Sink or Swim

by Bailey, Tessa

  “Honestly, Jiya.”

  “It was worth asking!”

  She turned in a circle. What was she going to do?

  You know I’d cut my heart out before saying no to you, right?

  Andrew’s voice drifted back to her from the night of the bachelor party. Their relationship had definitely shifted, but the foundation of their friendship couldn’t have weakened so drastically, could it have? She’d always known Andrew loved helping her out, but now…she couldn’t pretend like that need to please her didn’t run much deeper.

  He liked doing for her on a physical level, too.

  Jiya’s nipples tingled and she pushed at them with the heels of her hands. Was it unfair of her to ask Andrew for favors, now that she knew about his…tastes?

  They’re your tastes, too.

  “That’s beside the point,” she muttered.

  “What was that, daughter?”

  “Oh! Sorry, mother. I’ll, um…I’ll figure it out. Talk to you later.”

  She hung up the phone and tapped it against her lips.

  Someday soon it might be considered inappropriate for her to ask anything of Andrew. She could be seeing someone. She couldn’t keep calling on him for help when she needed to allow for a healthy distance to settle between them. She’d already decided living with heartache was her only option, right? Continue to pine after Andrew? Pain. Pine after him while building a future with a family? Productive pain. At least life would be moving forward, instead of remaining stagnant. Despite distance between her and Andrew being the healthy option, she scrolled to his name in her contacts, her finger hovering over the green dial button.

  “Jiya.”

  What the heck? She put the phone to her ear. “Andrew?”

  His amused laugh was like a cool kiss on the back of her neck. “Across the street, sweetheart.” She spun around to find him waving from the shadow of one of the apartment buildings that lined the block. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  Even from a distance, she could see his lips twitch. “You can put the phone down.”

  Face heating, she dropped the device to her thigh and watched Andrew cross the street in her direction. Ohhh man. She’d found Andrew attractive before, but now that she knew his easy confidence was not unfounded, his appeal had multiplied by approximately eighty-two. Her lips remembered his ability to kiss aggressively and lightly, in turn, with such skill. Such reverence. Her breasts remembered his suction, her bottom remembered the texture of his hands…and perhaps most unfortunately, her lady parts remembered him best of all for rubbing her to orgasm with his huge, thick—

  This isn’t helping.

  But honestly, universe? Today had to be a baseball hat day? Andrew reminded her of a Hollywood leading man trying to fly under the radar. Beneath the low brim of his Yankees hat, his mouth greeted her with a lopsided smile and his eyes were unsure, apologetic, as they seemed to memorize everything about her. Hair, outfit, flushed cheeks.

  In an attempt to seem casual, Jiya leaned an elbow on the trunk of her car, yelping when it turned out to be hotter than the sun’s surface. “Ouch.”

  “Aw, Jiya.” Andrew’s hands found her arm, tilting up her elbow for inspection. Before she could guess his intention, he’d leaned down and kissed the red spot. “Poor sweetheart.”

  She ripped her arm away. It was pure reflex. Because she never wanted him to stop touching her. After learning his touch and having it taken away, she now missed him with a bone-deep yearning that was so much more than friendship. He’d made it clear they couldn’t be together, so that yearning was as dangerous as a moat full of sharks.

  Andrew’s hands remained suspended in mid-air, his face stricken. “Christ. I’m so sorry I yelled at you yesterday.”

  “That’s not why I don’t want you to…touch me…I just—”

  “Oh. No, I understand. That’s fine. You don’t have to give me a reason.” He took off his hat, shoved his fingers through his hair and replaced it. An achingly endearing move she’d seen him make a hundred times but now it turned her knees to jelly. His jaw flexed its way through their awkward pause. “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I was just about to ask you the same.”

  “I didn’t put myself on a chair today. Too many deliveries coming to the bar.”

  “But you work tonight?”

  “Yeah.” His eyes crinkled briefly at the corners. “Can’t give myself a full day off.”

