Need You Now (1001 Dark Nights)(16)

Forcefully, I cut my gaze and lean my seat back, rolling my body toward the window and trying to focus on the material I’ve spent every evening studying for weeks, at the expense of sleep. Almost instantly my lashes are heavy and when the plane levels off to a smooth sail, I am officially sleepy. Reluctantly, I straighten my seat to stay alert, but still I shut my eyes, and for just a moment I let them, promising I’ll read another chapter in a minute.





I wake with a jolt and sit up to find Jensen squatted down on the floor beside me, and if that isn’t a shock enough, the way the plane is shaking around us sure is. I glance out of the window, tensing with the flicker of lightning in the not so distance sky. “Oh God. Are we crashing?”

Jensen chuckles. “No. We aren’t crashing or I wouldn’t be sitting here as calmly as I am. I’d be up front, trying to do the pilot’s job.”

“You know how to fly?”

“Yes. I know how to fly. And believe me, this is all normal. We just hit some bad weather.”

“Then why are you on the floor?”

“Because despite all of the shaking, you didn’t wake up.” He holds up my iPad. “Not even when this flew onto the ground. I didn’t want it to take a slide down the aisle and end up get broken.”

I straighten, bringing him into focus, finding his jacket and tie missing, two buttons on his white shirt loose, and a dark sprinkle of hair peeking from the top. My brain can’t seem to process proper word usage, but I manage, “That was...nice of you.”

He arches a brow. “Enough with the nice already.” The plane jolts and he falls forward, one of his hands going to the arm of my seat, the other to my knee.

Our gazes collide, and the plane jolts so badly that I actually grab his arm and hold on. “You need to buckle in,” I hiss. ”You’re going to get hurt.”

“Yes,” he agrees at the same moment we hit an air pocket and drop several feet, and I don’t even think about what I’m doing. I cling to him, holding him down and just holding on period. His arm slides around me, and somehow when we level off again, I end up with my face in his shoulder. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, his hand stroking my hair, sending a shiver down my spine. “We’re okay.”

“You can’t know that.” I lean back, but I can’t seem to move. I don’t move my hands, despite the realization that we are far too intimate. “You have to buckle up. What is the pilot saying? You should talk to him.”

“I already did. We’ll be fine.” The plane seems to steady a bit. “See. Already the air is improving.” He hands me my iPad again. “You keep throwing this at me.”

“I’m a thrower. I got it from my mother. Stepfathers numbers two and four have stitches she gave them.”

“I think I should be scared.”

“Just don’t piss me off.”

“I’m pretty sure I already have.”

“You have,” I assure him. “But seeing you at my place of work had me too flustered to throw things.”

“I guess I got lucky.”

I swipe the screen to make sure it works, bringing the MCAT study guide to life on my screen. “Thankfully it still works.”

“So it’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“You’re going to med school in six months.”

“How did you know that?”

“You don’t keep it a secret and I have a way of getting people to talk.”

The plane jerks and tension curls in my belly. “Yes. I’m going to medical school. I guess that makes me disposable.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it makes you more valuable. You might be loyal to Meredith and the other employees, but you aren’t trying to jockey for some corporate position either.”

Relief washes over me. “No. Of course not. I never intended to be where I’m at now. I came in as a temp and just clicked with Meredith.”

“Why leave in six months, instead of last year or next year?”

“That’s when I’ll feel like I can go to school full time and not work.”

“In New York?”

“Yes. Well, I hope so. I was accepted right out of college, and in-state tuition is a must for me. I need to retake the MCAT next month and reapply though, since it’s been so long. I’m hopeful that means starting school in January, but it could get pushed back depending on admissions backlog, in which case, I’ll keep working.”

“Even with in-state tuition, medical school isn’t cheap and neither is living in New York.”

“My father left me a trust fund and my grandmother left me her apartment.”

“What did your father do for a living?”

“Doctor.”

“Of course,” he says. “And your mother?”

“She was his nurse. Now, she’s traveling with my stepfather.”

“Stepfather number four.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re making me glad my stepfather is the one and only for the past decade.”

“I’m glad my number one didn’t stay around. Actually, I haven’t been fond of any of them. I think my mother picks men as opposite from my father as possible and everything she really wants in a man. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or some psychological thing. And I really don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t talk about it.”