They pulled into the hotel parking lot a few minutes later as Tony finished his call with Ross.

  Mike put the car into park. “Okay, dude, I have to hear this. What happened?”

  Mike roared with laughter after Tony let him read the text he’d accidentally sent Ross.

  Then Tony copied it and this time made sure it was Shayla’s text that he actually replied to.

  Send.

  He was unlocking his room door a few minutes later when his phone vibrated with a reply.

  From Shayla, fortunately.

  Yes, Sir. :)

  He sighed.

  Good girl.

  Send.

  Again, verifying it was her he was sending it to, now that he was thoroughly paranoid.

  He stood in the shower for several minutes, with the water as hot as he could stand it. He needed a shave but didn’t have the energy to do it. It could wait.

  He was in bed when he remembered he wanted to text his friend at the dealership, but it was now after midnight Florida time, so he set himself a reminder to do it in the morning.

  And would make sure he sent it to the right damn person.

  * * * *

  Friday night, Tony had their flight confirmation and had packed everything and had his bags staged and waiting by his room door, with the exception of his clothes and what he’d need for his morning shower…

  And he had ten different playfully snarky text messages from some of their closest friends, teasing him about butt-plugs.

  Everyone’s a smart-ass

  He smiled. Damn, he’d missed them all. He was looking forward not just to getting home to Shayla, but to resuming their normal routine and spending time at the club. He wanted to get back into teaching whip classes, wanted to DM.

  Wanted to redden Shayla’s ass.

  He wanted to curl up around his wife and hold her and wake up in the middle of the night able to fuck her if he wanted to.

  Saturday morning blow jobs.

  Sunday morning blow jobs.

  Mmmm, blow jobs.

  They’d had a few phone and video chat sex sessions during his time in the wilderness, so to speak, and had been able to make love while he was home seven weeks ago, but this was just fucking bullshit.

  Never again.

  Next time they wanted him to go out of town, they could pay to fly him home every fucking weekend, screw their goddamned project schedule.

  We’re going home…

  The next morning, he awoke bright and early, excited like a kid at Christmas, and about to send his friend a text message about meeting him at the dealership when he saw he had an alert from the airline.

  Your flight has been delayed an hour due to a mechanical issue…

  “Motherfucker!” he screamed, fighting the urge to fling his phone at the wall.

  He texted Shayla the update, grabbed a quick shower, finished packing, and knocked on Mike’s door across the hall.

  Mike was all smiles until he saw Tony’s face. “What’s wrong? If you tell me the data center has a problem and we can’t go home, I fucking quit, man.”

  Tony showed him the alert.

  Mike groaned. “Motherfucker!”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Let’s grab breakfast, then we can check out.”

  They headed downstairs, ate, grabbed their luggage, loaded it into the rental car, and Tony checked out while Mike waited in the car.

  At the airport, they waited in line to check in, a line that was longer than Tony knew it might normally be. That was probably due to their flight being delayed, if the dark muttered grumblings he overheard from fellow passengers were any indication. By the time they reached the desk and the clerk started checking them in, he knew from her tight smile that there was a problem.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Well, your flight is delayed—”

  “I know.”

  “Would you like to fly stand-by tomorrow instead and earn—”

  “No,” Tony and Mike said together. “Not to be rude,” Tony continued, “but I haven’t seen my wife in nearly two fricking months, he hasn’t seen his in nearly a month, and we want to go home. We’re not flying stand-by. We’re not taking an alternate flight. We want seats on that flight, direct to Tampa, do not pass go, do not route us through Atlanta or any other fricking hub.”

  She nodded, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “I can’t seat you together—”

  “We don’t care,” they said in unison.

  She nodded again, then her computer finally started spitting out boarding passes and luggage tags.

  It was with no small measure of relief that they were standing in a TSA checkpoint line ten minutes later.

  “Man,” Mike said. “I was about to start crying if she was going to tell us we weren’t flying.”

  “You aren’t the only one,” Tony muttered.

  He was starting to get a little antsy about how long it was taking to get through the checkpoint when they finally made it forty minutes before their flight was scheduled to start boarding. They checked in at the gate just to make sure, then sat down to await the call to board.

  Mike held a fist out to him, and Tony bumped with him. “Home free,” Mike said.

  “Dude! Are you crazy? You did not just fucking say that! Do you want to jinx—”

  “Attention all passengers and employees,” the PA system announced. “Due to a security breech, all passengers must exit the terminal immediately and be rescreened by TSA agents—”

  “Motherfucker!” the men said.

  Mike and Tony stood, Tony glaring at his friend even though he knew it wasn’t Mike’s fault.

  “Sorry,” Mike said.

  “Come on,” Tony griped as they and everyone else began trudging toward the exit.

  Chapter Four

  Once Tony and Mike were standing in a security checkpoint line even longer than the previous one, Tony texted his friend that his flight was once again delayed and could they meet him tomorrow?

  Then he made the call he dreaded.

