“It’s like the perfect symbiotic relationship,” I joke.

  “Do you want to go down on me right now?” she asks as she rocks against me, her panties growing damper by the second.

  “I always do. Will you let me?”

  She pulls back. “Hmm. As much as I’d love that, I want you to show me,” she says, her eyes all wild with lust. “Show me how you touched yourself when you got off to me.”

  “Gladly,” I say. And as I take off my underwear, she does the same, glancing from side to side, then craning her neck to make sure no one is walking nearby. But the coast is clear—our only company the dark of night that surrounds us.

  I pull her close again, sliding my fingers between her legs, coating them with her. Then I take my cock in my hand, slide her wetness over me, and stroke myself up and down. “So much better when I have you on me,” I say, watching as her gaze lowers. She stares, gaping at me touching myself. “This is what I did thinking of you, always you. Only you. I wanted you so much. I wanted to touch you and taste you again, and make you come over and over,” I say, and my breaths come faster as I stroke myself harder.

  “Oh God,” she says, leaning her head back. “Please.”

  There’s only one answer to that, so I grip her hips, lift her up, and bring her down on me. She cries out, and then silences her moans by biting down on my shoulder. I love that she’s so turned on she has to muffle herself.

  “You feel so good,” I tell her as I guide her up and down.

  “So do you,” she murmurs. Then she brings her lips to my ear. “I love that you used to masturbate to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I love that you thought about me like that.”

  “All the time. I always wanted you. I will always want you,” I tell her, as I roll my hips up against her. “I want to watch you sometime.”

  She blushes. “You would?”

  “Yes. But the thing is, I love fucking you so much, I’d probably make you stop every time so I could be inside you. It’s my favorite place to be,” I tell her, and she starts to move faster. Her breathing becomes labored, and I know she’s not far now. I’m on the brink too. “Harley? Can I fuck you hard right now?”

  “Yes,” she says, and I hold her hips and thrust into her. Long, hard, deep strokes, and she moans with each one, her cries all I need to keep up the pace, and soon her mouth is on my shoulder again, and she’s biting down, and I feel her clench around me and draw in a deep, endless breath. And I do the same, coming hard and fast inside her.

  “I love California,” I say.

  23

  Trey

  The flight is packed, and we’re in the second to last row. I peer at my boarding pass once more, then at Harley’s, as we wait for the family ahead of us to stow their luggage. The flight attendant helps them find room in the cramped compartments.

  “Crap. You’re in 34D. I’m in 35D,” I say over Harley’s shoulder when I notice the seat assignments.

  She pushes out her bottom lip. “Bummer. I’ll have to write you notes and slip them back to your seat like in high school.”

  “Make mine dirty.” I place our bags in the overhead bin.

  “Have a good flight,” she says, as she takes 34D.

  “You too.”

  As I buckle my seat belt, the woman next to me clears her throat. She’s knitting something silvery, maybe a sparkly scarf or something, and her dark-blonde hair is pulled into a clip. “If your wife doesn’t mind a middle seat, I’d be happy to switch,” she offers.

  “Oh, she’s not my wife,” I say, then quickly realize the semantics aren’t important. “But thank you. I think she would like that.”

  I lean forward to tap Harley. “This awesome lady is offering to switch. Want to sit with me?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “I believe the offer was for your wife,” she teases.

  “Then you should just be my wife,” I say, and once the words have been said, I realize how absolutely perfect they sound. And how I might not have a ring, and I haven’t planned this, but hell, if this isn’t what our life together is all about, then I don’t know what is, because I can’t think of a better moment. That’s what she’s been teaching me, in her own quiet way. To live each day, to embrace it, to seize the moment, because that’s all we ever have.

  Moments. With each other. Without regret.

  I unbuckle my seat belt, stand up, and then bend down on one knee in the aisle as the flight attendant adjusts more bags for the passengers across from us. I take Harley’s hands in mine. “Marry me,” I say. “Be my wife.”

  Her eyes are as round as saucers, and they shine brightly with happiness. I don’t doubt for a second what she’ll say, and it’s an amazing feeling to have this kind of certainty in another person. Still, I want to hear her yes.

  “You’re proposing to me on an airplane?”

  “Why the hell not?”

  The noises quiet down, and everyone is watching us. The flight attendant’s hands are poised on a suitcase, the gray-haired dude in the seat in front of Harley has stopped texting and is staring, and the woman next to me has popped up to watch, goggle-eyed.

  “Like there’s any other answer but yes,” Harley says as she cups my cheeks and presses her lips against mine.

  Then there is clapping and cheering all around, and a few rows ahead, I hear a guy shout, “Where’s the ring, man?”

  “No ring,” I say to everyone, but as I pull up Harley from her seat and into the aisle, I point to her belly. “But we’ve got this to seal the deal.”

  “That’s a commitment right there,” the guy calls out.

  “Yeah, it is,” I say, and then I kiss her once more.

  “When’s the wedding?”

  It’s the same guy again, and this time I look over to him. He’s a few years older than me, but not by much. He wears hipster glasses and a hoodie.

  “I don’t know. She just said yes.”

