Oh shit.I fumble for my wallet, my watch, the jewelry I never wear, trying to think of anything metal I have.Will that make the plane not fly?
She snorts, placing her hand on my thigh. “JJ, I’m joking. Take a deep breath. Remember, I fly you places multiple times aweek. This is no different. I get to see you at work all the time, now you get to see what I do.”
My shoulders relax as the fluttering feeling behind my ribs intensifies even as she gives me nothing but shit.I fucking love it.
I watch in awe as she talks to the control tower and they clear us for takeoff.
“You ready?” she asks, glancing my way.
My pulse is at full throttle, like it’s trying to win some sort of competition. “Fuck yeah.”
As we race down the runway and lift off into the air, my breath catches. This is more than a flight.This is pulling us into uncharted airspace.Something deep in my heart pulls loose. Like every bit of altitude we pick up frees me from things that have weighed me down for years. But it’s not the air. It’s not the plane. It’s not the instruments or the engine.It’s her.This woman I’ve been drawn to for months. I can feel it in my bones. She still hasn’t said those three words yet, but for some reason, this flight feels like her way of saying them without speaking at all.
She feels it too.
“You doing okay over there, pretty-boy?” she asks in the calm pilot voice I hear her use on our flights.
“Kenni…this is…this is unreal.”
She scoffs. “You fly all the time.”
“Not like this. Not with you. You know I like it when you’re in control.”
“I might have picked up on that,” she says with a laugh. “I wanted to bring you up here at this specific time because I knew the sunset would be stunning today. Look.”
I’d been too focused on everything Kennedy was doing inside, I forgot to look out the window. The oranges and yellowsradiating across the ground are breathtaking.Goddammit, this needs to be part of a poem.
“It’s…it’s…fuck…” I rub the end of my sleeve under my eye.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she says softly.
“It is, but…” I swallow the lump in my throat. “It’s us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah.” My smile is bittersweet; my eyes locked on the hills beneath us. “You’ve been the light in the sky I’ve been searching for my whole damn life. I could see you in the clouds, but it all seemed so out of reach. You were so far out of my league. Not to mention, I was trapped in this cycle I thought I’d never get out of. But seeing the sun come down and kiss the ground like this? It’s like you coming down to get me. And you know what happens every night when the sun disappears? In the morning, it comes back up. You grabbed me and pulled me back up with you. You got rid of the darkness and finally dragged me into the light.”
She blinks quickly as she eases into a turn. She clears her throat. “I’ve spent my whole career trying to hide my emotions while sitting in this seat. To stay calm, stay focused, do my job. Yet here I am, choking back tears on a flight that’s just for fun.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean?—”
“Don’t you dare fucking apologize for the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. I just wish I weren’t flying a damn aircraft so I could wrap my arms around you. So I could look you in the eyes and tell you…” Her voice trails off.
She’s holding something back—she’s holding back from saying it.
My cheeks heat as I smile wider than the sunset we’re flying over. “You were the one who wanted this to be romantic.”
She huffs a laugh and shakes he head. “Point taken. How about we head back to the airport? I have more surprises, and I can’t hold all this in any longer.”
I wipe my face again, my sleeves soaked with more happiness and relief than I’ve felt in forever. I’ve been in love with Kennedy Kramer for a while. But now? My stomach dips, but it’s not the plane. It’s the inkling I have about her feeling the same.
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one-hundred,” Kennedy told me to stand in the hallway and count so she could get a couple of things ready. I have no clue what’s happening, but I’m bouncing on my heels, I’m so fucking excited. I click the fob on the lock, my hands steadier now that I saw she was still in the apartment and still let me in.
As I push open the door, I hearKiss Me, the most romantic song of all the ’90s movies, playing in the background. Then I look around and see a trail of rose petals leading down the hallway toward the bedroom.What in the rom-com is happening?!
“Kenni? What…what is going on? How did you…you could not have done all this while I was in the hallway, so how…”
She flashes me the most brilliantly beautiful smile as she grabs my hand. “I recruited a little help from Maggie. Here,” she hands me a gift bag overflowing with tissue paper. “Open it.”
