“Last chance to hop off of the plane. The tickets aren’t refundable, but I’ll go ahead and add them to your tab,” I say, tucking her loose hair behind her ear, and she gives me the smallest smile I’ve ever seen. She’s still mad, but her nerves are causing her to soften up toward me.
“Hardin,” she quietly whines. She rests her head against the window and closes her eyes. I hate to see her so nervous; it makes me anxious, and this trip has me on fucking anxiety overload as it is. I lean across and pull the cover down over her window, hoping that will help.
“How much longer?” I impatiently bark at the flight attendant as she passes our row.
Her eyes move from Tessa to me, and she raises a snooty brow. “A few minutes.” She forces a smile for the sake of her job. The man next to me shifts uncomfortably, and I wish I had purchased an extra ticket so I wouldn’t have to worry about sitting this close to an obnoxious asshole. He smells like stale tobacco.
“It’s been longer than a few—” I begin.
Tessa’s hand reaches over to mine; her eyes are now open, pleading with me not to cause a scene. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes to heighten the drama of the act.
“Fine,” I say, turning away from the attendant, who continues down the aisle.
“Thank you,” Tessa mouths. Instead of resting her head against the window, she gently rests it against my arm. I tap her thigh and signal for her to lift up so I can put my arm around her. She nuzzles into me and sighs in contentment as I gently tighten my arm around her body. I love that sound.
The plane begins to move slowly down the runway, and Tessa’s eyes screw shut.
By the time the plane is in the air, she has the window cover raised and her eyes are wide with wonder as she stares out at the rapidly shrinking landscape. “This is amazing.” She grins. All the color has now seeped back into her face. She’s glowing with excitement, and it’s contagious as hell. I try to fight my grin, but it’s impossible, as she babbles on about how everything “just looks so small.”
“See, it wasn’t so bad. We haven’t crashed yet,” I disdainfully remark.
In response, murmers and annoyed coughs start wafting through the nearly silent cabin, but I don’t give a shit. Tessa understands my humor, for the most part at least, and she shoots me an eye roll and gives me a playful jab in the chest.
“Hush,” she warns, and I chuckle.
After three hours, she’s restless. I knew she would be; we’ve watched some of the shitty programming the airline sponsors and gone through the SkyMall magazine twice, both of us agreeing that a dog crate disguised as a television stand is certainly not worth two thousand dollars.
“It’s going to be a long nine hours,” I say to her.
“Only six now,” she corrects me. Her fingers trace the infinity-heart tattoo above my wrist.
“Only six,” I repeat. “Take a nap.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She looks up at me. “What do you think my father is doing? I mean, I know Landon watched him last time you were away, but we’ll be gone for three days this time.”
Fuck. “He’ll be fine.” He’s going to be annoyed, but he’ll get over it and thank her later.
“I’m glad we declined your father’s offer,” she says.
Fucking hell. “Why?” I choke, searching her face.
“The rehab place is too expensive.”
“And?”
“I don’t feel comfortable with your father spending that amount of money on my father. It’s not his responsibility, and we don’t know for sure that my father is even—”
“He’s a drug addict, Tessa.” I know she still doesn’t want to admit it, but she knows it’s true. “And my father might as well pay for his treatment.”
I need to call Landon as soon as we land to find out how the “intervention” went. As much as I hope her shitbag of a dad agreed to it, I feel guilty that Tessa wasn’t in on the plan. I spent hours punching and kicking that bag at the gym, pondering this shit. At the end of it, the solution was simple. Either Richard takes his ass to rehab on my father’s dime, or he’s out of Tessa’s life for good. I won’t have his fucking addiction being a burden on her. I cause her enough fucking problems, and if anyone is going to cause her stress, it will be me. I sent Landon to do the intervention, to tell the man that he had to choose one or the other: rehab or no Tessa. I figured things wouldn’t turn violent if Landon, as opposed to me, was in charge. As much as it eats at me that my father will be the one who’s actually helping Tessa, since he’s the one paying, I couldn’t turn him down. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
“I don’t know.” She sighs, looking out the window. “I need to think about it.”
“Well . . .” I begin, and she frowns at the tone of my voice.
“What did you do?” She narrows her eyes and pulls away from me. She can’t go far; she’s stuck sitting with me until we land.
“We’ll talk about it later.” I glance at the man next to me. These airlines should really make these seats wider. If the armrest between Tessa and me wasn’t lifted, I’d be sitting on top of the guy.
Her eyes go wide. “You sent him, didn’t you?” she whispers forcefully, careful not to cause a scene.
“I didn’t send your father anywhere.” It’s true. I don’t know whether he agreed to go or not.