“Stop embarrassing the poor girl,” Mary says.
I force a smile, wanting to hide my face in my hands, but knowing if I do, I’ll just look more guilty than I do now.
My eyes shift to David, who’s just standing there, smug as ever with a cheesy grin. I open my eyes wider, sending him a Bat-Signal for help, which he thankfully picks up on and changes the subject.
“Here, I saved you guys some room to sit with us.”
He moves the bags he’d put on the chairs next to us so they can sit. When he set them there, I thought he was just being a weirdo, not wanting people to be so close, but now I see he had this all planned the entire time.
“Why didn’t you tell me they were going to be here?” I lean in to whisper.
He kisses my cheek. “I didn’t want you to overthink it.”
“You thought this would be better?” I chuckle even though I’m still in panic mode.
“No. I knew, either way, you would freak out, so …” He winks, and I want to smack the shit out of him.
Then it hits me.
This is how he’s always acted toward me. Did he really just like pushing my buttons?
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I forcefully whisper.
He holds up his finger and thumb to show me an inch of space between the two. “Just a little.” We all sit down, and David whispers to me, “Don’t worry. They aren’t sitting next to us. They’ve had this trip planned for a while.”
“And you thought it would be fun for us to be on the same flight home?”
“Well, yeah. They are staying with me, so this worked out perfectly. Besides, I didn’t expect this”—he motions between us—“when I booked the flights. So, though I’ve loved watching you battle internally the last few minutes, this part was not planned.”
I roll my eyes, and he laughs even more, grabbing my hand and holding it there before turning to his mom.
“Did Dad drop you off, or did you just leave the car in the parking garage?”
“I didn’t want him to have to drive all this way, so we drove here,” she responds.
“How far away is Red Lodge from here?” I ask.
David turns to me with his brows furrowed, obviously questioning how I knew they lived in Red Lodge.
I only remember that’s where he grew up because it was such an interesting name for a city, so I looked it up and ended up doing a deep dive on the location and discovered how unique it was.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll now start boarding group three for our flight to JFK in New York City,” we hear a woman call over the speakers.
“It’s only an hour or so from here,” she replies, then quickly follows with, “Girls, that’s us.” Mary stands, knocking over some bags as she does.
I close my eyes, trying to calm the panic racing through me.
How do I keep slipping up?
David jumps up to help his mom while Katie comes my way.
“We’ll see you when we land, but I just wanted to say again how excited I am to see David finally getting his head out of his ass.”
A laugh escapes me more out of surprise than anything else, making David turn toward both of us.
“Really, Katie?”
She shrugs with a smirk covering her face. “Just stating facts.” She waves at both of us. “See you in New York.”
