“What?” Dan asks, his eyes opening and sliding to me.
“Just looking at you.”
He sighs. “The hair,” he says. “I know, it’s not my best look.”
“I think it’s nice to see your face.” He smiles and it looks pained. “You want to talk about what happened with Consuela?” I ask.
“Nope.” He closes his eyes again. “You want to talk about your love life?”
“No.”
“Perfect.”
We both laugh.
Then we both sleep.
The plane jerks so hard I wake from a shot of adrenaline. Lightning flashes outside the window, and I’m pretty sure it’s real. The plane drops fast and my stomach lurches. Frank and Nila are both flat to the floor, pressing themselves to the carpet as if their lives depend on it.
I push one hand into Blue’s ruff, finding some comfort there, and cup my stomach with the other. The plane tilts drastically and I hold my breath. “Fuck,” Dan says next to me.
I turn to see him trying to steady his broken leg.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods, his jaw tight.
“We’ve hit a squall,” our captain says over the intercom. “We should be out of it soon.” His voice tips up on the last word as we drop again, becoming weightless for a few terrifying moments before slamming back into air that will hold us. Frank whines and Nila scoots closer to him, pressing her side against his in comfort.
I wrap my arm around Blue, holding him close.
“She said she couldn’t,” Dan says, his voice pained.
“What?” I ask, looking over at him again. “Consuela?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “She said that our lives were too different. That she loved me.” He pauses as though the memory hurts to release. I know that feeling—words can be sharp as glass and just as cutting. “She said she’d always love me, and I’d never be gone from her heart, but she couldn’t be a part of my world. That she still wanted to do things the way they are supposed to be done. Change things from the inside.” He looks over at me and his eyes are tortured. And it’s not because the plane is acting like a toy some three-year-old got a hold of and is flying around his house like a fucking psycho.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words useless but the only ones I have.
“I didn’t want to leave.”
I nod, understanding. The plane tilts again and I can see the ocean out Dan’s window, whipped up and way too close. My heart hammers. We may be about to die.
“I’m in love with Mulberry and Maxim,” I confess. Dan’s eyes widen. “I told them I want them both.”
He barks a laugh. “What?”
“I know that’s not what they want. Or what is the normal thing. But it’s what I want. So I told them the truth.”
“Fuck, Sydney.” The plane drops again then surges back up, making my stomach queasy.
“Everyone I love dies,” I say, the truth ripped out of me as the plane dances with death.
“Not everyone,” he says. “Maxim and Mulberry are still here.”
“And you,” I say. My hand reaches out and his meets it. Our fingers twine. “I love you, Dan.”
“I love you, too.” Dan says.
Tears blur my vision. Dan squeezes my hand. Our gazes hold. The plane lurches, pulling a sound from my chest. Dan’s grip tightens.
Then the plane steadies—not entirely, but there is a shift. The light outside brightens. “Fuck,” Dan says, his head falling back on the chair again.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“Sorry about that.” Our pilot’s voice comes back on the intercom. “But we should have smooth skies for the rest of the flight.”
A laugh bubbles out of me sounding a little hysterical. Dan looks over and also laughs, not sounding totally sane either.
We release each other’s hands and mine comes back to my stomach, to where my son slept through the whole thing. He shifts now, the adrenaline probably hitting him even as it fades from my system.
Dan rubs his face with both hands. “Fuck,” he says again.
“Yeah,” I agree. “How is your leg?”
“Fine. Are you okay?” he asks, his gaze dropping to my stomach.
I nod. “Yeah, that was scary.”
