Every Second With You

by Lauren Blakely

  She pushes out her bottom lip. “Bummer. I’ll have to write you notes and slip them into your seat like in high school.”

  “Make mine dirty.” I place our bags in the overhead.

  “Have a good flight,” she says, as she takes 34E.

  “You too.”

  As I buckle my seatbelt, the woman next to me clears her throat. She’s knitting something silvery, maybe a sparkly scarf or something, and her dark blond hair is pulled into a clip. “If your wife doesn’t mind a middle seat, I’d be happy to switch,” she offers.

  “Oh, she’s not my wife,” I say, then quickly realize the semantics aren’t important. “But thank you. I think she would like that.”

  I lean forward to tap Harley. “This awesome lady is offering to switch. Want to sit with me?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “I believe the offer was for your wife,” she teases.

  “Then you should just be my wife,” I say, and once the words have been said, I realize how absolutely fucking perfect they sound. And how I might not have a ring, and I haven’t planned this, but hell, if this isn’t what our life together is all about, then I don’t know what is, because I can’t think of a better moment. That’s what she’s been teaching me, in her own quiet way. To live each day, to embrace it, to seize the moment, because that’s all we ever have.

  Moments. With each other. Without regret.

  I unbuckle my seat belt, stand up, and then bend down on one knee in the aisle as the flight attendant adjusts more bags for the passengers across from us. I take Harley’s hands in mine. “Marry me,” I say. “Be my wife.”

  Her eyes are as round as saucers, and they shine brightly with happiness. I don’t doubt for a second what she’ll say, and it’s an amazing feeling to have this kind of certainty in another person. Still, I want to hear her yes.

  “You’re proposing to me on an airplane?”

  “Why the hell not?”

  The noises quiet down, and everyone is watching us. The flight attendant’s hands are poised on a suitcase, the gray-haired dude in the seat in front of Harley has stopped texting and is staring, and the woman next to me has popped up to watch, goggle-eyed.

  “Like there’s any other answer but yes,” Harley says as she cups my cheeks and presses her lips against mine.

  Then there is clapping and cheering all around, and a few rows ahead, I hear a guy shout, “Where’s the ring, man?”

  “No ring,” I say to everyone, but as I pull up Harley from her seat and into the aisle, I point to her belly. “But we’ve got this to seal the deal.”

  “That’s a commitment right there,” the guy calls out.

  “Yeah, it is,” I say, and then I kiss her once more.

  “When’s the wedding?”

  It’s the same guy again, and this time I look over to him. He’s a few years older than me, but not by much. He wears hipster glasses and a hoodie.

  “I don’t know. She just said yes.”

  “How about now?”

  I don’t say anything at first. I’m not sure what to say. But Harley pipes up, shouting to the guy. “Why? Are you a minister or something?”

  He nods. “Got ordained online to perform my brother’s wedding. If you want a wedding in the sky, let me know.”

  Then he disappears into his seat, and Harley joins me, while the blond woman takes my wife-to-be’s seat.

  “I can’t believe you just proposed to me on a plane,” she says, with a smile that can’t be erased.

  “Sometimes, you just have to live each day. That’s what someone I love madly once told me,” I say, nuzzling her nose.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  I turn to the flight attendant.

  “You need to get buckled in,” she says. “Oh, and congratulations. Now I have a good story to tell my friends on my layover in New York tonight.”

  The flight attendant starts to leave, but Harley reaches for her arm. “It could be a better story possibly . . .”

  * * *

  Harley wears jeans, combat boots and a T-shirt. I know she’d look gorgeous in a wedding dress, but this is even better than white. I stand in the middle of the aisle, next to Andrew, the newly ordained minister, who also runs an Internet startup, and whose brother is a bio-tech engineer.

  The bride carries a bouquet of pretzels and peanuts, tied together with silver yarn, courtesy of her former seat inhabitant. The flight attendant holds up my iPhone, playing Arcade Fire’s “Tunnels” as our wedding song.

  The band sings about digging a tunnel from my window to yours and that feels fitting for Harley and me.

  “It’s on airplane mode,” the flight attendant says, so the other passengers know she’s not breaking the rules.

  We are flying high, ten thousand feet over Arizona, and my pregnant girlfriend is about to become my wife. Fine, I know we will need to get a marriage license and make it official before the state of New York, but this is our kind of wedding.

  When Harley reaches me, she turns and hands the bouquet to the blond-haired knitter who’s become her impromptu maid of honor.

  Andrew clears his throat. “Dear passengers of Flight 305 from San Diego to New York City, we are gathered here by chance, circumstance, and Expedia, in many cases, for the unplanned and unexpected wedding of Trey Westin to Harley Coleman. But then, as the groom has told me, other things between them were a bit unexpected, too,” he says, staring pointedly at Harley’s bump, and punctuating his comment like a stand-up comedian. “So, before we get in too much trouble with the captain, let me move onto the details quickly.” He looks to me. “Do you, Trey, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love her and cherish her, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” I say, and you’d need some serious cleaner to wipe the industrial-strength grin off my face right now. I can’t believe I’m almost twenty-two years old, I have a scar on my face from how I used to debase the marriage vows of others, and now I’m getting hitched to a girl I inked one night, went with her to sex and love addiction therapy, then knocked her up, and now we’re going to move across the country to raise our kid.

