Ever since he’d broached the subject of wanting to see me again, I’d thought about my schedule, wondering how many more weekends I could ask Sophia to cover for me and watch Lulu before she got annoyed. I’d definitely done my share of weekend shifts for her, but still, I didn’t want to be that girl—the one who met a guy and let him take over her life. I’d worked too hard to build my business and was too proud of the store to start flaking.
“Spring break is always busy for us, so the store will probably be pretty hectic. And my sister’s getting married at the end of March.”
And I still didn’t have a date.
I thought back to our earlier conversation in the pancake restaurant, wondering what exactly Noah meant when he talked about seeing if we had a future. Were we a couple now? It seemed kind of fast, but everything he’d said sort of gave that impression even though he hadn’t exactly said the words.
It had been so much easier when I was younger. If I liked a guy, we had the whole boyfriend-girlfriend talk and got it over with. But in my thirties, calling someone my boyfriend just sounded kind of weird, and all the other euphemisms never really sat well with me.
So, yeah. Awkward.
Noah was silent for a second. “I’d like to try to come visit you in Florida.”
“I’d really like that.”
He smiled. “Good. I can talk to the guy who handles leave for the squadron on Monday and see if there’s time for me to get away. Worst case, maybe I can just come in late on a Friday after work and then leave Sunday.”
My next question made me nervous, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity. I already felt kind of like a loser considering I was an unmarried bridesmaid in my sister’s wedding. Having a smoking hot fighter pilot for a date? That’d make up for it.
“Would you want to be my date for my sister’s wedding?”
I sort of blurted it out, my heart pounding in my chest. Maybe it was too fast. Maybe he would think it was too much pressure—I mean, my family would be there. He’d already met Meg, but my parents were another matter. I could see him being freaked. I would be freaked.
“If you don’t think it’s too soon or anything,” I added, unable to stave off the word vomit escaping from my lips. “It probably is too soon. And you totally don’t have to go. I was just thinking—”
“Jordan?”
I stopped talking.
A smile played at his lips. “I’d love to take you to your sister’s wedding. I’ll check with the squadron, but I don’t think we’ll have anything going on around that time so I should be good to go.”
The fact that he wasn’t scared off by meeting my family filled me with all the warm and fuzzies. Definite Chupacabra.
I gave huge mental thanks to Meg for not dressing us in poufy lime green dresses or something equally hideous. Hopefully, my parents would be too busy marrying off their younger daughter to embarrass their older one. And really, I was pretty sure Noah didn’t need to see my parents to get a glimpse of the embarrassing sides of me. I did a pretty good job of that on my own.
“Do I need to wear a tux?”
I nodded.
Meg’s wedding was taking place at this gorgeous country club in town. It was black tie, and they’d been planning it for, like, a year. I had no idea how much my parents had spent on it, but I figured a lot. I also figured they were so excited to get a daughter married off and on her way to giving them grandkids, that they hadn’t batted an eye at the expense.
“Do you think you could come out again for a visit in March?” Noah asked.
My heart thumped and my voice squeaked with excitement.
“Yeah. Maybe not for a couple weeks so that I can be at the store for the spring break rush, but I should be able to make it happen once things settle down.”
He grinned. “Good.”
I hesitated, and then went all in.
“So are we dating?”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“Exclusively?”
His gaze sobered. “Do you want to be exclusive?”
So freaking much.
I nodded.
He smiled again.
“Then yeah, we’re exclusive.”
It wasn’t every day that you got a hot wedding date and a boyfriend in one fell swoop. Apparently, my romantic luck was changing. Finally.
TWELVE
JORDAN
The next few weeks were every bit as chaotic as I’d anticipated. The spring break crowd had come in droves, and while the town had been bursting at the seams, thankfully so was our bank account. Sophia and I extended our normal hours, our lives utterly consumed by the shop. Between that and helping out with last-minute plans for Meg’s wedding, I’d barely had time to talk to Noah. He was swamped with work, too, and even though we still talked every day, the conversations were shorter than either one of us liked. It wasn’t just difficult to juggle the distance; the time difference and the erratic hours we both worked made finding time to talk even more challenging.
Long distance sucked balls.
“Are you really bringing a date to your sister’s wedding?”
I looked up from the bathing suit catalog I was flipping through. My mother stood in the entrance of the store, a slightly manic look on her face, dressed from head to toe in Lily Pulitzer. She and Meg were pretty much preppy twins. I was the one who totally stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Hi, Mom.”
She came over to the register, giving me a quick hug, her gaze running over me as though the existence of a wedding date had somehow altered me physically.
“Who is he?”
So Meg hadn’t totally spilled the beans to our parents. I appreciated that, at least. I wasn’t entirely sure how to make, I met a fighter pilot in Vegas a few weeks ago and now we’re sort of dating even though he lives across the country, sound any less crazy. Although, to be fair, I figured they’d be so excited for me to be in a relationship that they wouldn’t care too much how it came about.