  “No, that’s a direct violation of the Andrew Prince handbook.”

  He laughed softly. “So? You headed back to Spice or…” He stopped. “Flying lesson day. That’s today, right?”

  “Well…”

  “Well?”

  If she told him, he’d help and she wasn’t sure if that constituted taking advantage. “It’s nothing.” She pushed his shoulder lightly, but he didn’t move an inch. “Go ahead. I was just getting ready to leave. Like, any second now.”

  “Jiya Dalal.”

  “Andrew.”

  “Your car won’t start, will it?”

  Her head fell forward a few degrees and met his chest. “No.”

  She felt his hand ghost over her hair, not exactly touching it, but catching a stray strand or two and giving him away. “What time is the lesson?”

  “In twenty minutes. And it’s half an hour away.”

  “Come on. We’re getting you there.”

  Andrew crossed to the open driver’s side door and took out her satchel purse, dropping it over his head. And that’s when she finally admitted to herself that she loved him. Was in love with him. Had loved him all along. Through head colds and bad haircuts and sunburns and sad movies.

  He was willing to wear her purse.

  “I can get an Uber,” she blurted, heart racing.

  His offense was the furthest thing from mild. “Fuck that. I’m parked two blocks over.” He took her hand and pulled her into a jog. “Try and keep up, sweetheart.”

  The sound that bubbled up from her throat was relief, but it was also sadness over loving a man she couldn’t have, and when Andrew heard it, he looked over at her curiously. Whatever he saw written in her expression caused him to face forward quickly, features stoic, and all Jiya could do was keep running.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Andrew got them to Bethpage in record time, though he never drove unsafely. The oldest Prince drove like he did everything else, with casual focus—and she noticed way too many details about him in the twenty-four minutes it took to reach their destination. She noticed the tricep that popped in his right arm when he changed lanes. Noticed he’d neglected to shave that morning and most importantly, how he glanced over at her every other minute. His eyes were the window to his ever-changing moods. Hot, cold, worried, apologetic.

  Thankfully there wasn’t an abundance of traffic on a weekday afternoon. Another few minutes with Andrew in the car and she would have asked him about the cop. And she refused to pester him about whatever was going on. They were good enough friends that he should confide in her without having to be needled to death.

  Her moods must be ever-changing, too, because right on the heels of her annoyance, she battled the impulse to smooth the hair peeking out from beneath his ball cap. To lean over and smell the combination of Andrew and sunshine that emanated from his white T-shirt.

  They didn’t speak once during the entire ride and it hurt to have the ease between them missing, replaced by tension. It was sexual in nature, yes. She didn’t miss the way he watched her thighs, her breasts. But it was so much more than that. The future unknowns sat between them like a silent but active volcano.

  By the time they reached the airfield, Jiya all but threw herself out of the car, lifting her ponytail up to fan her neck. She skirted around the bumper of Andrew’s car, catching him in the act of adjusting himself, that hand locking around the bulge behind his zipper and shifting it to the right with a wince. He cursed when he saw her watching, both of them simply existing inside those beats of awareness
, before he cleared his throat and approached Jiya, taking her hand. “Come on. We’re not that late.”

  “Should we have an excuse ready?” Jiya asked, speed walking to keep up with his long-legged pace. “Circus animals broke free of their trailer on the parkway? No, wait. If it’s a man, we’ll just tell him it’s a woman thing. And make sure you say woman thing in a whisper.”

  Andrew looked back at her questioningly. “Why?”

  “He’ll be so terrified of getting details, he’ll probably just give me a plane.”

  “Are we talking about your period? Or something else.”

  “Oh my God.” Jiya’s mouth fell open. “You said period like it was just a regular word and not some ancient incantation that might bring on a plague of locusts. Congratulations.”

  Laughter crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You’re not going to need excuses, sweetheart. You’ve got me.”

  Feathers brushed the insides of her belly. “Do I?”

