Fuck.
And just like that, as though someone had flipped a switch inside of me, I came alive. I’d spent most of the evening with a hot fighter pilot flirting with me, and I couldn’t have cared less. Eric walked in and I felt a flash of heat, nerves pinging inside my stomach like a pinball machine. His gaze ran over me from head to toe, each part of my body coming alive as his stare scalded me.
Fine.
Maybe I wanted him to look.
Maybe some part of me that still remembered how it had felt to open that letter, thinking he’d sent me something to let me know he missed me and getting something else entirely, wanted him to see me like this, dressed to kill, flirting with a hot guy. Maybe some part of me that was just a bit petty and mean, and nowhere near over our history, wanted him to look at me like something he’d lost and would never recover.
I wanted him to burn for me, ache for me, wanted to give him the same fucking sleepless nights he’d given me. So yeah, I welcomed that jealous look in his eyes, even if I shouldn’t have, because at least I’d gotten under his skin, at least I made him feel like he’d made me feel.
I turned away from Eric, my heart hammering so hard I could barely catch my breath. I forced myself to smile up at Bandit, and he grabbed my hand, tugging me away from the bar and leading me onto the empty space that had turned into an impromptu dance floor.
I swore I could feel Eric’s eyes tracking me through the crowd.
One of my favorite songs came on over the speakers in the bar, and I couldn’t resist the urge to throw my head back and move my hips, losing myself in the rhythmic beat.
This was what I’d so desperately needed—just to let go and relax a bit. To have some fun. And even though it would likely get me in trouble, deep down I knew, even as I danced with one hot fighter pilot, I really danced for another.
He watched me the entire time.
THOR
I walked into Liberty, my gaze peeled on the crowd, searching for Becca.
Easy had texted me two hours ago and mentioned that she was here, and I’d gone back and forth over whether I should come out at all. It hadn’t escaped my notice that she’d pretty much been avoiding me all week, whatever truce we’d reached in the cemetery on Wednesday apparently forgotten, and while part of me knew I should give her the space she needed, another part of me was afraid that she would use the space to keep a wedge between us.
I couldn’t apologize, couldn’t grovel at her feet, if she wouldn’t forgive me. And right now, she was a locked door I couldn’t break through. I’d thought I stood a chance, thought that the fact that she still talked to me like I meant something to her, like we were friends, meant we had a shot. But now it felt like that had just been wishful thinking, and I really had blown it with her.
So this was it. My Hail Mary, Hallelujah, final attempt at getting her to let me in. I’d caused her enough pain over the years; I didn’t want to keep doing it. If she truly wanted me out of her life, then I’d give her that.
I spotted Easy first, his arm wrapped around the same girl he’d been with the first night—a girl with hair eerily similar to Dani’s. Easy saw me across the crowd and waved me over, the girl—Rachel or something—tensing immediately at the sight of me and answering the question of whether she knew who I was to Becca.
I cut through the crowd, still searching for her, nerves rolling around in my stomach.
Easy jerked his head in greeting. “Hey, man.”
Rachel looked ready to bolt and warn Becca I was here.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder, trying to make out Becca’s features in the sea of people. Liberty was packed tonight.
His lips curved. “She’s by the bar with Bandit.”
Shit.
I didn’t know Bandit that well, but we’d been out together before, and if he was with Becca, it definitely wasn’t because he wanted to be friends.
Easy shot me a pointed look that irked the shit out of me. “Can you blame the guy?”
Fuck.
My gaze drifted to the bar, and then I froze.
Becca stood in a corner, the lights shining down on her like a fucking halo, the skirt of her dress brushing against Bandit.
She looked so beautiful that I felt it like a pang in my chest, the smile on her face one I’d seen so many times before, aimed at me. The one I’d lost. Thrown away. She looked like she was having fun, and then Bandit leaned in closer and said something that made her laugh, and her whole face transformed, her shoulders shaking, eyes sparkling.
I held my breath as her gaze drifted through the crowd; my heart hammered, waiting for the moment . . .
Our gazes locked, her body stiffening, the smile sliding off her face.
It knocked me back like a blow.
I’d envisioned finding a way to talk to her tonight, maybe dance with her, flirt with her; I hadn’t envisioned standing here with my heart in my hand, watching her flirt with Bandit of all fucking people, as what little hope I’d clung to died a bit inside.
I waited to see if she’d acknowledge me somehow, the plea that she’d throw me one of her smiles—something, anything—battering me inside. A wave, even. Just some sign that she saw me, that she still cared, that there might be a chance for us to put the past behind us.
I’d missed her this week, missed seeing her face, hearing her laugh. We’d been apart for a decade, and somehow the glimpses I’d had of her had made everything harder, bringing back all those feelings we’d had for each other with a sharpness that pierced me.
Look at me. Please. Forgive me. Let me in.
I stood there like an idiot, the sound of Easy saying my name over and over again drowned out by the bar noise and the pounding of my heart.
And then she did turn, shifting her body away from me, tilting her face up to Bandit, her lips curving in a smile I knew all too well.
