He looked at me like a kid in the fuckin’ candy store. “Fuck yes.”
We pulled into the driveway seconds later, and I got out.
“Your dad doesn’t care?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “I actually did call and ask him, though. In case you were wondering. He said it was fine. But I think that he knows. Or suspects something.”
There was a long silence as he met me around the front of the truck.
“Your brother knows,” he said cryptically.
My brows rose. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “He came by tonight, told me in no uncertain terms that no matter how much he liked me, he liked you more.”
I rolled my eyes. “The thing with being the baby, and I mean, baby-baby of the family? It means that all of my family is older than me. My sister and brothers? They’re all old enough to be my dad. Hell, I’m younger than some of their kids. Which means, instead of getting a brother that’ll shoot the shit with me? I got another dad. They always know best. And, no matter how much I’d love to be independent, they’re always going to be there trying to rule my life. And protect it.”
“Not a bad thing,” he murmured, pulling me into him. “You’re okay? You don’t need any more food?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll be fine with what I ate. I’ll give it about an hour or so and then recheck it. But that’s why I thought to come here. We can fly around for an hour. Or you can fly me around. I shouldn’t go to bed with it being this low, though. That’s the quickest way to never wake up again.”
Something shifted in his eyes that looked a lot like fear.
But he covered it before I could ask him what was wrong.
“Did you know that one of the SWAT team guy’s girlfriend trains service dogs?” he asked. “They actually just sold one to a man out of Souls Chapel. For his son that had diabetes like you.”
My brows rose. “I’ve actually looked into those before. But mine’s so manageable that I really don’t need to spend that kind of money.”
He hmmed and gestured to the door. “Shall we?”
I nodded and made my way to the door. “The code to get in is…”
He placed his hand over my mouth. “You put it in. Don’t say it aloud. And don’t give it to people you don’t know.”
I rolled my eyes but did it all the same.
Then I made sure to whisper it into his ear when we were behind the door on the inside this time.
He pulled me in close after the numbers were whispered, then slammed his mouth onto mine.
“Careful,” I whispered into his mouth. “My dad monitors these cameras.”
He growled and pulled away, putting so much distance between us it was nearly comical.
“I was kidding,” I told him. “Mostly. There are cameras, but he doesn’t monitor them.”
“No, but he can go back and look anytime he wants to,” Adam confessed.
I shrugged and led him through the communal room that the flight medics used, then out into the bay where all the fleet was kept.
“I’m hoping you know how to get one of them out,” I said. “Because I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Adam burst out laughing at that. “I think I can manage.”
And manage he did.
He got out with the ease of someone very familiar with aircraft. Once it was outside, he went through a checklist of sorts while I polished off my last taquito, used the bathroom, and then settled myself into the seat to read a few chapters.
Only when he was satisfied that we weren’t going to go down did he get inside and instruct me on what to do.
Five minutes later, we were lifting off into the sky.
Exhilaration poured through me at the feeling of going weightless.
I didn’t ride in any of my dad’s fleet much. I had no need, and my dad didn’t know how to fly them. So it wasn’t like I could just walk up and ask him to take me for a ride.
“Where to?” he asked, his eyes shining with light from the instrument panel in front of him.
“Umm.” I hesitated. “I don’t know. Take me wherever you want to go.”
So he did.
He flew us around Kilgore, over Longview, then to Uncertain, and finally back to Kilgore.
All the while I had the hugest smile on my face.Chapter 11
A threesome? No thanks. If I wanted to disappoint two people at once, I’d go over to my parents’.
-Adam to Amelia
Adam
It was only as I landed the helicopter and looked over to see if she was as fuckin’ stoked as I was that I realized she was asleep.
Tenderness filled me at the trust she bestowed upon me, and I sighed as the rotors of the helicopter came to a stop above our head.