Josie Guerrero is focused on one thing: getting accepted into the prestigious art studies program within the Art School at the University of Southern Washington. With thirteen weeks to create her sophomore portfolio, she knows she can't afford any d...
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Of all the things I expected to happen on my twenty-second birthday, sitting on a privet plane sure as fuck wasn't one of them. But here I am, thirty-thousand feet in the air with a goddamn champagne glass in my hand.
I've never seen anything so luxe in my life — pristine cream carpet, polished black walls, twelve rows of spacious leather seats that lead to a bathroom and a fully furnished bedroom in the back of the plane. Though, out of all of it, my eyes are fixed on the dark velvet ceiling that seems to resemble a midnight sky, the minuscule lights embedded into the fabric a map of the stars.
It's fucking incredible. And I might actually be able to enjoy it if Luke would stop fidgeting for two goddamn seconds. His knee is bouncing erratically, his thumb drumming a concordant tempo against his armrest, and that godforsaken click of the window shade inching up for him to peer out into the mass of clouds for three seconds only to close it again is driving me fucking insane.
It would be enough for me to want to kill him if I wasn't already used to his fight anxiety. Usually, if we fly out at night for away games, he'll pop a pill and pass out before we even hit the air, but since his medicine usually has him out for the rest of the night, and I suspect he has no intention of sleeping when we land — wherever the fuck that might be — he's raw-dogging his flight anxiety.
After two years of sitting beside him on team flights, I know what he needs from me:
A distraction from the anxiety
or
Silence to suffer in peace
And since I've already tried to distract him by showing him a Reddit thread made by a group of college basketball fans detailing why they think Luke will be a better first-draft pick than Grayson Wilder — a link I've kept in my Luke's having a meltdown on a plane folder in my notes app — and he barely grunted in response as he wiped his sweaty palms down his black jean-clad thighs, I'm officially throwing in the towel.
I have no idea where this plane is taking us, but for Luke's sake, I hope it's somewhere close.
"You going to finish that?"
He doesn't wait for my response before he swipes my champagne glass and knocks it back like a cheap shot of tequila. His cheeks have grown pallid since we hit cruising altitude, and his knee bounces even faster as he wipes his hands down his thighs again, his eyes flicking around the cabin before lingering on the seats two rows ahead. The seats where Olivia and Thompson are currently watching a movie, their shared headphones split between them.
Luke's had a hard time taking his eyes off of her since she boarded the plane.
She was late — came straight from her volleyball practice that ran longer than it was supposed to. We were all hanging out on the plane when her 2012 Honda Civic pulled into the parking lot of the private airport three minutes before we were scheduled for take-off. She sprinted across the tarmac in nothing but a sports bra, Nike Pro spandex shorts, black crew socks — her Slides clutched in her hand — and the kind of smile that rivaled the sun setting behind her. She was radiating an electric magnetism, an excitement so palpable I felt it charge the energy in the air around us as she climbed the stairs to the private plane, eyes wide as she took in the pure fucking opulence of the cabin. Her eyes lingered on the velvet midnight sky above until Luke walked down the aisle of the plane and stopped in front of her. He grabbed her bag from her shoulder, leaning down to whisper something in her ear, and then her eyes finally dropped from the ceiling art and met his, the tempestuous storm that always surges beneath her eyes whenever he's near flashed a little brighter at whatever he'd just said.
