Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(55)
It was a good opportunity for me. I’d been stationed in Korea before, and as assignments went, it wasn’t high on my list, but working at the Wing level was the kind of career advancement that would look great when my promotion board came around. But f*ck, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
“We’re going to be sorry to lose you, man.”
I nodded, still processing this. A year ago, it wouldn’t have fazed me. If my Air Force career had been defined by anything, it was that the one thing you could expect was the unexpected. But now?
Joker left and I sat there, staring at the phone, wondering how the hell I was going to explain this to Jordan. I’d always told her I had a year left in Oklahoma. We’d never even broached the possibility of my next assignment taking me outside of the United States. Or that it would spring up on me like this.
Fuck.
It was a two-year assignment. And I’d only get thirty days of leave a year. So even if I could take leave, which with the high ops tempo would be difficult to say the least, that meant we’d only have thirty days a year to spend together. How did you sustain a relationship like that? Especially a new relationship?
Sure, we loved each other, but it wasn’t like we were married. How could I ask her to wait two years for me? Two years of having a boyfriend and spending holidays, birthdays, anniversaries alone. Two years of me not being there for all the things that mattered in her life. How long would it be before she met a doctor or lawyer who worked normal hours and had some semblance of control over his life? How long before she got tired of waiting around for me and found someone who could make her happy and give her the things she wanted? She was thirty. She wanted kids, wanted to settle down.
When would I be able to give that to anyone?
Panic clawed at me. I loved her. I loved her and I was terrified that this would be the tipping point and I’d lose her. I’d screwed up when I’d missed her sister’s wedding, was getting ready to go to Alaska for a f*cking month and a half. And then when I returned, we’d have less than two months together before my ass would have to be on a plane to Korea.
Fuck.
JORDAN
I curled up on the couch, Lulu sitting on my feet, showing me her sad eyes, begging to be petted. I scratched her ears as she head-butted me, giving me soft little kisses.
Today had been a shit day. A really shit day.
Work had been hectic and I was exhausted by the time I got to my parents’. Only to be blindsided by another attempt to “fix” my love life. I’d sat there for a f*cking hour, listening to my mother throw some major shade about Noah missing Meg’s wedding and all the ways he was wrong for me. Not to mention her not-so-subtle attempts to fix me up with pretty much every single guy left in town. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she’d set up an online dating profile for me and started vetting the future father of my children.
Ugh.
I definitely shouldn’t give her any ideas. She’d jump on that one.
I would never have admitted it, but the truth was, her barbs were unbearable because I felt them. I knew I loved Noah, and he said he loved me, and yet I’d been burned enough times to question it. And I missed him. I hated that he was never here. Hated the distance between us. And now with this trip to Alaska coming up . . .
It just felt like I would always come second to the Air Force. And while part of me—the rational, adult part—understood that he couldn’t help it, another part of me wondered what I was getting myself into.
In a way, my mother was right. Ugh. That never got easier to say. There was an element of this that screamed, Danger: Heartbreak Ahead. I didn’t know how to love him and not want to be with him. And at the same time, I loved my job, had worked hard to get where I was. I loved my family, loved my life in Florida. Giving that up to follow Noah seemed foolish. Or at the very least, terrifying.
Love was scary enough. Loving a military man was something else entirely. Because it wasn’t just a matter of did he love me, or could he make me happy? It was did he love me enough to make me giving up everything else worthwhile? Could he make me happy enough to make it worth me giving up a career that fulfilled me? It was a lot of pressure to put on anyone, especially on a new relationship, and it seemed like the questions I needed answers to were the ones that required a giant leap of faith.
Why did adulting have to be so freaking hard?
I grabbed my cell, ignoring Lulu’s soft growl of protest when I stopped scratching her. I needed to hear Noah’s voice to erase the sound of my mother saying things like, What are you doing with your life?
It was still kind of early in Oklahoma, and considering how late Noah usually worked, I figured the odds of reaching him were iffy, but I didn’t care.
When he answered, I felt the first surge of relief.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be still at work.”
“I cut out a little early. I needed to come home and deal with some stuff.”
His voice sounded funny again.
“Are you okay? Did you have a bad day at work?”
Silence.
“Noah?”
A sinking feeling spread through my stomach. Something wasn’t right.
“Are you okay?” I asked again, worry filling my voice.
“We need to talk.”
Those four words knocked the wind right out of me. This was it. Maybe I should have realized sooner that if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was. Hell, fifteen years of dating had taught me that if nothing else. Chupacabra, my ass.