Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(48)
My phone rang, the screen lighting up with the picture of Noah in his flight suit that I’d snapped last time we were together.
“It’s Noah. I’ll be right back.”
I hit Accept and walked out of the shop.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey, babe.”
His voice sounded different; not the usual happy-to-talk-to-me that I normally heard when he called.
“What’s wrong?”
He sighed. “I have bad news. I’m really, really sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make your sister’s wedding. I got stuck with an ONE that I can’t get out of. I’m so sorry.”
“An ONE?”
“Operation Noble Eagle. Flying air support for high-profile targets. I can’t say what it is, but the squadron got tasked with one for this weekend and manning is a bitch. They need an instructor to lead it and Joker wants me since it’s high vis. I tried to get out of it, but there’s no way.”
Disappointment clogged my throat as silence filled the line. It was his job; I knew he couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t angry, just frustrated. And embarrassed. I didn’t know how to explain to my family that he was canceling at the last minute. The military was such a foreign concept to them that I doubted they’d understand. And ugh, now I was dateless again. Not to mention the fact that I’d been looking forward to seeing him again. Really looking forward to seeing him. I felt petty for caring, but my family was important to me. I wanted them to meet Noah. Wanted him to see this side of my life. And I wanted to make memories together. To start building a life. It wasn’t just him missing a weekend together; it was him missing a huge family event. Maybe it was stupid to let it bother me, but it did.
“Jordan?”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I know it’s not okay. I feel terrible.”
I forced myself to sound as cheery as possible. “You shouldn’t feel terrible. It’s your job. You told me it would be like this. I’m not going to lie and say I’m not disappointed, but I do understand. I know you would be here if you could.”
I hoped I wasn’t wrong about him, that he really was the guy I thought he was. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d trusted what a guy told me only to find out it had all been one big lie. I really hoped I wasn’t going to get burned on this one.
“I hate letting you down. Hate disappointing you.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry I’m going to miss meeting your family. Maybe I can try to plan a trip to Florida after I get back from the TDY to Alaska.”
He was going to be gone most of April and all of May, and it was officially the longest separation we’d had.
“Yeah. That would be good.”
We said bye, and then he was gone, and I was standing outside the bridal shop, facing the unpleasant task of having to go explain to my mother and sister that Noah couldn’t make it to the wedding. Considering the hard time my mother had given me about dating him, period, I figured this news would only bolster her argument that this wasn’t a stable relationship for me. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was setting myself up for a lot of heartache. But either way, I didn’t know how to turn off my feelings for him. Love wasn’t always logical.
*
I sat at the reception with the bridal party, dressed in my pink satin bridesmaids’ dress, the odd one out in what was now a table of nine.
The wedding had been beautiful. Meg had beamed walking down the aisle with our father, and the look on Mike’s face when he first saw her had been so incredibly sweet. I’d cried while they said their vows, still not quite believing my baby sister was now a wife.
I’d spent the reception talking to family members, fending off questions of why I didn’t have a date, and the ultimate, When are you going to meet a nice boy and settle down?
They asked it as though my single status were completely my choice, as though I was too “wild” for a relationship, an animal unsuited for domestication. Some part of me wanted to give a little overview of my last four failed relationships—the guy who had wanted me to wear flats whenever we went on dates because he didn’t like how tall I was, the one who lived at home with his parents at thirty-two, the one who’d cheated on me with one of his co-workers, or the guy who’d insisted on splitting the bill on every single date we went on with alarming precision. Not exactly the stuff of great romance.
I didn’t mention Noah. I wasn’t up for hearing the questions of why he wasn’t here or any repetition of my mother’s concerns about how he wasn’t a good bet for me. She’d pretty much freaked when I’d told her he wasn’t coming after all—not to mention how pissed they’d been about having to rearrange the table setting and seating chart. My father had been better about it, but I could tell he was disappointed about not getting to meet Noah.
I missed him tonight. There was something about a wedding—the romance in the air perhaps—that made it suck to feel single. I wanted him to whirl me around the dance floor. To hold my hand. I wanted to share it with him.
“It’s time for the bride to toss the bouquet,” the DJ announced. “We need all of the single ladies out onto the dance floor.”
Ugh.
In my twenties, bouquet tosses had been fun and exciting. There was still that optimism and the romantic possibility that maybe there was some good-luck-slash-magic in those bundled-up flowers. Now it was just a scarlet f*cking “S” for single, as the smattering of loners were herded onto the dance floor like cattle to be pointed at by all the happily married couples watching us with varying stages of pity.