch.

  And in bed? Wow. Only one other person had ever narrowed my entire focus, my entire universe, to simply being overwhelmed by their presence.

  That other person was the mother of my children, and I’d never imagined feeling like this for someone again. But damn, holding Travis close, with my mind replaying the look on his face as we’d stroked each other, there was no denying how I felt about him.

  I cuddled closer to him. It was too soon to say for sure if this was love or infatuation, but infatuation had never burrowed so far beneath my skin. Not that it had ever had much opportunity—I’d been with my ex-wife for most of my adult life, and since the divorce, hadn’t actually dated anyone besides Logan. But even in my younger days, when I’d had the occasional girlfriend or the odd fling, I’d never been dizzy, giddy, speechless, delirious—except with Mandy.

  Until now.

  I kissed his forehead. This was still a young, nebulous thing. It was entirely possible we were still riding the novelty of being with someone new. Maybe I was just enjoying the thrill of an actual functional relationship with a sober man.

  I didn’t know if I was in love with him.

  I just knew I wanted to be.

  We put on gym shorts and T-shirts—Clint kept a few at my house now—and went downstairs to get some water. I wouldn’t have minded if he went around without a shirt, especially since Kimber was at work, but I wasn’t a fan of going shirtless because of the various scars on my torso. They had a tendency to become conversation pieces—especially when we weren’t in bed with something more interesting to keep us occupied—and I was enjoying the evening too much for that conversation.

  As he sipped his drink, I said, “Well, if anyone at work didn’t know we’re dating . . .”

  He nearly choked, but caught himself. “Uh-huh. I’d say the secret is out.”

  I shrugged. “Eh. I can’t imagine anyone’s all that surprised.”

  “Not if they’ve been paying attention.” He took a deep breath and released it. “It’s so weird. Two months ago, I was sweating like crazy about the command knowing I was with a man.”

  “It’s a tough move to make. Been there.”

  “Seriously.” He paused. “Would you believe I’ve only been out at all for the last two years or so?”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Never touched a man in my life until after my divorce.”

  “So are you . . .” I tilted my head. “Gay? Bi?”

  He blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling. “Honestly? I’m not a hundred percent sure. I know I’m into men. But women . . .”

  I watched him, letting him find the words.

  He leaned against the counter. “The thing is, I never once questioned that I was attracted to my wife, and we were married for sixteen years. Aside from a few one-night stands while I was drunk and falling apart right after our divorce, I haven’t even been able to look at a woman since she and I split up.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Partly I feel guilty for destroying our marriage. And, I mean . . .” He sighed. “What can I say? It still hurts.”

  “I know that feeling.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah. I . . .” I swallowed. “That stuff can follow you for years, believe me.”

  “It can.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the counter beside him, studying me like he wanted me to elaborate. When I didn’t, he went on. “So sometimes I think I’m not attracted to women at all anymore, or that I was lying to myself through my entire marriage. And sometimes I think I’ve sort of shut that off because I feel so terrible for doing her wrong like I did.” He paused, then took my hand and laced our fingers together. “Make no mistake, though—I am definitely attracted to men.”

  I laughed cautiously. “You don’t say.”

  He chuckled and kissed the backs of my fingers.

  And looking in his eyes, feeling this close to him, I debated opening up to him. Showing him a piece of my past that very, very few people knew about. Because hadn’t I been in his shoes? Wondering how much my sexuality was fluid and how much of it was affected—muted or amplified—by grief?

  “So, um.” I cleared my throat. “What you said about not knowing if you’re still attracted to women—I can relate.”

  “So you said.” His brow pinched.

  “I mean, I’m bisexual. I’m definitely bisexual. But after I lost someone, I pretty much shut off one side for a long, long time.”

  “After Kimber’s mom?”

  “No. I mean, it hurt when we split up, but not like . . .” My chest tightened. “I was madly in love with this guy. Dion.” As always, even saying his name fucked with me. “We were in the same squadron. Long time ago. Ten years now. He was a buddy’s RIO, and . . . God, I was crazy about him.”

  “Oh. Bad breakup?”

  “Worse,” I whispered. “We never even really had a relationship. We fucked a few times, but this was back when DADT was still in effect. We both had kids to take care of, and careers to think about. I was still afraid if my ex-wife found out I was sleeping with men, she’d use that as leverage to take my daughter away. His divorce had been nastier, so . . . I mean, what could we do?”

  “Shit. Man, I remember those days.”

  “Yeah. So we backed off. And that only made it worse. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was probably just as well he transferred out of the squadron.”

  “Did you guys lose touch after that?”

  “Yes and no. I, um . . . We didn’t talk much. Not for a while. Then we kind of got back in touch, but things were tense. Then . . .” I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to summon up the energy to say the words. Finally, I met his gaze. “These days, I just try to visit his grave at least once a year.”

  Clint’s lips parted. “Oh my God. What—” He hesitated. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened?”

