“Stop that, Pidge,” Travis said. “You’re making me nervous.”
“It’s just . . . too big.”
“It fits just fine,” he said, sitting back. We were wedged between a businessman talking softly on his cell phone and an elderly couple. An airline employee was standing behind the gate desk, talking into what looked like a CB radio. I wondered why they didn’t just use a regular microphone. She announced a few names, and then hooked the device somewhere on the back of her desk.
“Must be a full flight,” Travis said. His left arm was settled on the back of my chair, his thumb gently rubbing my shoulder. He was trying to pretend to be relaxed, but his bobbing knee gave him away.
“The diamond is excessive. I feel like I’m going to get mugged at any moment,” I said.
Travis laughed. “First of all, no one is going to f**king touch you. Second, that ring was made to be on your finger. I knew when I saw it—”
“Attention passengers of American flight 2477 to Las Vegas, we are looking for three volunteers to take a later flight. We’re offering travel vouchers good for one year from your departure.”
Travis looked at me.
“No.”
“You in a hurry?” he asked, a smug smile on his face.
I leaned in and kissed him. “Actually, I am.” I reached up with my finger and wiped away the smudge of soot under his nose that he’d missed in the shower.
“Thanks, baby,” he said, squeezing me against his side. He looked around, his chin lifted, his eyes bright. He was in the best mood I’d seen him in since the night he’d won our bet. It made me smile. Sensible or not, it felt good to be loved so much, and I decided right then and there I would stop apologizing for it. There were worse things than finding your soul mate too early in life, and what was too early, anyway?
“I had a discussion about you with my mom, once,” Travis said, looking out the wall of windows to our left. It was still dark. Whatever he saw wasn’t on the other side.
“About me? Isn’t that kind of . . . impossible?”
“Not really. It was the day she died.”
Adrenaline burst from where adrenaline bursts from and sped through my body, pooling in my fingers and toes. Travis had never spoken about his mother to me. I often wanted to ask him about her, but then I thought about the sickening feeling that came over me when someone asked me about my mother, so I never did.
He continued, “She told me to find a girl worth fighting for. The one that doesn’t come easy.”
I felt a little embarrassed, wondering if that meant I was a huge pain in the ass. Truthfully, I was, but that wasn’t the point.
“She said to never stop fighting, and I didn’t. She was right.” He took a deep breath, seeming to let that thought settle into his bones.
The idea that Travis believed I was the woman who his mother was talking about, that she would approve of me, made me feel an acceptance I’d never felt before. Diane, who had passed away almost seventeen years before, now made me feel more loved than my own mother.
“I love your mom,” I said, leaning against Travis’s chest.
He looked down at me, and after a short pause, kissed my hair. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear in his voice how much he was affected. “She would have loved you, too. No doubt in my mind.”
The woman spoke into her CB again. “Attention passengers of American flight 2477 to Las Vegas: We will begin boarding soon. We’ll start with anyone needing boarding assistance, and those with young children, and then we’ll begin boarding first class and business class.”
“How about exceptionally tired?” Travis said, standing. “I need a f**kin’ Red Bull. Maybe we should have kept our tickets for tomorrow like we’d planned?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You have a problem with me being in a hurry to be Mrs. Travis Maddox?”
He shook his head, helping me to my feet. “Hell no. I’m still in shock, if you wanna know the truth. I just don’t want you to be rushing because you’re afraid you’ll change your mind.”
“Maybe I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”
Travis’s eyebrows pulled in, and he wrapped his arms around me. “You can’t really think that. You gotta know there’s nothing I want more.”
I rose up on the balls of my feet and pecked his lips. “I think we’re getting ready to board a plane for Vegas so we can get married, that’s what I think.”
Travis squeezed me against him, and then kissed me excitedly from cheek to collarbone. I giggled as he tickled my neck, and laughed even louder when he lifted me off the ground. He kissed me one last time before taking my bag off the floor, lowered me to the ground, and then led me by the hand to the line.
We showed our boarding passes and walked down the Jetway hand in hand. The flight attendants took one look at us and offered a knowing smile. Travis passed our seats to let me by, placed our carry-on bags in the overhead bin, and collapsed next to me. “We should probably try to sleep on the way, but I’m not sure I can. I’m too f**king amped.”
“You just said you needed a Red Bull.”
His dimple caved as he smiled. “Stop listening to everything I say. I’m probably not going to make sense for the next six months while I try to process the fact that I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted.”
I leaned back to meet his eyes. “Trav, if you wonder why I’m in such a hurry to marry you . . . what you just said is one of the many reasons why.”