  “And do you, Harley Coleman, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love him and cherish him, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” she says, and then bounces once on her toes and sneaks in a quick kiss.

  Andrew gives her a chiding look. “Now, now,” he says playfully. “Rings, please.”

  The blond knitter opens her palm and holds out two paper rings that I drew a few minutes ago. On each piece of paper is a heart with an arrow in it, and the rings are held together with Band-Aids, since that’s all the flight attendant had.

  I slide a paper ring onto Harley’s ring finger, and she does the same to me.

  “And now by the power vested in me by the awesomeness of the Internet and my $35 license to become an ordained minister, I now pronounce you man and wife, and you may kiss the bride. Or the bride may kiss you again.”

  Harley threads her hands in my hair, and whispers against my lips. “I love you so damn much,” she says, before she silences any reply with a kiss.

  Four hours later, she’s asleep on my shoulder when the captain announces that we’re about to make our descent into New York. Other passengers stand up to make final bathroom trips, and a short, chubby bald guy walks down the aisle to the restroom. Something about him seems familiar, but I can’t place him. Maybe he’s a customer, but in his button-down shirt and dress slacks he hardly seems the tat type. He could be a friend of my dad’s, though my dad doesn’t have many friends. I tense briefly, hoping he’s not the husband of some woman I used to screw. That would be just my luck. I’ll land another scar, a matching one on the other cheek.

  I close my eyes briefly, but after I hear the door unlock to the bathroom I can sense someone standing close to me. I op
en my eyes, and he’s there, in the aisle, staring at Harley.

  At my wife.

  And holy fucking shit, I know why I recognize him.

  It’s Mr. Stewart from the gala last summer, where I stole Harley away from him. My heart clenches, and my veins run with ice.

  He smiles, but it’s not a happy look. More like a cold sneer, as his gray eyes meet mine. “Congratulations, Mr. Trey Westin,” he says slowly, making sure to enunciate each word, “on your wedding to Layla.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Trey

  I pack up books, and I peer out the window. I load up my sketchbooks. And I wait for a knock.

  I jam my clothes into suitcases, and I’m sure a rock will come crashing through my window.

  I hear a strange noise in the hallway late one night, and I check the peephole, convinced that Mr. Stewart’s steely gray eyes will stare back at me. But then, I’m betting he’s the kind of man who doesn’t need to do his own dirty work. He probably has a heavy.

  Maybe I’m losing my mind, but everywhere I go in the city for the next few days, I feel the hair on my neck stand on end. I watch behind me, scan in front of me, check in doorways, but nothing happens. No one leaps from an alley and jams a pillowcase on my head. No one with a pockmarked face and a broad barrel chest shanks me for taking Mr. Stewart’s supposed girlfriend.

  “Why do you think you’re about to be shanked everywhere you go?” Michele asks during my session.

  “I can’t believe you just said shanked.”

  “I am familiar with popular lingo,” she says, and she doesn’t break my gaze. “So, please answer the question. Where is this fear coming from?”

  “Are you saying I’m paranoid?”

  She sighs heavily, and I think I might have exasperated Michele for the first time. “No, Trey. I simply want to understand why you’re worked up about this.”

  I throw my arms out wide. “Because he’s a fucking dude who hired an escort. Because he’s loaded. Because he happened to be on the same fucking plane when I married Harley, and rather than tuck his tail between his legs, he got up in my face and made damn sure I knew he knew I married the girl I took from him!”

  She grins when I say married, shaking her head, still amused that we did it. And we officially did it, too, filing for a marriage license when we returned.

  “And so you think, naturally, that he’s going to shank you?”

  I push my hands roughly through my hair. “I don’t know. Yes. No. It seems plausible.”

  “And what happens then when you move to San Diego? He’s from California, right?”

  I nod.

  “So, will he hunt you down there?”

  I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”

  She leans forward in her chair, her hands on her knees. “I am being serious. If you truly think your life is in danger, we need to talk about appropriate cautionary steps. And if this is your fear talking, we need to figure out how to face it.”

  “No. I need to run the fuck away from it,” I say.

  Because rational talk doesn’t help me. My heart ticks faster, speeding up. I am a jack in the box that someone’s been winding and winding, ready to pop.

  I walk with Harley everywhere. I don’t let her go anyplace alone. After I see Michele, I go to Harley’s to help her pack, since we’re leaving in a week.

  School is still on break, but she emailed her English major advisor and was told that transferring to a school in San Diego would work fine. She can graduate from here; she just needs to maintain her GPA for the last year and a half, and have her classes approved. Sort of like a year and a half abroad, only abroad is across the country.

  After we make it through her summer clothes, she tries again to reassure me. “Trey, it’s been a week now, and nothing happened. I think we’re fine. I think it was just some sort of manly pride on the plane. He probably recognized me, made the comment and then forgot about it,” Harley says, as she zips up a large purple duffel bag. We decided to only take clothes, books and the things we couldn’t leave behind after I sublet my studio in seconds.