  “Officially? He was on his way home from work, fell asleep at the wheel, and hit an eighteen-wheeler head-on in the oncoming lanes.” I sighed. “Unofficially, the consensus is he killed himself, but wanted to make sure it looked like an accident so his kids were taken care of.”

  “Jesus.”

  I suppressed a shudder, mostly because I could feel a small spasm looming and didn’t want to give it an excuse to get worse. “It was horrible. Took me years before I could even look at a man, and even when I could start getting physical with them again, connecting with one took a long time.”

  “How long?”

  I looked in his eyes.

  Up until more recently than I’m comfortable admitting right now.

  “Years.” I exhaled. Then I muffled a cough. “Anyway. Sorry to be such a downer.”

  “No, no. It’s okay. I brought up my ex and being confused about my sexuality, so . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I drew him in for a kiss. “For the record, heavy subject matter notwithstanding, I really did have a good time tonight.” I paused, and added with a grin, “Especially the after-party.”

  Clint laughed. “Much better after-party than the Navy Ball.”

  “You’re telli
ng me.” I touched his face. “But I guess that worked out too. Gave me an excuse to give you a ride home after work.”

  “So was that your devious plan all along?”

  “Totally.”

  “Well, it worked.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. “And now I keep coming home with you.”

  “To be fair, I go home with you too.”

  “Hmm. Yeah. Seems pretty fair and balanced to me.”

  Our eyes met, and we laughed.

  “To be serious,” I said, “I like how things have worked out. It’s been . . . it’s been really nice.”

  “Yeah, it has.”

  And how long can I realistically expect it to last?

  I shoved that thought away. “Listen, um . . . You have plans for the holidays?”

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “Well.” I hesitated again. Oh, to hell with it. “I’m going down to San Diego for a few days. Spending Christmas with my old RIO and his wife. Do you want to come along?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged as if it were no big thing. “Could be fun, you know?”

  “Are you sure your friends wouldn’t mind?”

  “Oh hell. I could bring the entire command to their place, and they’d just put more leaves in the table.” Truth was, I’d texted them earlier to be absolutely sure. And of course, because that was their way, they’d responded with We’ll put another leaf in the table.

  Clint pursed his lips. “Are you flying or driving?”

  “Flying. No way in hell is my back tolerating a drive that long.”

  He grimaced. “Oh yeah. I can imagine.”

  “Is that okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” He exhaled. “Just, um, really don’t like flying.” He laughed self-consciously. “And I’m saying this to a pilot . . .”

  I touched his face. “It’s understandable. I’m not a real big fan of it myself. So, bad experience? Or a phobia?”

  “Phobia.”

  “Damn. And I’d be happy to drive down, but . . . my back . . .”

  “No, no. I get that. Flying is fine. Just, uh, don’t be surprised if I’m not real chatty.” He avoided my gaze. “It’s not a long flight. I’ll be all right.”

  “Are you sure? You can say no if it’s—”

  “No.” He lifted his head. “I’d love to go. I can handle the flight . . .”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” He put his hands on my waist. “I’ll buy a ticket tomorrow. And thanks. For the invite, I mean.”

  “Don’t mention it.” I smiled. “All right. Great. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Me too.”

  I wrapped my arms around him. “Well, with that taken care of, we’re already here.” I gestured toward the stairs. “Want to call it a night?”

  Normally, one of us hesitated, but this time, he nodded. “Sounds good. I am beat.”

  “God, me too.”

  He must’ve been exhausted, because he faded fast. In minutes, he was back to slow, steady breathing—probably out cold.

  I smiled and kissed his shoulder, wincing as that motion strained my neck. The pain lessened, though, and I closed my eyes.

  This wasn’t the first night we’d spent together, but it felt different. Less temporary, in a strange way. More normal.

  It was like we could relax into this now because we’d passed a bunch of tests. We’d been out publicly as a couple in front of our coworkers. My best friend thought Clint was great. We’d seen each other in the throes of PTSD nightmares. He’d had more than one good hard look at the chronic pain I tried like hell to keep hidden, and it hadn’t scared him off or reminded him that things weren’t going to get any better. In fact, he was the first to ever let me get comfortable so he could adapt to me.

  There was no such thing as comfortable when my injuries were flaring up, but this was as close to it as I could get. Having Clint’s warm skin against mine, and his arm slung across my stomach, was nice. Kind of addictive, but that was no surprise—everything about him was addictive.

  Okay, so we’d see how things went, and for the time being, I had this. And hell, as long as my back was keeping me awake tonight, I’d damn sure spend the time enjoying the crap out of lying here next to him.

  Smiling to myself, I kissed the top of his head.

  Yeah, there were definitely worse ways to spend a night.

  It was cheaper to fly out of Portland than anywhere else, so we drove up the night before and stayed in a hotel. Early the next morning, we left my car in the airport’s long-term parking, grabbed our bags, and headed inside.

