Chapter 1
If I’m being honest, getting a little tipsy on a flight to see my familyisappealing.
But I’m still responsible me, so I’m planning to decline the flight attendant’s offer of a drink.
Until a deep voice next to me says, “I will if you will.”
I feel my face going red just from his timbre. I’d been studiously avoiding looking at him, his seat 1B to my 1A—a last-minute upgrade I’d been delighted by, until the most beautiful giant sat next to me. Imagine the stature, flowing hair, and elated smile of Jason Momoa wrapped up in a laid-back button-down and dark-gray sweatpants. Hot men always feel like the sun—must avert your eyes so as to not get burned.
The avoiding had been easy, since I grabbed my Kindle and got pulled back into the book I was reading (yes, I am more into fictional men than real men; sue me).
Until.I will if you will.
And now he’s looking at me amused, eyebrows raised, his expression too impish for someone so tall. I can’t help but nod him on. He grabs two glasses of champagne off the flight attendant’s tray and hands me one.
“Thank you,” I muster.
“I’m sorry if I assumed,” he says, his smile dimming enough where I’m surprised by how desperately I want tobring it back. “I get a little nervous flying. A drink seemed like a good idea. And no one wants to drink alone at ten in the morning.”
“You?”
“Me what?”
“You get nervous flying?”
He chuckles and throws the drink back in one sip. “Why not?”
“I don’t know, you’re ...” I wave my hand in front of him. “Youknow. You know you look like this.”
Nowhischeeks turn a little pink, and it surprises me. But he still leans in. “Look like what?”
Are we going to have a blush-off? Because that’s how it feels once I realize I’ve just implied that he can’t be afraid of flying because he’s gorgeous and jacked.Great job, Miriam, putting your foot in your mouth once again.
“You think if the plane goes down I’m going to, what, block it physically somehow?” he says with an adorable smirk.
“It’s not that,” I rush out. “I just assume that if you have less to be scared of generally, you’d be scared of less overall.”
A wistful look crosses his face. “Maybe. Physical stuff, sure, I’ll give you that.”
I take a sip of my champagne, liquid courage. Although for some reason, that nervousness I’d normally get while talking to an attractive man isn’t taking hold. There’s something about his earnest smile that gives off warmth instead of incineration. “What’s bringing you to Charleston?” I ask.
“Family Christmas,” he says succinctly, even though it’s over a week away. “You?”
“Same,” I say, nodding. “Well, family Hanukkah.” I grimace.
“You’re not looking forward to it?”
“Would you want eight nights in a row with your overbearing, oversharing, over-everything family during a time when they get a chance to be evenmoreexuberant?”
His laugh crinkles his eyes so tight they’re barely visible anymore. It’s like the laughter takes up his entire body, and it’s so different from what anyone would imagine of this man if they only saw a photo of him. “Sounds kind of fun,” he says, still smiling.
“Maybe if you fit into it.”
“And you don’t?”
I shake my head, but his expression indicates he wants more. I’m normally not a sharer, but something about this guy makes me feel like I should.
“I was the surprise baby,” I explain. “My parents were in their twenties when they had my sisters and then accidentally got pregnant with me when my mom was forty-four and my dad was forty-eight. My dad gave my mom a turtle the year before—because the seventeenth-anniversary gift is shells—and that was supposed to be her new baby. So I’ve basically been the extra family pet, vying for attention with a turtle and four outgoing people for almost thirty years.”