  “How about now?”

  I don’t say anything at first. I’m not sure what to say. But Harley pipes up, shouting to the guy, “Why? Are you a minister or something?”

  He nods. “Got ordained online to perform my brother’s wedding. If you want a wedding in the sky, let me know.”

  Then he disappears into his seat, and Harley joins me, while the blonde woman takes my wife-to-be’s previous seat.

  “I can’t believe you just proposed to me on a plane,” she says with a smile that can’t be erased.

  “Sometimes you just have to live each day. That’s what someone I love madly once told me,” I say, nuzzling her nose.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  I turn to the flight attendant.

  “You need to get buckled in,” she says. “Oh, and congratulations. Now I have a good story to tell my friends on my layover in New York tonight.”

  The flight attendant starts to leave, but Harley reaches for her arm. “It could be a better story possibly…”

  Harley wears jeans, combat boots, and a T-shirt. I know she’d look gorgeous in a wedding dress, but this is even better than white. I stand in the middle of the aisle, next to Andrew, the newly ordained minister who also runs an internet start-up.

  The bride carries a bouquet of pretzels and peanuts, tied together with silver yarn, courtesy of her previous seat inhabitant. The flight attendant holds up my iPhone, playing Arcade Fire’s “Tunnels” as our wedding song.

  The band sings about digging a tunnel from my window to yours, and that feels fitting for Harley and me.

  We are flying high, ten thousand feet over Arizona, and my pregnant girlfriend is about to become my wife. Fine, I know we will need to get a marriage license and make it official in the state of New York, but this is our kind of wedding.

  When Harley reaches me, she turns and hands the bouquet to the blonde-haired knitter who’s become her impromptu maid of honor.

  Andrew clears his throat. “Dearly beloved, passengers of Flight 305 from San Diego to New York City, we are gathered here by chance, circumstance, and Expedia, in many cases, for the unplanned and unexpected wedding of Trey Westin and Harley Coleman. But then, as the groom has told me, other things between them were a bit unexpected too,” he says, staring pointedly at Harley’s bump and punctuating his comment like a stand-up comedian. “So, before we get in too much trouble with the captain, let’s move this right along.” He looks to me. “Do you, Trey, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love her and to cherish her, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” I say, the biggest grin on my face.

  “And do you, Harley Coleman, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love him and cherish him, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

  “I do,” she says, and then bounces once on her toes and sneaks in a quick kiss.

  Andrew gives her a chiding look. “Now, now,” he says playfully. “Rings, please.”

  The blonde knitter opens her palm and holds out two paper rings that I drew a few minutes ago. On each piece of paper is a heart with an arrow in it, and the rings are held together on the inside with Band-Aids, since that’s all the flight attendant had.

  I slide a paper ring onto Harley’s ring finger, and she does the same to me.

  “And now by the power vested in me by the awesomeness of the internet and my thirty-five-dollar license to become an ordained minister, I now pronounce you man and wife, and you may kiss the bride. Or the bride may kiss you again.”

  Harley threads her hands in my hair, and whispers against my lips, “I love you so damn much,” before she silences any reply with a kiss.

  Four hours later, she’s asleep on my shoulder when the captain announces that we’re about to make our descent into New York. Other passengers stand up to make final bathroom trips, and a short, chubby bald guy walks down the aisle to the restroom. Something about him seems familiar, but I can’t place him. Maybe he’s a customer, but in his button-down shirt and dress slacks, he hardly seems the tat type. He could be a friend of my dad’s, though my dad doesn’t have many friends. I tense briefly, hoping he’s not the husband of some woman I used to screw. That would be just my luck—landing another scar, a matching one on the other cheek, on my wedding day.

  I close my eyes briefly, but after I hear the door unlock to the bathroom, I can sense someone standing close to me. I open my eyes, and he’s there, in the aisle, staring at Harley.

  At my wife.

  And holy shit, I know why I recognize him.

  It’s Mr. Stewart from the gala last summer, where I stole Harley away from him. My heart clenches, and my veins run with ice.

  He smiles, but it’s not a happy look. More like a cold sneer, as his gray eyes meet mine. “Congratulations, Mr. Trey Westin,” he says slowly, making sure to enunciate each word, “on your wedding to Layla.”

  24

  Trey

  I pack up my books, then peer out the window. I load up my sketchbooks. And I wait for a knock on the door.

  I jam my clothes into suitcases, and I’m sure a rock will come crashing through my window.

  I hear a strange noise in the hallway late one night, and I check the peephole, convinced that Mr. Stewart’s steely gray eyes will be staring back at me. But then, I’m betting he’s the kind of man who doesn’t need to do his own dirty work. He probably has a heavy.

  Maybe I’m losing my mind, but everywhere I go in the city for the next few days after we return to New York, I feel the hair on my neck stand on end. I watch behind me, scan in front of me, check in doorways, but nothing happens. No one leaps from an alley and jams a pillowcase on my head. No one with a pockmarked face and a broad barrel chest shanks me for taking Mr. Stewart’s supposed girlfriend.

  “Why do you think you’re about to be shanked everywhere you go?” Michelle asks during my session.

