Page 54 of Chasing You

But there can’t be anyone right now, not with the way he’s being with me. That’s the one thing I latch onto in the spiral my mind is currently following, thinking about Miles with other women.

Miles chuckles. “He’s my first officer and my co-pilot, for most of my off-duty flights anyway. I guess you would say he’s my best friend.”

“You never really had one of those.” The words just spill out, I’m hopeless.

“Not until you.” His eyes grow sad again, and I feel my face drop.

“Sorry,” he waves a dismissing hand between us. “Look I just wanted to say that I’ll respect your boundaries, I’m sorry if I haven’t done that before now.”

I tip my head. “Miles, I—” I don’t know what to say. I can’tbacktrack now. Space is exactly what I asked for, even though I keep walking in on his.

“It’s okay.” He smiles, a small, sad smile, before he begins to swim towards the shore. “I’ll leave you to your spot.”

Now that he’s leaving, I don’t know if I’ll find any peace here. I watch him as he wades through the shallow water.

He turns to see me watching him with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Turn around.”

“Oh!” I spin around. It slipped my mind that he was skinny dipping this entire time.

I hear the sound of the waves lapping around his ankles as he walks out of the water, and I can’t help it. I slowly turn around and see his bare ass staring back at me. I take a second to admire it, admire him.God,he’s fit. I wonder if he’s still boxing? The broad set of his shoulders and hard lines of his back suggest so. He used to say it was the one thing that could take his mind to another place, I wonder if it’s still an escape for him.

The sight of his body shining with salty water reminds me of a day four years ago when he was hovering over me, his body dripping wet like it is now. But instead of walking away from me, he was walking me to his bedroom. It was the first time we had been together, but it felt like my first time full stop. I’d never experienced sex truly, not like that. Not until him.

His head starts to turn and I whip around in the water, hoping he missed the movement. I swear I hear him chuckle before a loud wave interrupts my eavesdropping. I swim a little further out, letting the current hold the weight of my body.

“Goodbye, Marina.” The words hit me like a slap in the face. A harsh wave crashing over me like a reminder.

I don’t turn around when I say, “Bye, Miles.”

chapter twenty-two

MILES

PAST

I watchthe clouds in front of me, my eyes focusing on nothing but the white puffs that pass us by as we fly through the blue sky above Italy.

I’m on an Everglades flight from Rome to Paris today, and the conditions couldn’t be better. My takeoff was so smooth that my co-pilot, James, even mentioned it. He’s a senior captain with Everglades who is stationed in Europe full-time. I’m supposed to be resting while he monitors the control panel for the next hour, but my mind won’t stop spinning.

It hasn’t stopped spinning since the day when Marina asked me that damn question.“What do you want, Miles?”

It completely stumped me. I don’t think I’ve been asked that question in a really long time. I didn’t know how to answer it, my mind was blank.

Being told for your whole life that happiness will find you when you reach the top hasn’t left much room for imagining anything other than reaching that threshold. So when asked how I see my future, I had nothing.

But when Marina spoke of her future, of what she wants, Icouldn’t help but insert myself into the image she was painting. I couldn’t stop the surge of my heart when I imagined myself as the father of her children, of the man who would run around that garden with them, who would splash their mom with water from the garden hose.

I’ve never thought much about being a father, I never had one that I could look to for inspiration. Looking at my dad and the way he was with us, that was never something I aspired for. But now, I think that maybe I could be different. Maybe I could be different for her.

What am I even talking about?

I don’t know the first thing about being a dad. How could I ever be a father when I spend more time in a plane than on land? I guess that would have to change. Would I have to give up work?

There are plenty of pilots I know who are fathers, but I see their wives at events, I see the way they look at their husbands with a sense of longing, even when they’re clinging to each other's arms.

I never want anyone I love to feel like that. I don't want Marina to feel like that.

I run a hand over my face. Why am I sitting here imagining this woman as my wife? I’ve known her for just over two months, yet I can’t imagine being with anybody else, not after the way she makes me feel. It terrifies me that she makes me question everything I’ve ever thought about myself. She makes me wonder if it’s all worth it. If reaching the top is worth all it’s cracked up to be, or if I’d find more happiness spending the rest of my life doing whatever I can to make her smile.

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