  You are stupid, Jiya. Definitely too stupid to fly a plane.

  They were almost to the registration office when Andrew slid her an unreadable look. “It’s come to my attention recently that you might…” He tugged at the brim of his hat. “Our friendship might be keeping you from giving this dating thing a serious try.”

  “Why would it do that?” Jiya croaked.

  “Male friendships don’t really mix with boyfriends.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me. If we were dating…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “What?”

  His gaze licked her like flames. “If we were dating, you’d be having breakfast or taking walks with other men over my dead fucking body.”

  The bright summer sun bouncing off the concrete, along with her internal temperature, was going to fry her like an omelet. Did he realize the effect his words had on her? “Wow, a chauvinist who doesn’t even flinch at period talk. You’re like an undiscovered species.”

  Andrew sighed. “Look, it’s just that we haven’t really talked about what happened on the beach—”

  “Oh. I see where this is going.” With a hard swallow, Jiya dropped his hand and tightened her ponytail with an aggressive tug. “You don’t want me to get the wrong idea. Just because we hooked up one time doesn’t mean I should stop shopping my options, right?”

  By the time she finished speaking, they’d reached the squat, stucco building and Andrew rested his hand on the steel handle. “Don’t say it like that, Jiya. Like it was something cheap.”

  She didn’t want to argue with him. She didn’t want the wall between them. Limiting her closeness to this man hurt. Terribly. So she forced herself to step back from the emotional quagmire and look at the situation objectively. Andrew didn’t want a serious relationship. She did want that eventually. Maybe even sooner than later. They’d hooked up in one seriously ill-advised move. And now she was punishing him. Heck, as long as she was being honest with herself, maybe she’d been subconsciously punishing him for letting her go on that initial date with another man.

  Wow. That, more than anything, was a reality check.

  She’d told Andrew she wanted to stay friends, but that wasn’t going to happen if she didn’t put on her big girl panties and act like a grownup. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to sever their ties because they were adults who wanted different things.

  Jiya laid her hand on top of his and squeezed. “Thank you for driving me. Really. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  She could feel Andrew staring after her as she entered the office. “Hello. I’m Jiya Dalal.” She took the voucher out of her purse and set it on the counter. “I have an appointment for a lesson today at two o’clock. I’m afraid I’m a little late.”

  “Yeah, sorry.” The man at the desk set down the Coke he’d been drinking and reclined back in his chair. “Unfortunately it means you’ll forfeit the lesson. We have a packed schedule for the rest of the afternoon.”

  Jiya had just turned to give a quick scan of the empty waiting room when she felt Andrew at her back. “Are you the instructor?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Call them. Their appointment is here.”

  “The policy…”

  Andrew flicked the underside of his hat’s brim, bringing his eyes out of the shadows. “Forget the policy,” he said coldly, dropping a fist on the counter with a thud. “She’s getting the lesson.”

  Much like the Coke drinker, Jiya froze at the rare appearance of Andrew’s anger. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen it, though. No, hadn’t it only been a few weeks ago he’d decked Marcus’s brother for hitting Jamie? “What’s wrong, Jiya?” Andrew had said. “You didn’t know I had any violence in me? Well now you do.”

  At the time, she’d definitely been surprised by the use of his strength to injure someone, but she’d known Andrew forever. Surely he was exaggerating. Violence? Please. This was the man who helped her hang wet laundry in the backyard. The man who broke up fights in the Castle Gate. He was not violent.

  Right?

  She looked down at the veins standing out on the back of his fist and frowned.

  The man behind the desk picked up the phone, covering the receiving with a hand. “You’ve completed the paperwork online, right?”

  “Yes,” Jiya said, producing them from her satchel and sliding them across the counter. “I brought copies, too.”

  “Great. Just a minute,” the man muttered, turning in his chair so he could speak privately into the receiver. Jiya worried he might have called security instead of the flight instructor, but her shoulders relaxed when the man merely informed whoever was on the line that his two o’clock had arrived.