“He’s someone I’m seeing,” I answered, keeping my tone evasive. If years of dating had taught me anything, it was not to get my parents’ hopes up. Sometimes it seemed like they handled my breakups worse than I did.
“Is he local? I didn’t recognize the name.”
Ugh. “No, he lives in Oklahoma.”
Her brows rose. “And he’s coming all the way here to be your date for the wedding?”
Yeah, I’d never get tired of hearing that. I’d had guys that were too lazy to pick me up for dates and suggested that we meet at the restaurant instead, so the fact that one was willing to fly across the country to take me to my sister’s wedding was pretty epic.
“Yep.”
“How did you meet him?”
I stifled a groan. It was going to come out eventually. “We met in Vegas.”
“For your sister’s bachelorette?”
Ugh.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Meg tell me that?”
Because likely Meg wanted to spare me the interrogation headed my way. I loved my mother, but she definitely could get a little too involved in my life. Especially my romantic life. She’d married my dad at nineteen and they’d been happily married for like a billion years, so she struggled with my perpetual singledom.
Why can’t you just meet a nice boy? was a refrain commonly heard in our house. And now that I had definitely met a nice boy, I wasn’t ready to share him with anyone. I didn’t want to hear all the ways Noah probably wasn’t right for me, because I didn’t doubt that they weren’t going to take the news that he was a fighter pilot well.
It wasn’t that they weren’t patriotic, they were; it was just that we were a close-knit family. They wanted their kids in the same town, never expected us to leave. And the inescapable truth was that any future I’d have with Noah would likely involve my
leaving Florida.
I hadn’t quite wrapped my mind around that one, either.
“Meg’s wedding is in less than a month; I imagine she has more important things on her mind than my love life.”
“So what does he do?”
I hesitated, trying to think of a way to spin it that wouldn’t freak my mother out. And then I realized I was thirty years old, had left the nest over a decade ago, and this was kind of ridiculous.
“He’s a fighter pilot.”
There, I’d said it. The world did not explode.
“Like in the military?”
Her voice rose on the last word.
I nodded.
Her mouth tightened.
“Don’t you think you should be settling down, Jordan?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You aren’t getting any younger. Don’t you want to have children one day? Why don’t you want to date someone who would offer you a solid future?”
Did such a person exist? Besides, I loathed the saying “You aren’t getting any younger.” As though I were somehow unaware of the intricacies of the aging process. And kids? I did want to have children. Eventually. I definitely wasn’t there yet, and some part of me feared that I should be, but whatever.
“Yeah, I’d like to have kids someday.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting a little old for someday? For wild hair?”
Wild hair?
I made a face. “I’m not following you.”
“I just don’t see why you would indulge in a fling right now. It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure this boy is nice, but where’s the future in it? You live in different states. You run your own business. You can’t just take off whenever you feel like it. You have responsibilities here.”
Inwardly, I winced. Noah wasn’t exactly a fling, but at the same time, her words hit a little too close to home.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. We’ve known each other for a few weeks. I wasn’t exactly hoping for a proposal.”
She shook her head, disappointment flashing in her gaze. “It just seems reckless. Do you want to spend your life following some man around the world? What about the store? I just don’t understand what you’re thinking.”
Annoyance filled me at being taken to task like I was a child. “Hold up. I’ve known him for a few weeks. I like him. It’s not a fling. But it’s also not a freaking lifetime commitment. I don’t have answers to any of those questions, but I don’t think I need them. We’re dating. Getting to know each other. Why is that a bad thing?”
“Because there’s no way this will end well for you. What if you fall in love with him and then his job takes him away? Or what if you decide he’s what you want? Are you really willing to throw your entire future away? Everything you’ve worked so hard to build?”
My head spun.
“You’ve been giving me a hard time about being single for years. I thought that was the whole point; thought you wanted me to prioritize relationships.”
“Not with someone who’s going to take you away from your family, your home, your career. Someone who won’t be able to offer you any kind of stability.”
I didn’t want to fight with her in the middle of my store, but I was starting to get pissed. Really pissed. I was close with my family, but I was an adult. It was my life, not theirs.
“Look, Noah’s taking me to Meg’s wedding. We like each other. We’re dating. It’s exclusive. He’s a great guy and I could see myself falling for him, and I think he really likes me. Beyond that, I don’t know. And I’m not going to stand here and freak out about it.”
“Jordan—”
“No. I love you, but I’m done with this conversation. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this excited about a guy. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been this excited about a guy. So while I appreciate that you love me and are just worried about me, I’m not going to get into this. My relationship with Noah is private.”
