Page 82 of The Law of Attraction
Boarding for their flight started five minutes early, and only when they went to line up did she remember that they wouldn’t be sitting together. Adam had a seat in first class.
“You can go ahead and get on,” she pointed out. “They’ve already boarded first class.”
He shook his head and brushed a kiss across her lips. “I’d rather spend a few more minutes with you.”
When it was Olivia’s turn to board, Adam followed her onto the plane, but instead of peeling off at the first class cabin, he walked her to her seat and hoisted her bag into the overhead compartment for her.
“Excuse me,” he said to the large and very uncomfortable-looking man occupying the aisle seat next to Olivia’s middle. “How would you like to sit in first class?”
The man’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” Adam said, presenting his boarding pass. “I’d just rather sit beside my girlfriend.”
Olivia gaped, fish-eyed, as the man in the aisle seat accepted his offer. Not only had Adam just sacrificed the luxury of free alcohol and hot towels in order to ride in coach with her, but there was also the not-so-small matter of him calling her his girlfriend.
Had he actually meant it? Or was it merely for her seatmate’s sake? A more expedient explanation than coworker I’ve slept with but we haven’t really worked anything out yet beyond that?
She slid into the middle seat as Adam stowed his suitcase, and fastened her seat belt with shaky, fumbling fingers. He sank down beside her and lifted the armrest between them before feeling around for his own seat belt.
“Thank you,” she said, choosing to ignore the girlfriend of it all. “You didn’t have to do that.”
His dark eyes flashed as he squeezed her thigh. “Who says I did it for you?”
Twenty minutes later, when the plane began taxiing for takeoff, she felt Adam stiffen beside her. It was subtle, but she could feel the tension radiating through the air between them, like ripples in a pond.
She set her knitting down and reached for his hand.
“Thank you,” he said, squeezing her fingers between his.
“Who says I did it for you?” she replied, squeezing back.
As the plane picked up speed, preparing to hurtle itself into the air, Adam closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. Olivia rested her head on his shoulder, and they held on to each other as they left the ground.
She felt a small pang as they left Texas behind. Not because it was home—or used to be—but because it was where she and Adam had found each other.
Even though the trip had in no way been a vacation, she couldn’t help worrying that this would turn out to be like one of those vacation romances that fizzled out as soon as they went back to their normal lives.
She was probably just being paranoid and silly, but she wouldn’t be her if she wasn’t worrying about something.
Chapter Twenty
LAX was perhaps as quiet as Olivia had ever seen it when they stepped off the plane. Sunday nights were apparently not a big travel time.
They rolled their bags through the airport at a leisurely pace, neither of them feeling any particular urgency now that they’d arrived at their destination—miraculously, without a single disaster.
“Did you drive?” Adam asked as a sign for the airport garage loomed ahead of them.
“No, Uber.”
“Same.”
They struck out for the area designated for rideshare pickups. As they stepped outside, into the blessedly dry and relatively cool air, Olivia breathed a sigh of relief. There might be some things she missed about Texas, but the weather was most definitely not one of them.
“Where do you live?” Adam asked, pulling out his phone. “Do you want to share a car?”
“We can,” she said. “Or…” She bit down on her lip, deliberating whether she should even make the suggestion.
He looked up from his phone, eyebrows raised.