  Shayla sounded bright when she answered the phone. “Are you about to board, Sir?”

  “Not exactly, pet. Scratch the order I gave you about the butt-plug.”

  “Why?”

  She sounded near tears when he finished the update, and he couldn’t blame her, because he was close to crying himself. “The bad news is, all flights are on hold, for now. The good news is we probably won’t miss our flight because all flights are on hold, for now.”

  “Did you break a mirror or something?” she asked. “Walk under a ladder? Piss off an old hag?”

  Tony sighed. “No, but Mike jinxed us.” Tony glared at him.

  “Sorry,” Mike said.

  Tony got off the phone with her and settled in to slowly shuffle their way through the checkpoint. It was over an hour later before they finally made it back to the boarding gate, where there was hardly anyone yet.

  They checked in—again—with the gate agent.

  “Please tell me we haven’t missed our flight?” Tony asked.

  She looked grim. “No, because it’s still sitting on the tarmac. We’re waiting on a new flight crew to become available. The crew slated to work this flight are all out with food poisoning. They ate at the same buffet last night. It’s going to be at least two to three hours.”

  Mike held up his hands. “Can’t blame this one on me, Tony. I didn’t say a word.”

  Motherfucker.

  * * * *

  Shayla stared at Tony’s text message and burst into tears.

  Motherfucker.

  Couldn’t they catch a goddamned break?

  So much for car shopping today.

  At this rate, she’d be lucky if they got home before dark.

  It would be funny under nearly any other circumstances, a comedy of errors.

  It became exponentially less funny with every passing hour, however, and especially considering how long they’d been separated to start with.

  Mike’s wife Jenny called her. “You know, I can go get Mike,” she offered. “So you two can be alone. You’ve got to be climbing the walls.”

  “No,” Shayla said. “It’s okay. I don’t mind picking Mike up, too.” She sighed. “I appreciate it, and obviously I’m not going to tell you that you can’t go get your husband from the airport if you want to, but you drove Tony to the airport. I don’t mind bringing Mike home.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” Shayla flopped over on the couch, where she’d been sitting and working when she’d received the news of their latest disappointment. “They’ll get home eventually.”

  “At this rate it wouldn’t shock me if they rented a car and started driving,” Jenny said.

  “God, I hope not. That’d be like two freaking days.”

  After she ended the call with Jenny a few minutes later, Shayla focused on her article again. She was working on part one of her series on elderly drivers. She’d already outlined the series and got it on the project budgets for several future issues. Ed had told her yesterday that the elderly driver who’d demolished her poor Civic had already voluntarily surrendered his license, thanks to intervention from the couple’s children.

  So that was one concern off her plate.

  She hadn’t decided where to go on vacation though, another task Tony had issued to her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to head up US1 to Maine, a trip she’d never taken before, or drive out to New Orleans and Texas—again, another trip she’d never made—or several other options she’d already considered.

  It wasn’t like she was in a vacation-planning mood right now, either.

  It was nearly four hours later when Tony finally texted her.

  Boarding now. Fingers crossed. Saw our luggage being loaded, so at least that’s not a problem.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Safe flight. Love you, Sir.

  He replied a moment later.

  Love you, too, pet. See you soon. I hope. ;)

  She smiled and pulled up her flight tracking app. Sure enough, when she looked up their flight number, its flight status was listed as boarding.

  Please, please, please.

  But she made no move to get ready to leave. Besides the fact that the plane hadn’t even left the ground yet, and it was a four-hour flight, she felt justifiably paranoid she might somehow jinx an already jinxtacular morning. It’d only take her around ninety minutes to drive to Tampa.

  She’d already hit the grocery store last night on her way home, stocking up on Tony’s favorites so she wouldn’t have to go to the store all weekend. There was a Suncoast Society munch tomorrow night she’d hoped they could make, but now?

  Not so much.

  Not unless Tony brought it up first. He knew when the munches were. Hell, sometimes they were the hosts.

  I’ll never gripe about doing that again.

  It’d been months since they’d been able to do that, or even volunteer at the club the way they liked to do.

  None of that would she ever take for granted.

  Ever.

  She watched the flight app, her stomach growing tighter and tighter by the minute. She even suppressed the happy cheer she wanted to scream when she saw the flight status change from boarding to taxiing.

  From that moment, she sat there refreshing the display for the next fifteen minutes, until its status finally switched to en route, and she could access the flight map that reported its location and altitude.

  “Fuck yeah!” she screamed, startling their two cats. “Sorry, babies.”

  She stood and did a celebration dance in the living room, not even caring how she looked, naked, cuffed, and collared, and dancing around with her boobs flapping in the breeze.

  “Daddy’s coming home, babies!” she happily said as the cats balefully glared at her from the safety of their large cat tree in the corner of the room, where they’d retreated when she’d spooked them.

  Now the question was what to wear? Tony hadn’t given her any specific instructions regarding that. Since he’d rescinded the butt-plug requirement, she knew she could add a few more clothing options to her list.

