I see it in her face.I hear it in her voice.And my heart breaks.I’m deliriously happy to be married to Summer, but I know where her angst is coming from—she really believes we shouldn’t have done it like this.
She’s probably right.
And it hurts that she’s embarrassed to go home married to me.
“Tell them you’ve got your period, and you need to get home in a hurry to put a heating pad on your cooter,” I tell her.
“I can’t tell themthat!And since when do you use the term ‘cooter’?”
“You literally tell them that every month, Summer.And I’ve always been fond of ‘cooter.’”
“Everyone’s aware of that,” she says.
I laugh.
“The point is, your family will know I’m lying, since I’m not supposed to get my period for another two weeks.”
“Fine.But if my family’s really tracking your cycle that carefully, we got worse problems than getting married by Beyoncé.”
“What do I tell them?”
“That you need to work on your septic tank.”
She nods and takes a deep breath, letting it out in a huff.“Good one.That could work.I could focus on the septic tank.It does need work, so it’s not totally lying.Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not looking at you like that,” I lie.I’m definitely looking at her like that.Like I want to kiss her.Like Ineedto kiss her.Like I want to push her back on the fold-out couch and make her cum three or six or nine more times before we go home.
“We can’t start up with that again, Declan,” she says, reading my mind.“I still think maybe we should put everything in reverse.Get an annulment.Figure out what normal people might do in this situation.”
“Not doing it,” I tell her.“No annulment.No going in reverse.Just moving forward, with a more standard approach, sure, why not?But no annulment.”
I’m surprised when I see tears fill her eyes.“Can we not talk about this now?I need some time to breathe.Tothink.All the rolling around and kissing and having sex so crazy that we end up breaking hotel furniture… I think it’s really messed up my brain.”
“Having that many orgasms in such a short time can cause hormonal changes,” I say.
She stares up at me like I’m an idiot.“You just made that up.”
“I did, but it sounds like it could be true.”
She isn’t amused.
“Hey, come on, Summer.In all seriousness, you can have all the time you want.”I smile at her.“We’ll talk more when we get home.I better head back to the cockpit and get us started.”
I turn to go.
She grabs my arm.“Wait!”She unlatches her seat belt and stands, ginger ale and barf bag in hand.“I need to sit with you up front.Am I allowed?Can I?I don’t want to be alone back here.”
“That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”And I don’t care what she says, I lean in and give her a kiss.Then I take her by the hand and bring her up the aisle to the front.
I get her buckled in and put her headset on, and then I hone in on the safety checklist.When all is a go, I establish communication with the tower.I look over to see her smiling at me.She’s trying to be brave.
I don’t think I’ve ever adored her more than at this moment.
“Ready?”
She nods.
“Then I need to focus for a bit.”I give her a wink and touch the switch to open the radio frequency.“Vegas tower, this is Phenom six-niner-Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot requesting takeoff from runway two-five right, departing northbound for Sweetbriar Municipal Airpark, climbing to 200.”
