In the Likely Event(39)
“I’ll still be deployed in August.” The side of his hand skimmed my knee as he adjusted his hold on the book, and butterflies kissed the edge of my stomach. I was hyperaware of everything about him, from the subtly sexy way he curved the bill of his hat to the care he took while spraying me down with sunscreen so I wouldn’t burn in my jean shorts and the bikini top I’d changed into when we thought of the beach. “And you’ll be starting up classes, right?” He flipped another page, skimming the contents.
“Yep, at Georgetown,” I answered, choosing only the most romantic of lines to highlight and imagining his face when he got to those parts. He’d be half a world away.
“You don’t sound happy about it.” His head tilted to the side as he looked at me from under his hat. “From what I know, that’s a pretty stellar school.”
“It is.” I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand to see his face clearer. “And it’s not that I’m not grateful to have been accepted; it’s just . . .” A sigh deflated my shoulders, and I looked out over the Sunday families playing on the beach.
He shifted, and his hands framed my face for a heartbeat when he set his hat on my head. “For the sun.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at the sweet gesture, my fingers skimming the brim. “I’ve never worn your sweatshirt,” I blurted. Shit, I should have taken my ADHD meds today, but it was a weekend, and I thought I’d just be flying, and they always killed my appetite, and sometimes I just wanted to snack for the fun of it, and now I was saying whatever came to mind.
“You should,” he said. “Wear it, I mean. You’ve had it longer than I did now, anyway. Same with the bag and the iPod. They’re pretty much yours.” His dimple made an appearance, and my pulse skittered. “In fact, I’m officially giving it all to you.”
“You don’t want me to ship it?” It was the only reason I’d come up with to ask for his address, since I didn’t think he’d be getting texts over the next year—the length of this deployment.
“No. I kind of like the idea of you wearing it. As long as it isn’t all messed up from the river.” He grimaced. “Is it gross?”
“No.” I laughed. “It’s surprisingly not gross, though the white parts aren’t exactly as bright as they once may have been. But anything else you had in there must have been destroyed, because that’s all that came back.”
“Did you ever get your purse?”
I nodded. “It showed up a month after your bag. I think having my ID in there helped.”
“I would guess so.” He looked back to the book, but his highlighter hovered over the page without moving. “Are you still afraid of flying?” he asked softly. “I’ve always wondered if the crash . . .”
“Screwed me up even more?” I offered, highlighting a particularly racy line.
“I wasn’t going to put it that way, but now that you mention it . . .” He shot me an apologetic look.
“I didn’t fly for eighteen months,” I admitted, skimming the next chapter to get to my favorite parts. “It took a lot of therapy. For that and the nightmares.” A chill tried its best to work its way up my spine despite the climbing heat. “But I have coping mechanisms for both now.”
“Coping mechanisms?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like I can actually control the panic attacks. We were actually in a plane crash. And sure, we got the best of a worst-case scenario, but I’ll never be able to tell myself that the likelihood is next to zero again, because now the fear is grounded.” My eyes narrowed. “You never had an issue flying after what happened?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I was put on the next flight out of Saint Louis, so I just . . .” His throat worked as he swallowed. “Flew. I told myself that if the universe wanted me to die in a plane crash, I would have. I understand the nightmares, though. I do the whole ‘You aren’t there anymore; you’re home’ affirmations thing I saw on some therapist’s YouTube.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Some therapist’s YouTube?”
“Having your file marked up by a shrink isn’t exactly good in my line of work.” He highlighted another line and kept going. “I do what I have to in the moment and then I move on. Like you said,” he said, looking over at me. “Coping mechanism, I guess.”
“Is there anything you’re scared of? There has to be something, right?”
“Sure. Becoming anything like my father.” He reached to the right and pulled something out of his backpack. “Gum?”
“No, thanks.” Guess that topic wasn’t up for discussion.
He popped a piece in his mouth, and we spent another hour just like that, swinging on the beach, marking up our favorite books for each other.
By the time we finished, the sun was high in the sky and my skin was sticky with sweat. “Want to get in?” I asked him, nodding toward the beach.
“Sounds good to me.” We put the books in his backpack and walked toward the water, picking out a spot far from anyone else. He pulled out two towels from his bag, and I lifted my brows. “It’s the last of what has to be packed,” he said in answer to my unspoken question.
Then we stripped down. For me, it was a simple matter of shimmying out of my jean shorts and kicking off my sandals.