not surprising with how awful she’d sounded on the way over here.
If I had to make a guess, whatever she’d had—the flu possibly—had morphed into pneumonia.
The cough rattled the woman’s chest again, and I looked over at Jonah to find him pounding his forehead with his fist.
“What’s the freakin’ hold up?” I heard snarled.
That was from the shitty ass kid that was sitting next to the hacking woman.
The shitty ass kid also, I assumed, happened to be the ‘daughter’ that was getting married while they were in Vegas.
She was still wearing her wedding veil, and she had on the gaudiest looking ring that I’d ever seen in my life.
Her husband, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere but where he was, which happened to be sandwiched between the two women, frowned.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he agreed with the woman on his left (his wife), or because he was being exposed to the woman’s germs (on the right).
Unfortunately, we hadn’t been able to get first-class tickets again this time, but that was okay with me.
Sitting next to Jonah seemed to make everything all right.
I hadn’t even intended to take the medication until our flight had been delayed twice due to the storms back home. When I’d heard from the flight attendants that it was going to be another bad one, I’d taken my medication.
Then I’d had a drink, which was another big no-no, and the reason I found myself in the mess I currently found myself in.
Not that it was a mess so much as a conundrum.
Jonah and I were married.
Married.
I looked down at my ring tattoo with sleepy eyes and felt something in my chest tighten. Not in a bad way, either. In a good way. An ‘I want to stay married to the man’ way.
“Seriously, this is getting ridiculous,” the hacker croaked.
I leaned over and allowed my head to rest against the side of the plane. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable as I thought it would be, making me squirm to find a better position.
There wasn’t one to be had.
Needless to say, I’d been spoiled by the first-class seats on the way up here.
Taking pity on me, Jonah curled his hand around my neck and gently pulled me his way, pressing my face gently against his shoulder.
I sighed.
“Thank you,” I murmured softly.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
I thought about that for a long second.
“Are you asking me physically am I okay? Or mentally?” I wondered aloud.
“Both,” he admitted.
“Okay in the physical sense. Scared in the mental,” I admitted.
“Scared of the storms or scared of other things?” he pushed.
I assumed by ‘other things’ he meant ‘our marriage.’
“Storms,” I quickly answered. “The other stuff I’m not as much scared of as curious of. I’ve never been married before, so I don’t know the rules.”
Which was honestly quite true. I had no idea what was expected of me.
I knew that I had a job that was likely to be opposite of the majority of his shifts. And I knew that I wanted to be with him more than I wanted my next breath.
He chuckled softly. “I’ve never been married before either,” he admitted. “But I reckon we can figure it out pretty quickly.”
The way he said that made me think that he actually wanted to figure it out.
I looked at my ring finger again, flexing my fingers as I did, and drawing his attention.
“I’m going to have to take the ring off,” I admitted, fingering the ring that was currently residing on the wrong hand since my tattoo still wasn’t healed. “If I don’t, everybody’s going to notice it. Especially my mom and dad.”
Something jolted the plane underneath of us and I looked out my side window to see quite a few military personnel gathered outside the plane’s wing.
I was momentarily distracted, however, by Jonah saying, “What happened to your apartment that you were supposed to get. I remember you mentioning it on the plane ride from Germany.”
I had said that.
But I obviously hadn’t told him the rest of the story.
“The apartment complex manager had already filled the vacancy by the time I got there,” I admitted. “I was supposed to fax in the paperwork, but then my dad got hurt, and I was so focused on flying home and getting everything ready to go that I hadn’t paid much attention to the other things I was supposed to do. Like filling out paperwork on the lease.”
He was silent for a time, his eyes focusing out the window