I blew out a breath. “Thank you.”
“I’ll head over there right now,” he said. “I got so caught up in trying to get this new business, I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to how serious this was.”
I smiled in relief. There was the man I knew. “Thank you. That would mean a lot to me.”
“When are you coming home? Do you need me to send another plane to come and get you?”
“Probably day after tomorrow. We’re waiting on some parts to have the plane fixed. If I fly home on my own, it’ll take an entire day, so I’m just going to wait and come home with the plane once it’s ready.”
“You sure? I wish you were here. I miss you.”
I glanced up at Jack, who had grabbed his own phone and was currently scrolling through it, probably to give me some modicum of privacy. But there was no doubt he could hear every word I said since I was only four feet away from him.
“Yeah. Me too.” Except that wasn’t exactly true. I missed him in the general sense of preferring to be around him and wanting to be with him, but I didn’t want to leave this strange pretend world with Jack either. If there was a plane waiting on the tarmac right now to take me straight home, would I choose to board it?
“See you soon, Teo. Take care,” Chris said softly.
“Yeah, uh, you too.”
When we got off the phone, I felt conflicted. For twenty years I’d wanted nothing more than to be by that man’s side. But now here I was finally getting to experience sex. Finally getting to feel what it was like to have a man look at me like I was someone desirable.
Did I want to pursue a relationship with Jack now, instead of Chris? No, of course not. For one, I hardly knew him. And secondly, he was probably never around. If there was one thing I selfishly knew about myself, it was that I wanted the white picket fence. I wanted a husband who came home to me every night and asked me how my day was. I didn’t want a man who answered ads on an app for anonymous hotel room fucks.
As much as our encounter months ago had rocked my world, I hadn’t fooled myself into thinking it was more than it was. And I wasn’t doing so now either. Jack didn’t seem like the kind of man who settled down, and even if he did, I couldn’t in a million years imagine him choosing a dork like me to do it with. He was model-beautiful and the kind of person who walked through the world with built-in confidence. Even at the restaurant for lunch, the waitress had damned near shit herself when Jack had called her by her name.
He was charismatic and magnetic. Nate had bragged at lunch about how Jack had been one of the youngest United Airlines pilots to fly the A380. It made me wonder why he’d left the airline, but then again, I imagined there was much less hassle flying private than commercial. But what did I know?
“Everything okay back home?” he asked, setting his phone on the bedside table.
“Yeah, I guess. Mike and Chris aren’t at the hospital yet.”
Jack’s brows furrowed. “I thought Chris promised you he’d meet the plane?”
I shrugged and tossed my phone on the bedside table, suddenly self-conscious about being naked in front of him. He was all broad and muscular while I was more on the skinny and pathetic side. Well, pathetic was too strong of a word. I did run most days, and I did push-ups and sit-ups when I remembered. But I’d never have a body like Jack’s. He had the kind of body that men flocked to on Instagram.
“I guess he couldn’t be bothered,” I said before pulling back the covers and sliding underneath. “Well, that’s not really fair. The truth of the matter is they had a huge client meeting at lunch and chose to go ahead with it and head to the hospital after. I guess they thought since Grandpa Banks was going to be busy with the testing anyway… And, really, this deal is important to the future of the company. It’s a really big opportunity.”
Jack moved around so he could slide under the covers too. He lay on his side with his head propped in his hand. “You and Chris are good friends, huh?”
I relaxed into the pillow. “Yes. Only most of the time I wish he would get his head out of his ass and grow up.”
“Isn’t he the sales director of a multimillion-dollar consulting company?” Jack lifted an eyebrow as if to make some kind of point. I wasn’t quite sure what the point was.
“Yes. But that doesn’t make him a grown-up. There’s more to being an adult than being good at your job.”