Page 108 of Protected from Reprisal
His mother jumps in. “Not a real pocket. What your dad means is it’s like a bubble. So when we run into it, it bumps us a little. But it’s fine. We’ll be landing in Austin in less than an hour, and then?—”
“More presents?”
Several people around him chuckle.
“Yes,” his mom replies patiently. “More presents at your gran and gramp’s.”
Ace rubs my shoulder, and I turn to find him watching me with concern. “You okay?” he asks.
I look at him in confusion. “About the turbulence? Of course.” Considering the number of flights I’ve been on in my life, a little spot of turbulence doesn’t faze me.
“Not the turbulence. Visiting my family for Christmas.”
“Well,” I tease, hoping by making a joke of it, it’ll settle my nerves. “If I’m not, it’s a little late now. Considering we’re”—I check my watch—“less than two hours from arriving at your brother’s house.”
Ace grimaces. “Shit.” A beat later, he casts a guilty look in the little boy’s direction. “If you’re having second thoughts, we can figure something out. Tell my family our plane was delayed. Cancelled. We both got food poisoning. Something.”
“I’m not having second thoughts. Really. I was just joking.”
“But you’re feeling anxious about it.”
I look into Ace’s worried eyes. “I’m nervous, yes. But I think that’s normal, being nervous before meeting your boyfriend’sfamily. If you could have met my parents, wouldn’t you have been nervous?”
Ace nods immediately. “Of course. I’d be scared shi—” He stops to flash a guilty look around the airplane cabin before continuing, “Yes. I’d be terrified that your parents wouldn’t approve of me.”
“They would, you know.”
His expression turns thoughtful. “I hope so.” Lacing his fingers between mine, he adds, “I was nervous about seeing your teammates. So I guess it’s sort of like that.”
“But you’d met them before. On base. In trainings.”
“That was different. Back then, I was just another guy. And when we’d run into each other, all we talked about was stuff like sports and the weather.”
“How was that different?”
Ace’s brows arch in anare you being intentionally denseexpression. “Because now, I’m your boyfriend. Which means they’re going to be on the defensive. Wanting to make sure I’m good enough for you, that I won’t cause trouble, shi—stuff like that. They’re protective of you, as they should be. And I wanted to make sure they all knew that I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
I squeeze Ace’s hand. “I know you won’t hurt me.”
“Theydidn’t know that, though.”
“I think they do now,” I reply. “Especially after what you did for Malik.”
“Wedid for Malik,” Ace corrects. “It wasn’t just me. It was a team effort.”
“Still. They approve. I could tell.”
A sweetly eager expression moves across Ace’s face. “Really? How?”
“Because Saint said you were one of the good ones. Kai and Ford didn’t say anything, which means they approve. If they didn’t, they would have pulled me aside and told me. AndMalik… he’s going to come to Blade and Arrow this spring for a visit. He wouldn’t do that?—”
“Maybe he wants to make sure you’re doing okay?”
“No.” I nudge Ace’s arm. “Because he likes you. He likes everyone on the team. And he wants to get to know everyone better.”
It was hard leaving Malik after waiting so long to see him. But once he was released, there was no point staying in Bethesda any longer, not with Malik headed off to Baltimore to stay with his parents.But he’ll be fine,I keep reminding myself. He has the support of his family, who are over the moon to have their son back again. They’ll help him through counseling and the upcoming surgery on his hands.
“I won’t lie,” Malik admitted to me the day he was released. “It’s fucking hard. Even though I prayed for this, it feels kind of surreal. Like I keep waiting to wake up, only to find out my rescue was just a dream.”