  “I can’t believe you just said ‘shanked.’”

  “I am familiar with popular lingo,” she says, and she doesn’t break my gaze. “So, please answer the question. Where is this fear coming from?”

  “Are you saying I’m paranoid?”

  She sighs heavily, and I think I might have exasperated Michelle for the first time. “No, Trey. I simply want to understand why you’re worked up about this.”

  I throw my arms out wide. “Because he’s a dude who hired an escort. Because he’s loaded. Because he happened to be on the same fucking plane as us when I married Harley, and rather than tuck his tail between his legs, he got up in my face and made damn sure I knew he knew I married the girl I took from him!”

  She grins when I say married, shaking her head, still amused that we did it. And we officially did it, too, filing for a marriage license as soon as we returned.

  “And so you think, naturally, that he’s going to shank you?”

  I push my hands roughly through my hair. “I don’t know. Yes. No. It seems plausible.”

  “And what happens, then, when you move to San Diego? He’s from California, right?”

  I nod.

  “So, will he hunt you down there?”

  I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”

  She leans forward in her chair, her hands on her knees. “I am being serious. If you truly think your life is in danger, we need to talk about appropriate cautionary steps. And if this is your fear talking, we need to figure out how to face it.”

  “No. I need to run the hell away from it,” I say.

  Because rational talk isn’t helping. My heart ticks faster, speeding up. I am a jack-in-the-box that someone’s been winding and winding, ready to pop.

  I walk with Harley everywhere. I don’t let her go anyplace alone. And after I see Michelle, I go to Harley’s to help her pack, since we’re leaving in a week.

  School is still on break, but she emailed her English major advisor and was told that transferring to a school in San Diego would work fine. She can graduate from here—she just needs to maintain her GPA for the last year and a half, and have her classes approved. Sort of like a year and a half abroad, only abroad is across the country.

  After we make it through her summer clothes, she tries again to reassure me. “Trey, it’s been a week now, and nothing’s happened. I think we’re fine. I think it was just some sort of manly pride on the plane. He probably recognized me, made the comment, and then forgot about it,” Harley says, as she zips up a large purple duffel bag. We decided to only take clothes, books, and the things we couldn’t leave behind, after I sublet my studio in seconds.

  “Well, guys like that I don’t trust,” I say, as my phone buzzes in my back pocket. “We just need to lie low for a little longer.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. Besides, it’s not you or me—” she starts to say, then she stops and shakes her head. I grab my phone to see my parents calling.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she whispers, but she looks worried. “Just answer your call.”

  “Hey,” I say into the phone.

  “Hello, Trey,” my mother says. “We have a surprise for you. For your move to San Diego. Can you come over tonight?”

  “Sure. I’m just helping Harley pack, and then I’ll stop by.”

  When I hang up, I tell her that I need to go see them. “But stay here.”

  “I will. I’m going to keep packing, and hang with Kristen. Call me later,” she says, and gives me a kiss before I leave.

  Twenty minutes later, my mom slides a small white box across the kitchen table to me. There’s a gold bow on the box. I glance from her to my dad. “A gift?”

  “I said we had a surprise for you,” my mom says, and for the first time in years, she seems excited, even delighted.

  I untie the bow and open the top of the white box. Inside is a key on a ring with a key fob. Shivers of excitement run through me. My parents did this?

  “What is this for?” I ask, though I think I know the answer.

  “There’s a new Honda waiting for you at Harley’s grandparents’ house. If you’re going to live in California, you’re going to need a car,” my dad says, and he leans over to give me a hug.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I say. Then I stand up and hug my mom too. “This is amazing. Seriously. This is just so cool. I was going to get us a used car or something. But this is incredible.”

  “Now you’re going to have to learn how to drive,” my dad says, pointing out the obvious.

  I wave a hand in the air. “I’m sure driving is a piece of cake.”

  After more chatting and another round of thank yous, I head out for the night. This is definitely an unexpected bright spot in the last week of stress and worry and looking over my shoulder, afraid that our past might be rearing its ugly head again—it reminds me to look toward our very promising future just waiting for us. Fitting, as I press the elevator button for the lobby, then tap the panel twice, as if I’m saying goodbye to my past, to my sins. This elevator used to be the center of my sex-addicted world.

  Now, as I shoot down the building, I no longer feel the gravitational pull that this contraption exerted on my life. It’s just an elevator, and this is one of the last times I’ll ride in it.

  “Goodbye, elevator,” I say as I reach the lobby.

  25

  Harley

  I dial his number again.

  And again.

  And again.

  He still doesn’t answer. I swear my fingers are turning numb from calling him.

  I try his office, but it’s after-hours, and it’s closed.

  So I have no other recourse but to hail a taxi and head uptown to see Cam. Trey won’t be happy, but I need to see for myself the damage that could be the direct result of our impromptu wedding run-in with Mr. Stewart.

  Cam texted me this afternoon to say Congrats on your wedding. I didn’t think much of his text at first, since I was so busy. Then it hit me—I hadn’t told him. The only way he could know would be from Mr. Stewart.