I squeeze back, letting my thumb brush over her knuckles. “I know.”
For now, this is enough. Her hand in mine, her trust absolute even if her love isn’t. I’ll take what I can get for as long as she’ll let me.
The turbulence passes, but she doesn’t let go.
Neither do I.
FOUR
PHOENIX
The plane lurches sideways,yanking me from sleep so violently I nearly bite through my tongue.
My eyes fly open to darkness—no, not darkness. The blanket. I’m still wrapped in the blanket like some kind of demented burrito and the world is tilting at an angle that makes my stomach flip. The engines whine with a pitch that sounds wrong, too high, too strained, and for one horrifying second I think we’re actually falling.
Then the plane levels out.
My heart hammers against my ribs hard enough to hurt. The Xanax must have knocked me out harder than usual because my mouth tastes like something died in it and my brain feels wrapped in cotton. Through the fog, I become aware of warmth against my left side. Solid. Familiar.
Mason.
He’s asleep in the seat next to me, head tilted back at an angle that’s going to murder his neck later. His glasses sit slightly crooked on his nose, and there’s a tiny crease between his eyebrows like he’s solving problems even in his dreams. Thesight of him—steady, constant Mason—makes something in my chest unclench.
That’s when I realize I’m holding his hand.
Not just holding.Clutching. My fingers are wrapped around his like he’s the only thing keeping me tethered to earth. Which, considering we’re thirty thousand feet up in a metal death trap, might actually be true. His palm is warm against mine, fingers slack with sleep, and I can feel his pulse beating steady against my thumb.
How long have I been holding his hand?
Heat floods my face. I must have grabbed him when the turbulence hit earlier, but that was…God, how long ago? An hour? Two? And I never let go. Just sat here, unconscious, clinging to my assistant like a little kid with their security blanket.
I carefully extract my fingers from his, trying not to wake him. He shifts slightly but doesn’t open his eyes, and I tuck my traitorous hand under my thigh where it can’t cause any more trouble.
The plane drops again.
This time it’s not a lurch but a full-onplummet, the kind where your ass actually leaves the seat for a second and your stomach tries to crawl up your throat. The overhead compartments rattle. A stack of paper coffee cups at the bar goes clattering to the floor.
“Fuck!”
My hands shoot out, grabbing both armrests with enough force to leave bruises, and I might be hyperventilating. Definitely hyperventilating.
A dark chuckle is audible even over the plane engines.
I whip my head around to find Atticus watching me from across the aisle. He’s sprawled in his seat like we’re lounging by a pool instead of potentially plummeting to our deaths, oneankle crossed over his knee, those stupid green eyes amused as he blatantly studies me.
I force myself to breathe through my nose. “Is there something on my face?”
“Besides panic?”
“I’m not panicking.”
“Right.” He tilts his head, studying me like I’m some kind of fascinating science experiment. “That’s why you’re white-knuckling the armrests hard enough to bend metal.”
I look down. My knuckles are indeed white, the tendons standing out like rope under my skin. I force my fingers to relax, one by one, even though every instinct screams at me to hold on tighter.
“We hit another pocket of turbulence,” I say, aiming for casual and landing somewhere around manic. “It’s normal. Totally normal. Happens all the time.”
“It does.”