  “Well, guys like that, I don’t trust,” I say, as my phone buzzes in my back pocket. “We just need to lie low for a little longer.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. Besides, it’s not you or me—” she starts to say, then she stops and shakes her head. I grab my phone to see my parents calling.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she whispers, but she looks worried. “Just answer your call.”

  “Hey,” I say into the phone.

  “Good evening,” my mother says. “We have a surprise for you. For your move to San Diego. Can you come over tonight?”

  “Sure. I’m just helping Harley pack, and then I’ll stop by.”

  When I hang up, I tell her that I need to go see them. “But stay here.”

  “I will. I’m going to keep packing, and hang with Kristen. Call me later,” she says, and gives me a kiss before I leave.

  Twenty minutes later, my mom slides a small white box across the kitchen table to me. There’s a gold bow on the box. I glance from her to my dad. “A gift?”

  “I said we had a surprise for you,” my mom says, and for the first time in years, she seems excited, even delighted.

  I untie the bow, and open the top of the white box. Inside is a key on a ring with a key fob. Shivers of excitement run through me. My parents did this?

  “What is this for?” I ask, though I think I know the answer.

  “There’s a new Honda waiting for you at Harley’s grandparents’ house. If you’re going to live in California, you’re going to need a car,” my dad says, and he leans over to give me a hug.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I say. Then I stand up, and hug my mom too. “This is amazing. Seriously. This is just so cool. I was going to get us a used car or something. But this is incredible.”

  “Now you’re going to have to learn how to drive,” my dad says, pointing out the obvious.

  I wave a hand in the air. “I’m sure driving is a piece of cake.”

  After more chatting and another round of thank yous, I head out for the night. I press the elevator button for the lobby, then tap the panel twice, as if I’m saying goodbye to my past, to my sins. This elevator used to be the center of my sex-addicted world, and I’d ride it up and down to meet my women, see my women and seduce my women.

  Now, as I shoot down the building, I no longer feel the gravitational pull that this contraption exerted on my life. It’s just an elevator, and this is one of the last times I’ll ride in it.

  “Goodbye, elevator,” I say as I reach the lobby.

  The doors slide open and as I walk across the marble lobby, I see her.

  Walking through the open door.

  Bundled up in the cold.

  A knit cap covering her brown hair.

  And her hand in someone else’s hand.

  Someone who has eyes like mine.

  Green eyes, with gold flecks. Like I’m looking into a mirror.

  I stumble against the wall, grabbing onto it so I don’t slump down on the floor because my heart has stopped.

  Sloan notices me, and a smile crests across her face. “Trey! How are you?”

  My mouth is open, and I try to say something. But my brain is made of tar, and my tongue is coated in glue.

  “I haven’t seen you in a few years,” she adds. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I croak out, staring at the little boy next to her.

  “How is your art? Are you still drawing? Designing tattoos?”

  I nod.

  “You were always so talented. And you’ll be pleased to know, I landed a gallery show. You know how I was pursuing my painting career.”

  “Right,” I say.

  The boy tugs on her hand.

  “Oh! Excuse my manners. Trey, this is my son, Teddy. Teddy, this is Trey.”

  I open my mouth again and try to say hi, but I’m in that nightmare where you screa
m and make no sound. Or maybe I’m in the nightmare where you learn you fathered a kid a few years ago, and you’re even more of a fuck-up than you already thought you were.

  “Hi,” Teddy says, and the sound of his voice rips through me.

  Not because he sounds like me, because he’s fucking two or three or something. But because he has more guts than I do right now. Because I can’t handle seeing his mom.

  “He’s artistic, too,” Sloan says in a knowing whisper. “It runs in the family. Anyway, we have a lot of catching up to do. I just moved back into the building a few months ago, and it would be nice to see you again.”

  She waves, turns on her heels, and heads to the elevators because this is just another normal night for her.

  For me, it’s as if my plans have capsized.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Harley

  I dial his number again.

  And again.

  And again.

  He still doesn’t answer. I swear my fingers are turning numb from calling him.

  I try his office, but it’s after hours, and it’s closed.

  So I have no other recourse but to hail a taxi and head uptown to see Cam.

  He texted me this afternoon to say congrats on your wedding. I didn’t think much of his text at first since I was so busy. Then it hit me—I hadn’t told him. The only way he could know would be from Mr. Stewart.

  My heart is hammering against my chest, and I understand now why Trey was so worried. I feel so stupid for not thinking of Cam sooner, but I bet that’s why Mr. Stewart never did a thing to us. Because his bone to pick wasn’t with me; it was always with Cam.

  I’m the horse that wouldn’t run. I’m the car that wouldn’t start. But to Mr. Stewart, Cam is the man who sold him a bum nag, a lemon of a vehicle. Cam’s the one he has the beef with—Cam’s the peddler of the product that didn’t perform for one ruthless businessman.

  I bang furiously on the buzzer when I reach his Upper East Side brownstone.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” I say under my breath, hoping he’s here, hoping he’s safe.

  I step away from the door and peer up at the second floor window where I see the silhouette of a woman looking past the curtains.