Justin: Yeah, I’ve seen what flights you’ve been on.
Ralph: Stop dogging on E, we can’t help what we like, maybe she makes up for it in the bedroom.
Chad: Does she E? Come on, you can tell us, we won’t judge.
Tiff: Yes we will.
The tears started flowing freely.Is that what he thinks of me?I loved him, and I thought he loved me, but my god, how wrong was I? Even thinking about someone saying something like that about Elijah made me see red, but he wassilent.Quiet when he should have been loud.
His silent betrayal reminded me of snow. Beautiful, cold, and quiet, but deadly in the right conditions.
I couldn’t help but pull up the thread with Tiffany to go over as well.
Tiff: Drinks?
Tiff: Crazy flight, see you at the bar in a minute.
Tiff: Room 401 this time.
Tiff: Room 220.
Tiff: What a great night! See you soon.
The thread of their chats was steadily unweaving what I had considered to be the greatest love story—mylove story.
“I have an idea,” I whispered to Ellie.
“I’ll get the tarp.”
She smacked my thigh and got up, holding her hand out to help me up.
Chapter Six
Elijah
I had to get the fuck home. Something was seriously wrong, and I was stuck there, half a country away from the only thing I gave a damn about. My phone kept pinging with notifications, and every single time, I jumped with hope, my heart thudding in anticipation, praying it was Bonnie. But it never was. She had her own special ring—jingle bells—and when it was just the genericping, I didn’t even bother checking it. I just kept racking my brain on the fastest way to get home.
Dread started to seep in when I realized that my only real option was to wait for the next nine hours and thirty-eight minutes until I could board the plane I was flying and make my way back to Bonnie, back to my home. Which would almost take another eleven hours—ten, if I broke some laws getting home.
I looked at the palm trees and the view of the pool outside my window, feeling nothing but hatred for all things tropical building just as quickly as my panic. Fuck the trees, sun, and sand. I wanted snow, Christmas cookies, and my girl.
A knock on my door had me growling in frustration, and I decided to completely ignore it and continue my pacing. But the knocking only grew louder, and my simmering rage was about to blow with each continued knock that echoed through the otherwise silent room.
“E? I know you’re in there. Are you okay?”
Satan herself was the one knocking, and sheabsolutelydidn’t know that I was in there.How does she even know my room number?I knew for a fact that I didn’t give it to her. Normally, I just avoided Tiff like the plague, and it was the same with the guys. We had become close in flight school. It had been easy to unwind with the people who understood what I was going through…The stress, the insecurities, the thrill of flying. The need to be in the sky. Not having to explain, not having to find friends who scoffed at my crazy schedule, was easy. Being able to sit in the companies of others who had my life was a blessing, at first.
It wasn’t until I met Bonnie that I realized how truly awful they were. So, I distanced myself, stopped accepting invites, stopped responding, and eventually just stopped paying them any mind outside of work at all.
In fact, 99 percent of the time that I found myself in their presence because of work, all I heard waswaaa, waaa, waaa. I just didn’t care, so I ignored them.
They used to give me so much shit about Bonnie. About how I had started to change when I met her. That I walked around with stars in my eyes. But I much preferred to think of it as snowflakes in my eyes. Christmas used to just be another holiday before I met her. Now, I thought of my life as split into two: Before Bonnie and After Bonnie.
Before, it was like an old movie in black and white, with no sound. Fumbling around, trying to find happiness. After, it was like living in a snow globe. Light, bright, and glitter everywhere. So much joy that if someone broke out in song wherever I went, I’d have joined in. Pure joy, just like Christmas morning.
The knocking still continued. Clearly, she wasn’t going away. Huffing in annoyance that my focus was being deterred from my life with Bonnie, I flew over to the door and all but ripped it off its hinges as I opened it.
“What?” Icicles had nothing on the frosty tone I gave her.