  Just like that, Andrew’s anger cleared, too.

  He reached over and tugged her ponytail. “I’ll be right here when you’re done, okay?” Knowing how much work he was neglecting, Jiya started to protest, but he cupped a hand over her mouth. “Hey. Go enjoy it. Don’t think about me or anything else for the next two hours.”

  I’m so in love with you, Andrew. You idiot.

  “Thanks,” she said on an exhale when Andrew took away his hand. “I…thanks.”

  “He’ll meet you at hangar one,” droned Coke Guy.

  Jiya nodded and sidled past a super-still Andrew, her nose filling with sunshine and ocean and man. When she glanced back at him on her way out of the office, he was watching her over his shoulder from beneath the brim of his hat, sending an involuntary shiver up her spine.

  Focus.

  She stepped back out into the heat. Two huge, white structures sat in the near distance and she walked toward the hangar with ONE painted on the side. Andrew’s directive came back to Jiya—go enjoy it—and she let a smile curve her mouth. Let excitement ruffle in her chest. That anticipation only amplified when she walked into the hangar, the sheer size of it reminding her of the vastness of the sky that had always fascinated her. Small, single engine Cessnas were lined up in formation, their propellers catching the sunlight.

  A man stepped out from behind one of the planes, a smile spreading beneath his bushy white mustache and Jiya immediately felt as ease.

  “Ms. Dalal?” He strode forward and extended a hand, reminding her of Santa Claus’s action hero brother. “I’m Rick. I’ll be your flight instructor for the next five weeks.” He gestured to the nearest plane, a white aircraft with cheerful red stripes on the tail. “And this beauty here will be our ride.”

  “It’s so nice to meet you.” Jiya breathed. “And she’s beautiful.”

  “That she is.” He winked at her. “I might even let you fly her today.”

  “Today?” She couldn’t subdue her smile. “My mother is going to faint.”

  Rick’s hearty laugh boomed through the hangar. “Let me ask you something. Is this a bucket list experience or do you really want to know everything about flying a plane? That might help me gauge how in depth we make this lesson.” He gestured toward the tarmac. “I can put you in the co-pil
ot seat, switch control and let you steer this very afternoon. No sweat. Or we could spend some time making sure you do it right. And eventually even on your own.”

  “I guess I’m not sure. It’s always been my dream to fly a plane, but I don’t think I’ll know how serious I am about continuing until I’m…”

  “Soaring.”

  “Yes.”

  Rick nodded succinctly. “Come on, then, Jiya. Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way.”

  Over the course of the next hour, Rick went over safety instructions, including the procedure for emergency landings, loss of cabin pressure and what to do in the case of a medical emergency. There was a practice control panel in the hangar that he used to explain the controls, before quizzing her on their functions.

  It seemed like only a minute had passed when Rick invited her to board the plane, gesturing for Jiya to take the co-pilot seat. She climbed inside and engaged the seatbelt, running her fingers over the controls. This morning, she definitely hadn’t known how to identify a turn coordinator, altimeter or airspeed indicator and she was gratified now to understand each dial and button’s function.

  Following Rick’s lead, she put on her headphones, her breath catching in her throat when he started the plane’s engine. When they started to taxi their way to the tarmac, the body of the plane rumbling beneath her, she almost asked to go back. Flying had always seemed so abstract in her head, but not now. Now, it was the smell of engine oil and leather and the aircraft bouncing when they went over a bump in the concrete. This was it, she was…

  Flying.

  Her fingertips dug into the passenger seat as they climbed into the sky, the seemingly endless runway disappearing, being replaced with blue. “I think I left my stomach back at the hangar,” Jiya quipped into her headset, leaning over to look out the window. She waved at the office they circled around. Whether Andrew could see her or not, she knew he’d be watching. Oh man, flying was an entirely different experience from the front of the plane. Possibilities and nature and peace.