Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(90)

“I guess ikke means ‘not,’ then,” Ian tells me as he wheels my still-injured self through the Frankfurt airport. I turn back to look up at him, puzzled. “What? I was watching JAG, too. It’s a good show. Reminds me of my childhood.”

“Really? You used to watch a show about military lawyers with your weird smuggler dad?”

He gives me a sheepish look, and I burst into laughter.

“Do Harm and Mac end up together in the end?” I ask him.

He half smiles. “No spoilers.”

“Oh, come on.”

“You’ll have to watch to find out.”

“Or I could look it up on Wikipedia.”

He keeps on smiling, like he thinks that I won’t. He’s right.

We are together for the last leg of the trip. Ian lets me have the window seat without me having to ask, and settles by my side after putting away our bags and wedging a pillow under my brace. He is broad and solid, his legs cramped and too long for the little space he has, and once we’re both buckled in, it feels like he’s blocking away the rest of the world. A wall, keeping me safe from the noise and the action. I’ve been restless ever since the boat and haven’t managed more than very brief naps, but a few minutes after we take off, I feel myself starting to doze, exhausted. The last thing I do before falling asleep is lean my head against Ian’s shoulder. The last thing I remember him doing is shifting a little lower, to make sure that I’m as comfortable as I can be.

I wake up somewhere over the Atlantic and stay exactly where I am for several minutes, my temple against his arm, the clean smell of his clothes and his skin in my nostrils. He’s looking at his tablet, reading an article on plasma propulsion. I skim a few lines in the methods section before saying: “I’m usually not like this.”

He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m awake. “Like how?”

I think about it. “Needy.” I think some more. “Clingy.”

“I know.” I can’t see his face, but his voice is low and kind.

“How do you know?”

“I know you.”

My first instinct is to bristle and push back. Something within me rejects being known, because being known means being rejected. Doesn’t it? “You don’t, though. Really know me. I mean, we never even fucked.”

“True.” He nods, and his jaw brushes against my hair. “Would you have let me get to know you if we had fucked?”

“Nah.” I yawn and straighten, arching to stretch my sore back. “Do you ever think about it?”

“About what?”

“Five years ago. That afternoon.”

“I think about it a lot,” he says immediately, without hesitating. His expression is undecipherable to me. Utterly unreadable.

“Is that why you came to rescue me?” I tease. “Because you were thinking about it? Because you have been secretly pining for years?”

He meets my eyes squarely. “I don’t know that there was anything secret about that.”

He goes back to his tablet, still calm, still relaxed. Then, after several minutes and a couple of yawns, he closes his eyes and tips his head back against the seat. This time he’s the one to fall asleep, and I’m left awake, staring at the strong line of his throat, unable to stop my head from spinning in a million different directions.



* * *





When we step out of the TSA area of the Houston airport, there is a sign in the crowd, similar to the ones limo drivers hold up in movies when they’re picking up important clients they’re afraid they won’t recognize.

hannah arroyo, it says. And underneath: who almost died and didn’t even tell us. also, she always forgets to replace the toilet paper roll. what a little shit.

It’s a pretty big sign. All the more because it’s held by two not-very-tall girls, a redhead and a brunette, who are very obviously glaring at me.

I turn around to Ian. He slept on and off for the past four hours and still looks groggy, his face soft and relaxed. Cute, I think. And immediately after: Delicious. Handsome. Want. I say none of it and instead ask, “What are my idiot friends doing here?”

He shrugs. “I figured you might want to talk through your near-death experience with someone, so I decided to tell Mara what happened. I did not expect her to come in person.”

“Bold of you to assume I didn’t tell her myself.”

His eyebrow lifts. “Did you?”

“I was going to. Once I felt less whiny. And—whatever.” I roll my eyes. Wow, I’m mature. “How did you go from not remembering Mara’s name to having her number?”

“I had to do unspeakable things.”

I gasp. “Not Great-Aunt Delphina.”

He presses his lips together and nods, slowly, wretchedly.

“Ian, I am so sor—”

I cannot finish the sentence, because I’m being tackled by two small but surprisingly strong goblins. I wobble on my one functioning ankle, nearly choking when their arms squeeze tight around my neck.

“Why are you guys here?”

“Because,” Mara says against my shoulder. They are both full-on crying—so weak, so tenderhearted. God, I love them.

“Guys. Get it together. I didn’t even die.”