“Yeah,” he answered and shared, “Take you to the mountains, maybe next month.”
“That’d be nice,” she murmured, tightening her fingers in his hand.
He didn’t reply, just watched the flight attendant going about her business.
“I wanna be safe.”
He again turned his head, this time to look down at her as she lifted hers from his shoulder and looked up at him.
“I wanna be free,” she went on.
“I’ll get you there,” he promised.
“No, I mean, I…it’s…” She shook her head but kept at it. “It’s not your job. I need to sort it out. I don’t know how I’m gonna manage that…the last time I tried to leave the family, it didn’t go too well—”
Nick cut her off, “Babe, it is my job.”
Her gaze grew confused. “It’s my life, Nick.”
“Not anymore.”
She continued to look confused with the addition of mildly annoyed. “So now that you’ve decided where we’re heading, my life is yours?”
She’d had enough of her life being anyone’s.
But she was sort of right.
“No,” he answered. “Now that we’re on the same page about where we’re heading, that future is ours. It’s not just you anymore, Liv. And it’s not just me. It’s us. That future, our future, is about the both of us. I want you to be safe and free and have your own life, but if I’m not wrong, we’re both agreed that life is gonna have me in it. If that’s the case, it’s my job to look out for you. There’ll be times and ways you’ll look out for me. But now, with this, with what happened the last time you tried, I want you safe while I pull it off. So this time, it’s my turn.”
“You’re not wrong,” she said softly, something new he liked a helluva lot shining from her eyes. “We’re both agreed.”
He grinned. “I know.”
She grinned back, it was small but it came easy.
He still felt it in his gut.
He hoped he made it so her happiness came at him so much, that feeling stopped, at the same time he hoped it didn’t.
“Just so you know, I love Vail, but my favorite is Winter Park,” she announced. “It’s fun and beautiful and not as hoity-toity.”
His grin got bigger. “So noted.”
“You want me to find a VRBO?” she asked.
“Knock yourself out,” he answered.
“You’ll have to give me some dates,” she told him.
“I get to the office, I’ll get them.”
She gave him bright, happy eyes and a hand squeeze before she dropped her head on his shoulder again and fell quiet.
He held her hand.
They landed.
Nick hung back so she disembarked before he did.