  She hurried into their bedroom and started rooting through her closet. She wouldn’t get too wild, because after all, Tampa International wasn’t exactly the best place to get their freak on.

  And Mike might be a coworker who’d seen her butt-ass naked at a play party or at Venture, but in this context she preferred to be…clothed.

  After sorting through several possibilities, she finally settled on a cute sundress she hadn’t worn in a while. One that was just long enough she could wear it without panties, and the sandals she usually wore with it would be perfect for a drive to Tampa.

  She knocked a few more chores on her to-do list that she’d planned on taking care of tomorrow, like dusting and wiping out the fridge, things that didn’t take long and that she could’ve put off even longer, if necessary.

  It took every ounce of self-control she had not to refresh the flight app every thirty seconds, but when it hit the T-minus two-hour mark until arrival, she got dressed and grabbed her purse to head up to Tampa. The weather was sunny, so no storms to delay her on her drive.

  She set the alarm, locked the house…

  And pulled up short, jaw dropped as she stared at the SUV.

  The front driver’s tire was flat.

  Shayla burst into tears.

  * * * *

  “Motherfucking goddamned motherfucker asshole shithead!” Shayla screamed as she swore at the lug wrench. She’d called AAA, but they wouldn’t be able to get someone there any sooner than an hour.

  So she’d changed into shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt to change the goddamned thing herself. If she got it done before the mechanic arrived she could cancel the call.

  Except one of the lug nuts was stuck, and even the trick of standing on the lug wrench wasn’t budging the goddamned thing. She was no stranger to changing her own tires, although she hadn’t had to do that since she’d been with Tony.

  She couldn’t jack the SUV up until after she got all the lug nuts broken free, either.

  She kicked the tire, wincing as pain flared up her foot.

  Great. Let’s break a goddamned toe while I’m at it.

  She was still at it nearly forty-five minutes later when the tow truck arrived and the mechanic took over.

  After giving him all due credit for not laughing at her story, she ran inside to grab the world’s fastest shower and change into jeans and a T-shirt. By the time she made it back outside, the mechanic was just finishing the job. It was about ninety minutes to the airport if traffic wasn’t bad, plus it would take fifteen to twenty minutes for the men to deplane, and they’d have another fifteen to twenty minutes to wait for their bags.

  Doable.

  She might not be there in the main terminal when they landed, which would be disappointing as fuck, but she could make up time and pick them up at curbside in arrivals.

  “Ma’am, by the way, be careful driving on that donut,” the man said after loading the flat tire in the back of the SUV for her.

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s smaller than a regular tire.” He pointed at the CRV, where she realized he’d put the spare on the back and put the back tire on the front. “I swapped them out since you said you have to dive up to Tampa, because you wouldn’t want the donut on the front tire for the Interstate. But you need to be careful driving, keep your speed down. You’ll want to get that fixed as soon as possible.”

  Her heart sank. “Thanks.”

  She shot a quick text to Tony, knowing he’d get it when they arrived, because he’d turn his phone on as soon as they landed, before they even reached the gate. After sending Jenny an update text, too, Shayla pulled out of the driveway and headed for I-75.

  “Here we go,” she said as she impatiently waited for the last light she’d have to sit through before getting on I-75 to turn green. Once she merged into traffic and increased her speed, she realized exactly what the mechanic meant. She’d driven cars on donuts before, but the SUV was a different beast. At sixty, she felt an odd shimmy in the back end that she knew wasn’t normal. At sixty-five, she realized she wasn’t going to be able to push it any faster than that without freaking herself out. Making it up to seventy, the speed limit, wasn’t going to happen.

  “Motherfucker,” she said.

  But she was en route, at least. Better late than never.

  Her excitement built with every mile north she drove, until she reached the exit in Bradenton to take I-275 to the Skyway Bridge. As she took the exit, she smiled and cranked up the radio.

  Home free!

  As she closed in on the southern tollbooth, she changed lanes to take the left automatic SunPass lane. They both had transponders for their cars, although hers was now sitting on their dining room table after she’d removed it from her Civic. It meant not having to go through one of the manned toll lanes and wait for the cars in front of her.

  But she found herself slowing even sooner than normal, a heavy amount of traffic she wasn’t expecting clogging all the lanes, red taillights everywhere. Instead of breezing through the SunPass lane, she crept through at a literal snail’s pace, barely making progress, her fear increasing until she finally risked pulling up the Waze app on her phone. Southbound traffic was streaming by them, but a sick feeling filled her as she saw dozens of red dots all over the map between the southern rest stop and the main span of the bridge.

  A massive accident.

  Bridge closed.

  When she finally made it through the tollbooth, she saw FHP officers walking from car to car, and she rolled her window down.

  “Bridge is closed, ma’am. At least two to three hours. You can merge to the right and take the southern rest stop exit and detour back to I-75.”

  “Thank you.”

  She managed to wait until she got her window rolled up and the officer walked away to burst into tears.