She gave me the disappointed look again, one I’d seen over and over again throughout my childhood. I knew my parents loved me and I felt the same way about them, but it wasn’t lost on me that I was definitely the “difficult child,” the one who never seemed to play by the rules they wanted me to follow.
She stood there for a second, as though she were warring with herself to say more, and then she simply nodded, gave me another hug, and said good-bye.
If only the fears she’d planted in my head left as easily as she did.
NOAH
“Hey, beautiful.”
I heard the smile in Jordan’s voice through the phone. “Hi, handsome.”
I leaned back against the headboard, stifling a yawn as I looked over at the clock. It was fairly early here—just after 8 p.m.—but a week of early show times had caught up with me, and considering the fact that I had to wake up at three tomorrow morning, I was ready for bed.
“How was your day?” I asked, settling into our nightly routine.
I’d called her every day for the past two weeks. Sometimes we talked for only a few minutes, but we filled each other in on what had happened during the day. She talked about her store; I mentioned things I was worried about at the squadron, talked about the pilot upgrades I was in charge of overseeing right now. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as having her physically here, but it helped me to feel connected to her, even when she was so far away.
It was quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the day, even though the distance made it tough at times.
“It was good,” Jordan answered. “Busy. We’re definitely still getting some of the spring break crowd. We’ve already hit our March sales targets and we’re only halfway through the month.”
“That’s awesome, babe. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you still okay to come out this Friday?”
It had been two weeks since her last visit and I was already dying to see her. I’d never had a great experience with long distance in the past, and I didn’t know what it was about her, but if anything, the time apart had brought us closer. Maybe it was the phone calls. When your relationship was reduced to talking on the phone, you got to know each other in a way that had nothing to do with sexual attraction. We still had phone sex—and an unforgettable video chat—but the bulk of our time was spent learning each other’s personalities and quirks. Talking on the phone stripped away the distractions, making it easier to just concentrate on each other.
“Yeah, I am. I’m excited to see you.”
“Me, too,” I replied. “I’m sorry I can’t pick you up. I tried to move this guy’s IPUG cert but there was no way to make it work in the schedule and we really need to get him through before we go TDY to Alaska. I’ll try to duck out of work early, though, so we can spend some time together.”
“IPUG? TDY?”
I grinned. I was quickly becoming her little Air Force dictionary.
“Instructor upgrade. If he passes this ride, he’ll be qualified as an instructor pilot in the F-16. And, uh, TDY is a temporary duty assignment. Kind of like a civilian business trip.”
Except our training usually involved blowing shit up.
“Do you think he’ll pass?”
“He was a strong flight lead, and he’s only hooked a couple rides in the IPUG, so yeah, I think he’ll be good. The debrief will take a while, though. Are you sure you don’t want me to see if I can get someone else to pick you up from the airport? Easy’s probably free.”
“It’s cool. I’ll just take a cab and meet you at home.”
Silence filled the line as her last words settled between us.
I was surprised at how much I liked the way she described my place as “home.” It had always just felt like a house—an investment opportunity that I’d probably rent out when I got my next
assignment. The idea of her there made it feel like home.
“I meant your house,” she sputtered.
“I liked it the first way better,” I answered softly.
More silence.
If these past two weeks had taught me anything, it was that there was so much more to my interest in her than just the physical. In a way, the distance was a blessing of sorts. It sucked, but it highlighted the parts of our relationship that were easy to miss when you were in a constant state of arousal. Not being able to have her when I wanted had taught me to appreciate the other parts of her—being able to talk to her after a long day, telling her about frustrations at work, listening to her talk about her dreams and plans for the store.
“There’s a squadron function at the O-Club on Friday. Do you want to go?”
“O-Club?”
“Officers’ Club. The squadron will be there and families will come out, too. No kids, but there should be a lot of wives there.”
Everyone at work had heard about the girl I’d met in Vegas, and thanks to Easy being Easy, Jordan was kind of a legend among the guys. He’d finally stopped when I’d told him to fuck off after he’d described her as being “stacked like a centerfold.” I hadn’t shared that particular tidbit with Jordan considering it hadn’t escaped my notice that he wasn’t her favorite person.
“Like meet your friends?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve told everyone about you and they’re dying to meet you.”
“Is there a dress code or something for this?”
“It’s after work so we’ll all be in flight suits. You can wear whatever. It’s casual.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t wait to show her off. I hated that our schedules and lives were so intense right now and I couldn’t take her to California to meet my parents and the rest of my family. At least this way, she’d get a chance to meet my military family.
“Joker’s wife, Dani, will be there. You’ll love her.”
I knew Jordan was apprehensive about the whole military thing, but I figured if anyone could show her how to navigate the lifestyle, it was Dani. As the squadron commander’s wife, she was in charge of a lot of the Wild Aces social functions, and even though she was almost ten years younger than Joker, she acted as a de facto mother to all of us.
Fly With Me Page 12