I watched, my feet rooted to the ground, my heart in my stomach, a sick, cold feeling sliding through my veins as Bandit led her out onto the dance floor and into his arms.
* * *
It hurt to look at her, to watch her body sway. Hurt to watch her give all that beauty and fire to Bandit. I’d never really liked the guy all that much to begin with—he was too cocky in the air, too full of himself on the ground—but now I really didn’t like him. There was no fucking way he didn’t know who Becca was to me and the fact that he clearly didn’t give a shit about it spoke volumes to how many ways he’d screwed over guy code.
Asshole. I hoped his next assignment had him flying freaking drones out of Creech.
Easy slid onto the bar stool next to me, and I stifled a groan.
The last thing I wanted was relationship counseling from the guy currently screwing his way through heartbreak.
“Go away.”
“You’re drunk,” Easy countered.
I’d passed by drunk three beers ago.
“Do you think this is going to win her over?”
Fucking Easy.
“I’m fine.”
“We both know you aren’t fine.”
I glared at him. “And you are? You want to talk about how many times I watched you make an ass of yourself ’cause you couldn’t stand the sight of Dani and . . .” My voice trailed off, the knot in my stomach that had been there since that night growing at the thought of Joker.
“Fuck you. I didn’t throw away a good thing because I was an ass.”
I flinched as his words hit their mark.
“If I’d ever had a shot with Dani, if things had been different, if I’d met her first, I would have done everything I could, become whatever I had to be to keep her. I wouldn’t have been a pussy about it, too afraid to make a move, ready to throw in the towel because things became too hard.”
“She hates me,” I replied, my voice bleak, ice filling my veins
as Becca leaned in closer, her hand on Bandit’s chest, a smile on her lips and laughter in the air.
“So change her mind.”
“She won’t talk to me. Won’t look at me.” I gestured toward where she was dancing with Bandit.
“So you’re saying Bandit has more game than you do.”
I glared at him.
“I mean, that sounds like what you’re saying. Bandit just swooped in on your girl and you’re, what, rolling over and taking it?”
I couldn’t help feeling like she was slipping through my fingers if not already gone.
“Do you think she’s going to go home with him?”
I shouldn’t have asked the question—the words brought a knot in my stomach and another flash of pity on Easy’s face—and in that moment, I really got what it had been like for him to watch Dani and Joker together.
You were jealous, even though you had absolutely no right to be, but telling yourself that didn’t do a damned thing to make the pain go away. So you stood there, drowning in quicksand, watching as the one thing you wanted remained firmly out of your grasp.
Except I wasn’t Easy. And Becca wasn’t Dani—she wasn’t married, hadn’t given her heart to someone else.
So fuck it, maybe this was my Hail Mary.
NINE
BECCA
It was exhausting work, pretending you were having more fun than you really were. My cheeks hurt from smiling, my feet had begun weeping, begging me to stop dancing an hour ago, and my arms were growing tired from fending off Bandit’s increasing advances. Not to mention the pounding in my head that told me I was either getting sick or had drunk too much—or some combination of the two. I was surprised I didn’t have a crick in my neck from how much time I’d spent looking at Eric when he wasn’t looking at me, trying to gauge his reaction.
I was too old for this shit.
I didn’t know what I’d intended tonight, hadn’t really thought my actions through beyond wanting to get a reaction out of Eric, but I was beginning to think that all I’d proven was that I wasn’t anywhere near over him. And then I saw him, cutting through the crowd, his gaze trained on the spot where Bandit’s arm draped loosely around my waist.
I swallowed a lump in my throat, unable to do anything but stare at Eric, everything else falling away.
God, he was beautiful. There was an art to the way he walked. A lazy, long-limbed grace that ensured all eyes were on him as he parted the crowd. Even now, those blue eyes downcast, his jaw clenched, his shoulders hunched in defeat, there was something about him that screamed, “This one,” something that set him apart from every other guy in the room. I’d wanted to hit him where it hurt, to make him feel every inch of his loss, but I hadn’t predicted that the sight of him like this wouldn’t make me feel like I’d won anything, only like I wanted to soothe the ache inside him.
Maybe I was a fool. I probably was. But the thing with love was that once you felt it, it was impossible to turn it off.
So I’d miscalculated tonight when I’d thought I wanted to bring him to his knees, because at the end of the day, all it had done was bring me right down next to him.
Eric halted in front of us, Bandit’s arm tightening around my waist. Eric didn’t spare him a glance, didn’t do any of those annoying, stereotypical, he-man, I’m-going-to-pee-on-you-now-to-mark-you-as-mine things that guys did sometimes. Instead he looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Can we talk for a second?”
I nodded, the decision already made before he’d even made the journey over.
I turned toward Bandit, offered a shrug, and forced a smile. “I should go. Sorry. Thanks for the dancing.”
To his credit, he just nodded and released me.
Eric held out his hand, and I hesitated for a beat, and then I placed my palm in his, letting him lead me through the crowd, out the front door, until we reached the sidewalk. He stopped a little bit away from the entrance, until our bodies were tucked into a dark corner of the building that shielded us from the crowds forming on the street.
