Mile High (Up in the Air #2)(3)

I made myself ignore him instead. His publication would say something horrible about me either way, I was sure.

“Wanna hit up that Cuban restaurant on the corner?” Damien asked. We were almost back to our hotel.

I shrugged. “Let’s see what Stephan wants to do,” I said neutrally. The food sounded good, but I didn’t want to end up going to dinner with just Damien.

“Okay. We’ll make it a foursome. Murphy will no doubt have an opinion on where to eat,” Damien said cheerfully. His attitude reassured me. I’d been half-worried he was trying to corner me into some kind of a date.

We found the other two men chatting with each other in our crew hotel’s large, crowded bar. Everyone agreed on the Cuban restaurant easily enough. It did have killer food.

We split up to change for dinner, meeting back in the lobby twenty minutes later. I just threw on some shorts and a tank top.

We walked to the restaurant, the men joking constantly, making me laugh. They really were good company.

I ordered black bean soup and rice at the restaurant. It was a simple, if fattening, meal. I didn’t care. It was my version of comfort food. I gorged myself, as I rarely did. I even ordered a second order of the meal to go. It was a great breakfast, if you added orange juice. I did, grabbing a carton from the mini-mart a block away from the hotel.

Stephan carried everything for me without a word. Awkward as it was between us, he was still a gentleman to his core. His unusual mormon upbringing had ingrained in him a need to shelter me that I’d never been able to talk him out of. I accepted him too much to even try at this point. I just thanked him when he unburdened me of the bags.

Unexpectedly, he gripped my hand as we walked. I squeezed his hand back instantly. I couldn’t stand distance between us.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked him. We walked just a few feet in front of Murphy and Damien, so I pitched my voice very low.

He sent me a wide-eyed, surprised look. “Of course not, Buttercup. I’m terrified that you’re angry with me for keeping in contact with James.”

I squeezed his hand again. “No. I understand very well how hard it is to ignore that man. He is persistent. I was just worried that you were mad at me for keeping you away from Melvin this week.”

His mouth tightened. “Not at all. I’ve come to realize that Melvin isn’t relationship material. He admitted to hooking up with another guy last week, even though we had said we were going to take it slow, but be exclusive. And I also think he tried to talk to the press about you and I. I feel bad that my judgement was so off about him. I was so attracted at first that I just saw what I wanted to see. You know what I mean?”

I cringed. “Sadly, I know exactly what you mean,” I said, thinking of James.

He shook his head, giving my hand a little squeeze. “James isn’t the same as Melvin, Bee. I’m sure of it. I just wish you could see it, too.”

I just gave him a look. It was my ‘drop it’ look.

Murphy and Damien wanted to go bar hopping on South Beach.

I declined their invitation quickly. Stephan followed suit. Murphy turned to his phone, texting the rest of our crew. We had seen the three other flight attendants at the pool briefly earlier, but they seemed to be a room-bound lot for the evening. Murphy looked crestfallen. An antisocial crew was his worst nightmare.

“A movie? There’s a theatre less than ten minutes away.”

Stephan sent me a questioning look.

I just shrugged. What I wanted was to go to my room and crawl under my covers until morning, but I knew I would just drive myself crazy if I went that route. A movie seemed the lesser evil.

“Okay. Just let me a grab a sweatshirt. I always get cold in that theatre,” I agreed finally.

My room was down the hall from Stephan’s. Unfortunately, the hotel hadn’t been able to accommodate us with adjoining rooms, as we preferred.

He handed me my bags of food and juice as we split up. I put the food in my mini-fridge, and grabbed a sweatshirt from my suitcase.

I set my phone on the end table by my bed, plugging it in to charge. Reluctantly, I turned it on. I was just intending to set my alarm for the morning, then leave the phone in my room, charging.

There were several missed texts and calls. There always were, lately. Most were from James, of course, though a few were from other friends, and a few were from a strange Vegas 702 number that kept popping up lately. I wondered briefly who that strange number could be, as it kept showing up more and more in my missed call log. I’d even taken the call once, though there’d just been a few seconds of background noise followed by an abrupt hangup.

My mind changed courses when, in a sudden total loss of self-control, I checked my latest missed text. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that it was from James, but my heart still skipped a beat just seeing his name.

James: Just checking in to see how you’re doing. I miss you.

I was texting back before I could stop myself.

Bianca: Doing fine. Please stop worrying about me. Just hanging out with the crew. Hope things are well with you.

He responded immediately.

James: Well enough. I’ll be in London for most of next week, so please don’t skip out on New York again just to avoid me. When can I see you again?

My heart ached with longing at just the thought of seeing him, but my heart wasn’t doing a good job of steering me in the right direction lately.