I should’ve worked harder these last few years. Saved up more. Had a large chunk of my debt ready to pay off to soften the blow of my deception. Then I would be closer to reimbursing what I owe Shawn and wouldn’t have to wait until half of my life is gone before I pursue a career in flying.
But things kept coming up. Mom’s appointments and unplanned hospital visits and bouts of depression. The anxiety of never knowing what else might go wrong fogged my mind until I could barely write food orders or wear my tip-earning smile, much less fill out applications for other jobs. The weight of that terrible time even managed to smother the joy of reading aviator memoirs. When I think back on the last five years, all I can remember is helping Mom, working at Cornfield’s, and making sure our house was livable. Anything other than that involved me vegging out in front of the TV so my mind could melt to mush and I wouldn’t have to think about my mother possibly dying or the lies I told my brother so I could keep her alive and comfortable.
I’m going to fix things, I silently swear.Flying is not the priority. Mom and Shawn are.
Mom, Shawn, and the house. Can’t forget that mortgage.
I’ll get a second job. I repeat the plan to myself. Apply to other places in town—hopefully somewhere other than Beefies Steak House—and work the days and evenings I’m off at the diner.
When Shawn learns the truth, it’ll take time for him to trust me again—if he ever does. He’ll probably stop visiting me at work. He won’t want to do our monthly book club. He’ll choose to spend all of his holidays with his mom and dad instead of having fried chicken on Thanksgiving with me and Mom and Marge. Maybe he’ll block my number, denouncing me as a money-mooching relative. He’s done it before to former friends and ex-girlfriends. Most recently he separated from his ex-fiancée, Tiffany.
People who only took from him.
People like me.
The thought of losing Shawn because of my betrayal makes my rib cage ache.
So for now, I bask in his concern and try not to count down the days to when it disappears.
Straightening, I give him a twirl. “Limbs attached and accounted for. You can thank your buddy George for keeping a cool head.”
“Hear that, George?” Shawn turns and glances toward the doorway. “Beth says I should thank you. So maybe it’s time to stop beating yourself up, huh?”
Turns out my brother isn’t the only new arrival I briefly overlooked.
My eyes collide with a gray stare, and I take a deep swallow as my body floods with my adrenaline crush.
George Bunsen is here. Looking at me.
My cheeks roar with heat, and I do my best to mentally punch myhormones into submission. But they fight back. There’s a burning sensation on the top of my thigh in the phantom shape of his hand from where he briefly rested it yesterday. My body is branded with his touch.
Unaware of my inner turmoil, George holds my gaze, his brow furrowed as he studies me, his jaw tense and his lips in a firm, unhappy line.
Well, one thing hasn’t changed.
George Bunsen still wishes I didn’t exist.
Chapter
3
Why did Shawnhave to bring him?
My brother and his friend settle at the counter, technically in Darla’s section. But this place is small and open, which means I have a clear view of the man my body is still doing a lusty square dance for.
Turns out, I need more than a day to drain the adrenaline crush from my system. If a month had gone by, I’m sure I could look at George with the same dismissiveness I’ve used in the past.
He is the last guy I want to be interested in.
Not only does my existence offend him, but George Bunsen is also a BnB spawn.
The luxury transportation company doesn’t actually go by BnB. That’s my fun little inside joke I tell to me and only me. A way for me to pretend they’re a small, poorly run hospitality business set up in a creaky old house serving disgruntled guests runny scrambled eggs every morning that earn them one-star reviews.
Also it makes the “n” small. Because screw you, Karl Newton.
In truth, they use the more illustrious BBN. All caps. All shiny. All way above my pay grade.
Baylor, Bunsen & Newton is the transportation business that Ethan Baylor, Richard Bunsen, and Karl Newton started thirty-five years ago and have built into a powerhouse, with an entire fleet of private jets, million-dollar yachts, and literal bulletproof vehicles politicians ride in to events. BBN likes to sell the story of three broke college kids scraping together a company in a garage with some secondhand limos and natural business instinct. The rags-to-riches, we-only-got-here-because-we’re-super-smart story. They are intelligent men; I’ll give them that. But I would love to be the kind of broke they were. Working in a five-car garage next to your parents’ Porsche and utilizing your family connections for clients isn’t exactly what comes to most people’s minds when they picture “broke.”