  Being Christmas, the lines were obscene even at our airline, which had automated check-in kiosks. Of course we’d arrived here way early, but as I scanned the thick crowd waiting to check in, I wondered if we’d given ourselves enough time. I could only imagine what the security lines would be like.

  “Think we’ll make it?” I asked.

  Travis scowled. “I hope so.”

  The line crawled forward. The people around us grew progressively bitchier and less patient, probably for the same reasons Travis and I kept checking our watches and phones. Over and over, I told myself we’d be fine. We still had almost three and a half hours between now and when our flight would start boarding.

  I glanced at Travis, and my stomach tightened. If we were down to the wire, I had no problem sprinting across the airport. The thought of that would probably make Travis turn green. And for God’s sake, his back wasn’t bothering him today, so I prayed to the gods of air travel that everything went smoothly so it stayed that way.

  And while I was at it, I added a couple of prayers for the plane to take off, stay in the air, and land gently at the other end without reducing all of us to a smoldering wreckage of metal and Christmas gifts.

  I shuddered.

  “You okay?” Travis asked.

  “Yeah.” I fussed with the strap of my carry-on bag just for something to do. “I’m good.”

  He eyed me uncertainly, but didn’t push. I’d briefed him already on my fear of flying, and for a man who used to rocket around the sky in a fighter jet, he was remarkably sympathetic.

  Of course he’s sympathetic. He’s survived a crash before.

  My heart stopped.

  How many crashes do people get to survive in one lifetime?

  Is he tempting fate by pushing his luck and flying again?

  Is he insane?

  No. No, I was pretty sure he wasn’t the insane one in this line.

  I pulled out my phone and perused my email, social media, sports scores . . . anything that didn’t involve air travel and plane crashes. I’d already resigned myself to getting on this plane, and assuming the line moved in the near future, I’d get on it, I’d get to San Diego, and I’d be fine. People flew every single day without incident. The odds were completely in our favor. We’d be fine.

  Hopefully.

  The line started moving faster—it looked like the airline had opened up a few more kiosks—and before long, we were at the front. We printed our boarding passes, and since we had no bags to check, headed for security.

  Naturally, the line was three miles long. People who’d probably quietly stewed in their check-in lines had given up all pretense of going with the flow. In the back, there were loud comments about missing flights for sure. Closer to the middle, those comments were laced with increasing amounts of profanity. Near the front, we had apparently hit the jackpot, and were surrounded by at least a hundred people who were mystified by the notion of shoe removal, liquid restrictions, or body scanners.

  Travis and I got separated in the shuffle. One minute, we were right next to each other, and the next, we were directed to different conveyor belts.

  “Meet you on the other side,” I called over my shoulder.

  He offered a two-fingered salute, and we moved to our respective lines to dump everything we owned into trays.

  My line was short, and I got lucky—I wound up behind the only
people in this airport who seemed to know what they were doing. Shoes, belts, phones, change, wallets, laptops—everything went into the trays and onto the belts, and each person went through the body scanner in no time flat.

  On the other side, after I’d collected my things, I sat down to put my shoes back on. I looked around for Travis, but he hadn’t come through yet. By the time I’d finished putting myself back together, he still hadn’t appeared. What the hell?

  I glanced at my watch. We had less than half an hour to get to our gate. Hopefully they hadn’t decided to strip search him or something. Maybe I’d give him some hell later about looking like a suspicious shady bastard, but that could wait until we were out of the airport. We didn’t need to wind up in a TSA office getting questioned about exactly what suspicious shady bastard meant.

  Where the hell are you?

  Then I caught sight of him. He was standing on the other side of the body scanner, arms folded and features hardened like they were when he was chewing someone out at work. And in front of him, keeping him from getting through the damn scanner, was a well-dressed man arguing with the TSA agent. Travis couldn’t go around him, especially since his bag had already gone through the X-ray machine.

  He looked my way and rolled his eyes. Just what he needed.

  I got up and collected his things for him. A moment later, the obnoxious passenger finally moved, and Travis stepped into the scanner.

  As he joined me, he grumbled, “About fucking time.”

  “What was his problem?”

  “Oh hell, I don’t know.” He started putting his belt back on. “I was too busy trying to kill him with my mind to actually listen to what he was saying.”

  I laughed. “You and all the people behind you. What a dick.”

  “One in every airport.”

  “Joy. Well, we should get to the gate, so—”

  “Wait. One more thing I need to do now that we’re through security . . .” He pulled the TENS unit out of his carry-on. “Time to put this back on.”

  “Oh. I thought your back was doing okay today.”

  “It is.” He tugged the back of his shirt free from his pants. “But I want to keep it that way, and planes tend to aggravate things, so . . .” He reached back to attach one of the wires. “I would’ve had it on already, but I wore it through security once. Won’t make that mistake again.”