I narrow my eyes.
“If this surprise is disappointing, I’m ruining your life.”
He smiles. “It won’t be.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
The answer is immediate.
Certain.
He knows me.
My pulse softens into something just as dangerous.
When I speak, my voice comes out quieter. “You better.”
His expression changes for a second—less amused, more intent. Like he heard the meaning under the words and took it seriously.
“I do,” he says.
Then he takes my hand, laces our fingers together, and looks out the window like he didn’t just turn my entire bloodstream into lightning.
And for the first time since he picked me up in that alley behind the athletic complex, I stop fighting the suspense and let myself sink into it.
Into his hand.
Into the hum of the plane.
Into the terrible, beautiful truth of how much more intimate this waiting has become than if he’d just taken what we both wanted at the first chance.
He is making me wait.
And somehow that only makes me his more.
At some point, the private jet stops feeling insane.
Not normal.
Never normal.
Just… suspended.
Like time loosened its grip somewhere above the clouds and forgot to tighten again.
We study.
Which sounds stupid even in my own head, but it’s true.
Somewhere after making out in his lap and threatening his life if the surprise disappointed me, Tristan pulled my laptop onto the table between us, opened his own, and somehow turnedthe whole plane into the most expensive study hall in North America.
I finished an outline.
He answered emails.
I edited a paper while stealing glances at the mouth that had ruined my concentration for most of the week.