For a moment, I just relaxed into the beauty of the night—the slight breeze in the air signaling the transition from sticky summer heat toward leaf-changing fall. I welcomed the quiet, the freedom from the bass and the loud voices, the open air hitting my skin rather than the jab of sweaty elbows. And of course, there was Eric, standing next to me, his hands shoved into his jeans’ pockets, towering over me, the scent of his cologne and the faint smell of the beers he’d drunk surrounding me.
I leaned back against the building, closing my eyes, tilting my face up to the sky. When I opened my eyes, Eric stood in the same place, staring at me.
I blinked. Still there.
“It feels like a dream.”
“What?”
“You being here. In South Carolina. With me.”
“Not a nightmare?”
“It depends on the day you ask me.”
He shot me a wry smile. “That’s fair.”
I swallowed, the butterflies kicking up in my stomach. “It’s been ten years.”
I didn’t know why that felt important to say, but it did. It felt like so much had passed between us, like we’d missed out on so much of each other’s lives—really the most important parts of them, the parts when we’d been growing into ourselves, figuring out who we were and what we wanted out of life—and still, he stood here before me, and suddenly it was like nothing had changed. I was at once both twenty-one and thirty-one, and both versions of me—the girl I’d been and the woman I was now—gravitated toward Eric.
“Yeah, it has.” He was quiet for a moment, staring down at the ground, and then his gaze was back on mine and another wave of flutters ripped through me.
Freaking butterflies. I would have thought I’d outgrown them, but apparently not.
He cocked his head toward the bar. “Bandit?”
I shook my head, answering his unspoken question, giving him the truth, even if it got me into trouble.
“You.”
I didn’t know if the alcohol had loosened my tongue, or if it was the emotion on his face and the pain in his voice. Either way, I didn’t have it in me to lie.
He let out an oath.
“I should have come back sooner. Should have made things up to you a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I needed to understand. I hadn’t given him a chance to explain earlier, had been so focused on my anger that I hadn’t been willing to listen to any of his reasons. Maybe I’d been afraid that if I had, he would chip away at the wall I’d erected around myself, the one that crumbled after a few days in his presence anyway.
He didn’t answer me for a beat and I liked him more for not being glib, for not just giving me the easy answer.
“In the beginning, I didn’t come back because I didn’t know what I was missing.” He hesitated and I saw the exact moment when he decided to give me the truth, even as it was tough for me to hear. “When we broke up, I missed you, but I went straight into pilot training and busting my ass to make sure I didn’t wash out, to ensure that I was at the top of my class so that I could get a fighter spot. I worked twelve-hour days, studied when I wasn’t working, and didn’t have much time for anything else.
“When I graduated and pinned on my wings, I went straight into the F-16 basic course, and if I’d thought pilot training was tough, that was even harder. I was surrounded by guys who’d all graduated as the best of their pilot training classes, everyone willing to do whatever it took to get to the top.
“You know me. I didn’t come from a military background, didn’t realize how important that phase of my career was until I was thrown into it and I learned that the impression I made on my commanders would set the tone for my future. So my life became about flying. Being the best pilot I could be. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I thought of you, drea
med of you, missed you so badly I ached for you, but at the same time, you have to know that my entire life revolved around getting through, because if it hadn’t, I never would have.
“Then it was my first assignment, trying to make a good impression at a new squadron, deploying for the first time, more twelve-to-fourteen-hour days, getting up at the crack of dawn and going to work and then coming home when it was dark and rinse and repeat, doing it again.
“I’m not complaining. I fucking loved it. But that was my life. There wasn’t a lot of room for me to miss you. A lot of room for anything other than trying to be the best pilot I could be. I dated, but there was never anything other than casual, because that was all I had room for. And maybe, because I didn’t have anything left to give. I’d already given you my heart, and even if I’d wanted to, there was no way in hell I could get it back.”
I had missed him, mourned him, but at the same time, I’d had law school, and then my career, to keep me busy. Lizzie had tried to get me to date so many times, and even though there had been a string of guys, none of them had even come close to meaning something special to me. I hadn’t been willing to prioritize those relationships, to give them the attention and effort they needed to sustain themselves. Instead I’d buried myself in work, not letting anyone get close. So in a way, I understood. That also didn’t mean I wasn’t wary.
“Everything you’re saying is in the past tense. So what changed? Why are you here now? What do you want now?”
What do you want from me?
He held my gaze, looking like he was searching for something there.
“I don’t know exactly. I guess it started off gradually at first. It started to wear on me—the coming home to an empty house, landing after a deployment or a TDY and not having anyone there waiting for me. I started thinking about what it would be like to put down roots, to have a home, a family. Started seeing other guys and what they had, and wondering if I was throwing my life away. I don’t know. I’m tired. So fucking tired. I’ve been going balls to the wall for the better part of a decade and I don’t know how much more I have to give. And after Joker . . .”
Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) Page 8
