Takeoff (Open Skies #5) - Becca Jameson Page 0,8

on her phone. That was a bad sign.

“Rae? It’s just dinner. No need to overanalyze. As friends. I swear.”

“You cannot convince me you’re interested in being just friends. I’m not buying it.”

“And, may I point out, you cannot convince me of it either. But that’s what you’ve declared, and I’ll take it for as long as it’s what you want.”

Raeann bit her bottom lip to stifle the urge to groan. The man was too fucking nice. He made it very hard to stick to her guns. “Okay, but something casual. Jeans.”

“Deal. I’ll pick you up at six?”

“Picking people up implies it’s a date. I should meet you there. I should also pay my half when we go out.” She really needed to set some ground rules here.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Picking you up just makes sense. That way we arrive at the same time. And what if the restaurant is too full and we pick another one?”

“Fine. Pick me up at six,” she relented.

“Fine. And another thing. You will never ever pay for dinner when you’re with me, so wipe that from your frontal cortex. My mother would be appalled if I even considered splitting a bill. I can almost hear her gasping from all the way across Dallas.”

Raeann giggled before she could stop herself. “Your mom lives nearby? What about your dad?” She realized she hadn’t asked about his parents.

“Yep. He’s still living too. And shockingly enough, my mother lets him live with her.” He was joking, but she could hear something else in his voice. Nostalgia?

“Ah, so they’re still married. How old are they?”

He hesitated for some reason. “My mom is sixty-seven. My dad is seventy-two.” He cleared his throat. “I need to get back to work. See you at six?”

“Yes.”

He ended the call almost before she got the word out. What was up with that? There was something he wasn’t telling her about his parents. She shouldn’t be shocked. After all, she’d dominated every moment of their time together talking about her problems. If the man had any issue of his own, she hadn’t given him a single moment to tell her about it.

Tonight she would ask him more about his family. It was the polite thing to do. Maybe if she focused on someone else instead of herself all the time, she’d learn that she wasn’t the only person alive with issues.

Chapter 4

Deacon was absurdly nervous as he knocked on Heather and Raeann’s door that evening. As if he were going on a first date and had jitters. This wasn’t a first date at all. It wasn’t any date. It was two friends enjoying dinner. He could do this. He shouldn’t, but he could.

Spending so much time with Raeann defied all logic. Yes, he missed her terribly while she’d kept him cut off from her life. He’d thought about her often and forced himself not to reach out to her. He’d told himself it was for the best.

During their two weeks together, he’d considered unloading his closet several times, but he’d never had the balls to rock the boat. He’d been greedy spending time with her. Beyond selfish. He was doing it again now. And he couldn’t stop himself.

He couldn’t begin to imagine how she would react when he eventually opened his proverbial closet and let her see the weight of his problems. She did not have a monopoly on family issues. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to tell her yet. He would put it off for a while longer.

Hell, he was putting off facing his reality himself too. Stuffing it to the back burner, knowing with each passing day that the clock was ticking. He wasn’t being fair. Not to anyone.

His mother called him every day. He could hear the strain in her voice every time they spoke. She was tired. Exhausted. Of course. Dammit. If he could just have more time. More time with Raeann. He didn’t care that some freaky witch hunters might follow her around for the rest of her life. He didn’t care that her mother had a mental illness that might have been hereditary. None of that mattered to him.

It mattered to Raeann though, and he needed to be cognizant of her feelings. Give her a chance to see that none of that affected how he felt about her. He could. He knew it. If he didn’t have his own damn problems looming over him at the same time.

But fate didn’t operate on his schedule. She had her own timeline.