Page 41 of Friendly Skies

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He threw his phone onto the coffee table in frustration, then retrieved it and scrolled through his messages. Focused on Darius’ issue and his own anxiety, Luis hadn’t responded to either of his sisters or his mother, even though they’d texted him several times since the morning. If he didn’t answer them, there’d be hell to pay. He might be the oldest and the only boy, but that didn’t stop his sisters trying to mother him every bit as much as Rosa did.

Sure enough, the messages were filled with mijo this and mijo that as they asked what had happened with Darius and why there was a video of him and Darius kissing at the airport. Luis answered them as well as he was able. He and Darius hadn’t had a conversation yet about what they were now. Boyfriends? Partners? Neither term carried the same sense of connection as the term they’d been using all along: almas gemelas. Soul twins.

As for what their relationship looked like now, Luis didn’t have a clue. Did they continue as they’d been before with the addition of fucking? A best-friends-with-benefits thing? Or were they on a path to something else? And what was that “something else”? What did that even mean?

Luis’ head was too fuzzy from the margaritas to think deeply about the questions, but he felt the anxiety of not knowing well up in his chest until he felt he might explode.

Nana Sahib, Kanpur, and the Controversial Massacre That Shocked Britain

The Siege of Delhi (1857): The Most Important Battle of the Uprising

Bahadur Shah Zafar and the Revival of the Mughal Empire During the Rebellion of 1857

The Meerut Mutiny and the Capture of Delhi: How the Rebellion Began

Chapter ten

Darius

Darius’ feet pounded outa steady eight mph rhythm on the treadmill in the complex’s gym. He’d already run five miles on the thing in addition to punching the shit out of the heavy bag in the corner for about half an hour. So much sweat poured off him that the towel he’d brought to the gym was soaked, and he still couldn’t clear his mind of the expression on the corporate lawyers’ faces as they told him he was suspended pending an investigation.

The lawyers had been condescending and cold, as if they’d already decided he was guilty, which didn’t make any sense to Darius. He answered their questions, went through the incident on the plane moment by moment from start to finish, and answered more questions as they watched several passenger videos of the incident on a massive screen in the law firm’s conference room. None of the videos had a great angle, and all but one of them had been taken facing the back of the plane, so Darius was fully visible, while Jason and the woman were only shown from the back. The one video that had been taken frombehind Darius ended just before he and Jason closed in on the woman because the phone’s battery died, so the most crucial part of the incident hadn’t been recorded. Rachel and Michael had given statements as well, but Darius knew their view had been obstructed by him, and no one—passenger or attendant—had had a clear enough view of what happened after he’d gotten the woman into the seat at the rear of the plane.

Only after all of this did the lawyers tell Darius that the woman was alleging he’d touched her breasts and was asking for criminal charges filed. While Darius wanted to scream at them that not only wasn’t he the kind of asshole who could take advantage of a situation like that—because who did that kind of thing?—he was also gay, so the allegation made no sense.

“Is it possible my hand made contact with her breast?” Darius asked rhetorically, choosing to keep himself under control. “Sure. It’s possible. I was focused on getting this woman, who was threatening me and other passengers with a weapon, secured in a seat. My attention was on whatherhands were doing. At no time did I intentionally touch her in a way that was inappropriate.” He’d shaken his head. “She was intoxicated—perhaps she doesn’t remember things clearly.”

One of the lawyers leaned forward. “How do you know she was intoxicated? My understanding was this occurred an hour into the flight, and beverage service hadn’t been started because of the turbulence. Even if she’d been drinking before the flight, there would have been almost two hours for her to sober up before this incident.”

Darius hadn’t had an answer for them, but as his feet pounded out another mile, it occurred to him that the woman might have smuggled alcohol on the plane the same way she’d brought the knife. If she’d ordered drinks at one of the airport bars and tipped the drinks into a water bottle, it would have been possiblefor her to keep drinking the entire time, and Darius knew he’d smelled alcohol on her breath.

At ten miles, Darius slowed the treadmill to a cooldown pace. Anger still simmered under the surface, but he was calm enough to think more clearly. Luis had been right—he needed his own lawyer before he sat down with the police. As soon as he took a shower, he was going to call Micah and see if Jake had come up with names for him to contact.

He shook his head as he refilled his water bottle. This was not how he’d envisioned spending the day after Luis got home, and it irked him that this situation was stealing all the joy he’d felt at finally being able to call Luis his, at being able to think about a future in which they might get married, have a family, at finally saying “I love you” to Luis and meaning it in the fullest sense of the word.

Though, Darius thought as he wiped down the treadmill and nodded to the two other guys in the gym, had any of that changed how he felt about Luis? Hadn’t they basically been a couple since college? Now that they’d declared their feelings, was his love any deeper, any more “real” than it had been before Luis’ blurted out the confession of having those same feelings? He knew it was too early to make a definitive statement about it, but he wondered how much had actually changed and why it seemed like something should have as he walked through the pool area to get back to his apartment.

The day had turned sunny and warm, and every lounge chair in the pool area was occupied by at least one tanned and fit guy. Darius wasn’t looking at any of them, though, not even when a couple of guys he knew called out to him wondering what—or who—he’d been doing to work up such a sweat.

With a wave and a laugh, Darius passed through the gate and headed for the stairs to the second floor. He’d almost made it when a familiar figure coming down made him pause and thenshrink into the shadows. Andrés descended and headed for the parking lot. How the man seemed to know when Luis was home by himself, Darius had no clue, but this was the first time he’d seen Andrés at the condo, and even now, the visit had happened while he was in the gym.

In the year that the man had been in jail, Darius had almost forgotten the sense of dread and worry he felt knowing Andrés had been near Luis without anyone else around. He was torn between needing to rush up the stairs and reassure himself that Luis was all right and the desire to follow Andrés into the parking lot and tell him to stay away. As usual, the former won out. His concern for Luis would always take precedence over anything else.

The condo was quiet as Darius stepped through the front door. He closed it softly, listening for Luis as he took off his running shoes and left them in the shoe keeper underneath the table in the entranceway. Walking softly, alert for any sound of Luis in distress, Darius made his way through the living room, checked the kitchen, then started down the hallway to the bedrooms. The bathroom door was open at the end of the hall, but the one to their bedroom was shut. Darius paused with his hand on the knob, listening again, but heard nothing from inside the room. He knocked lightly, then turned the handle and pushed open the door. The shades were drawn, and the room was grayed with shadow.

Luis lay sprawled on the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes.