Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(74)

I didn’t want to keep picking at him, didn’t want to turn into an annoying nag, but I could feel myself hovering on the edge there. It would be so easy to give in to the anxiety, so easy to tell him that I couldn’t do it, that the danger of his job was too much to bear. That I didn’t want to spend my days and nights fearing the ring of the phone or the knock at the door. That I didn’t want to watch him walk out the door every day for work with dread in my heart, wondering if it would be the day he wouldn’t come home.

I wanted to be stronger, wanted to let it go, but I clutched that fear tight in my palm, my fingers wrapped around it, unable to relax and release it. Unable to move past the image of Dani at the podium. And then, just like her image filled my mind, her words came to me: You’ll have to be strong for him. Stronger than you think you can be. Because at the end of the day, his mind can’t be on a fight you had that morning or on whatever problems you might be dealing with at home. It has to be on the mission. On coming home safely. Because in their line of work the smallest mistake can be the difference between life and death.

I unfurled my hand and opened my palm.

It wasn’t some magical, heightened awareness. It wasn’t like I suddenly became zen and equipped to deal with the shit that would come my way. My heart would always clench a bit when the phone rang. And I’d never see the words “F-16 crash” and not feel as though the loss was personal.

I didn’t want to marry a hero or a symbol; I wanted to marry a man. A man I would grow old with, have children with, spoil grandchildren with. I wanted forever, and because I was me, and I’d been thrust into a world I didn’t really understand and probably wasn’t equipped to deal with, I wanted guarantees on forever.

But life just didn’t work like that.

I’d fallen for the man that night in Vegas. But he wasn’t just Noah. I’d recognized it that first moment I saw him in the nightclub, even if I hadn’t known exactly what it was. He carried himself a little differently than the guys I’d known before him. As though there was a weight on his shoulders—responsibility, dedication, sacrifice. And I couldn’t love one part of him and not love it all. So maybe I hadn’t wanted to marry a hero or a symbol, but I’d fallen in love with a fighter pilot, so as much as he would always just be Noah to me, I had to accept that there might be a time in our future when it would be his picture in the paper next to a jet, or my name entangled in the phrase “survived by his wife.”

And I got it.

As much as I knew Dani suffered right now, as great as her grief was, she endured. She loved her husband. She loved her husband and she wanted him to be happy, wanted him to live his dream. And at the end of the day, that was all we could do. I didn’t want Noah to worry about me, didn’t want him to be focused on doing anything other than the job he needed to do so he could come home to me.

So I shut it down.

I wrapped my arms around his waist, burrowing my body against his, cuddling into his warmth.

“I love you,” I whispered, the words more a vow than an endearment.

I love you. I will always love you.

“I love you, too.”

I heard the promise there; felt it in the way he held me, like he would do everything he could to protect me from harm. Like I was his everything the same way he was mine.

Noah was silent for a while, his hand stroking my back in lazy strokes. My eyelids fluttered as I struggled to stay awake.

“Do you want a big wedding?”

That woke me up.

“What do you mean?”

“I was just wondering if you wanted a wedding like your sister’s. And how much time you would need to plan.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly, I haven’t really thought about it. And with everything going on right now, I figured a wedding was pretty low priority.”

Noah shifted so we were both on our sides, facing each other. His hand skimmed my hip in a habit I doubted he was even aware of.

“Our wedding is definitely not low priority. I know the timing sucks. I hate that I didn’t give you the big proposal and that the memory of losing one of my closest friends will forever be linked with the memory of us getting engaged. I’m sorry for how complicated all of this is. But no matter how difficult our lifestyle is, I definitely want to marry you and I want you to have the kind of wedding you deserve.”

I thought about this for a moment, wondering what kind of wedding I even wanted. I wasn’t kidding; right now things like weddings didn’t seem all that important. The marriage, yes. But the rest of it? He was scheduled to report to Korea in a little over a month. I wanted to spend my time with him, not obsessing over seating charts, and menus, and arguing with my mother over the color scheme and whether the invitations were elegant enough.

“I want to marry you. I don’t care how, or where, or when. As long as it’s you and me promising forever, the rest is just details.”

“I thought those details were important to girls.”

“They can be. But after everything that’s happened, it’s hard for me to care.”

“I don’t want you to regret—”

I silenced him with a kiss, and then inspiration struck.

“Can you get leave for next weekend?”

“To get married?”

I nodded, excitement bubbling up, threatening to spill over. It was the perfect place for us to get married. Romantic, and meaningful, and absolutely perfect.