In Flight (Up in the Air #1)(27)
“K. I’ll come with. I could use a few things. Where are we going?”
“I need a watch.” I held my old watch out. The face was even cracked. How had I not noticed that sooner? Had it just happened? “And some groceries. And some paint, paper, and canvas.”
Painting was my favorite hobby, and I had a room full of paintings to prove it. I was dabbling with oils lately, but watercolors and acrylics had always been my strength, and were more affordable in general. I needed to stock up on almost all of my supplies.
“Perfect. I’ve been needing a frame for that mountain landscape you made me. It’s going in my living room. It’s my all time favorite.”
I smiled at him fondly. “You don’t have to do that. I won’t feel bad if you don’t hang it up. I paint things for you because I like to. You don’t have to decorate your entire house with my junk just to humor me.”
He sent me a bewildered look. “You think that’s why I’ve covered my entire home with your paintings? To humor you?”
I shrugged, feeling self-conscious. I hadn’t gone to art school, had no training whatsoever, so I always questioned if people were sincere when they complimented my work. Stephan deserved better than my doubting him, though.
“I love your paintings, Bianca. Every time I look at any of the ones I have displayed, I feel joy. They help make my house a happy, healthy place for me. I think of where we’ve come from, all that we’ve been through, and the astoundingly beautiful things you can create, and it never fails to amaze me. It makes me hopeful about the future.”
I flushed a bit, but smiled. “I painted that mountain landscape because it made me think of you. It was so strong, and stark, and beautiful. And every color I used in that painting, I got from studying you. I used the color of your hair and skin for the desert mountains, and your eyes were the sky. It’s very nearly an abstract portrait of you.”
He laughed, a carefree, joyous sound.
We’re in a good place, I thought. We’d overcome so much, and left so much of the bad stuff behind. Over the years, the lingering dark shadows of our pasts seemed to be fading from us, more and more.
“Well, now I love it even more,” he said. “You know how much I love pictures of myself.”
I laughed, because it was pretty much true. Both of our houses sported portraits of Stephan, some his idea. He liked to pose for me, and he was a great subject, waiting patiently for hours if I needed him to.
Our houses were only fifteen minutes from the airport, just off of the 215 west. It was an ideal airport location, with a new track of houses and a short commute.
Seeing my small house still made me smile. I’d opted to keep the all-desert landscape that my yard had sported when I purchased the house, figuring it was for the best to forgo the grass, since we lived in the desert and we were often out of town.
Stephan had stubbornly refused to stay content with rocks and cacti, planting a small row of flowers along his front steps and a compact square of grass in the front yard. So far he was winning the battle against the desert, his grass still green and his flowers blooming as we pulled up.
“I’ll text you when I wake up,” I told him, walking the scant distance to my house.
I punched in my alarm code. I had splurged and purchased the best security system I could afford. It was important that my house feel like a safe place for me, so the peace of mind the system brought me was well worth the cost of it.
I unlocked the gated door, and the two locks on the actual door. I did the same routine on the other side, padding to the inside security panel and punching in my code.
I had thirty seconds to get the code in before an automatic alarm went off and the security dispatch station would give me a call, and put out a call to law enforcement. I had made the timer particularly short because it made me feel more secure.
I headed back into my bedroom, satisfied that the house was secure for my nap.
The last few days had been overwhelming. I barely got undressed before I was laying on my bed, and asleep in an instant.
I awoke in a near stupor, bleary eyes taking long moments to read my bedside clock. That couldn’t be right, I thought. It was showing 3:44 p.m. I had crashed just before 10 a.m, with the intention to sleep for two hours. Dammit. I’d forgotten to set an alarm.
I was digging my phone out almost immediately, texting Stephan.
Bianca: I’m so sorry. I overslept. Errands on monday?
He had responded by the time I was done in the bathroom.
Stephan: No worries. Monday sounds great. Got a hot date tonight?
Bianca: Seeing James. Not a date.
Stephan: Well, good luck, B. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll see you in the morning.
Bianca: Kk. We r leaving at 5:45am in my car, right?
Stephan: Yep
I set to work packing, and then re-packing my small flight bag for the DC turn in the morning.
A turn was when we flew somewhere, usually on the east coast for us, then turned around and came immediately back. It was the best way to work a lot of hours on our job, but it could easily be a fourteen hour or longer day if we had even a slight delay. This turn was a part of our set weekly schedule, but we often picked up extra turns on our days off to get overtime.
My mortgage was reasonable, and fit into my budget, but I was trying to replenish the savings I had depleted almost completely in order to put a down payment on my house, and then the extra costs of a few upgrades and repairs to the house.