I’d worked my ass off, my every second consumed with studying, the gym, flying, or thinking about Sam. Planning a point-by-point plan to get her back, to force her to see that she was it for me.
Once my jacket was buttoned, we headed downstairs. “Your parents are coming?” Jagger asked.
“Mom’s here with Mia. Parker and I are still working things out, and both Joey and Connie are needed at home. You?”
Jagger snorted as we hit the first floor. “Yeah, so he can hold a press conference and I can smile like a puppet? No thanks.”
“Agreed.”
“I am a lucky man,” Jagger said as he wrapped his arm around Paisley, who was wearing a long green dress. “Not that Josh isn’t, too,” he said to Ember as she came out of the bathroom in a long black one.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ember waved him off and stuck her arm out for Josh to help her with a bracelet.
“Everybody to the car!” Jagger called out, then stopped once the three others were already out. “Crap, I forgot Paisley’s wings. Masters, will you wait here?”
“Sure.” I leaned back against the wall and listened to him curse from the next room.
“Fuck!” A drawer slammed.
“Can’t find them?” I asked.
“Apparently not!”
I swallowed the lump that gathered in my throat. “You can give her the set I bought.” For Sam.
His head popped out of the doorframe. “No, man, I know those were supposed to be hers. I couldn’t ask you for that.”
“Paisley’s feelings will be butchered because you’re a moron, and I’m not going to let that happen,” I said, heading up the stairs. They were in my nightstand, where they’d been ever since I bought them. I flicked open the velvet box. The dainty, platinum aviation wings hung from a platinum chain, slight but strong. Just like Sam. They should have been hers, hung in that perfect spot under her collarbone, but I’d never worked up the damn courage to ask her to come back for this. Or to pin me like she’d promised so long ago.
She was happy in Colorado, finding her footing.
I was headed to North Carolina next week before Christmas.
Turns out that whole “set your love free and it will come back?” Yeah, that’s all bullshit. My eyes closed as I took a deep breath, then snapped the box shut and left my room.
“Here,” I said, thrusting the box into Jagger’s hands at the bottom of the steps.
“I can’t—”
“You can. Shut up and get in the car. You’re making us late.” I walked past him and into the cold December air. It had a bite to it, but was still pretty damn mellow.
“There’s room!” Paisley called out from the passenger side of Jagger’s Defender.
The fifth wheel.
“I think I’ll drive, but thank you, Paisley.” I didn’t wait for her reaction, or to listen to them tell me it was okay to ride with them. That it was okay to miss her. Okay to spend time with my best friend. If one more person told me everything was okay, I was going postal.
Everything was not fucking okay.
I drove to the Landing, where our ball was being held, and parked a little ways away. All the guys with dates needed the closer spots and it wasn’t like I had to make the hike in heels.
“Thank you for saving my ass,” Jagger said as I met him in the lobby.
I nodded my head. At least if someone was going to wear Sam’s wings, it was Paisley.
“I think they have us sitting by class. We found our nameplates, but Josh and Carter are across the floor.”
“Who did Carter bring?” I asked, not really caring.
“Morgan.” Jagger grinned. “As friends, of course.”
“Right,” I drawled.
The ballroom was packed as we descended the steps, every seat filled with ball gowns and dress blues. We made our way to our table where Paisley, Patterson, and Wallace from our class, and their wives waited.
Grace’s setting was still there. “I forgot to tell them she wasn’t coming,” I muttered.
Jagger threw Paisley a nervous glance as he sat on her other side. What the hell did the guy have to be nervous about? The other pilots introduced us to their wives, and I nodded politely.
“Honey, this is Masters. He’s the lucky bastard that got Fort Bragg,” Patterson said.
“Oh, that’s where my family is,” his wife said. “You’ll love it.”
The pit in my stomach formed like it did every time I thought about it. But I’d made my choice, and I’d report after the New Year.
“You’ll love Colorado,” Jagger offered. “I went to college there, and it’s gorgeous.”
Paisley shot me a look that told me that’s where I should have chosen. No shit. But there was nothing I could do about it.
“And you guys are headed for Fort Campbell, right?” Wallace asked.
“We are,” Paisley replied as Jagger kissed the back of her hand.
As the waitress took our drink orders, I motioned to the setting next to me. “Actually we won’t be needing—”
“Oh, but we will,” Paisley said with a smile to the waitress, who then moved on.
“You want to explain?”
She full-on grinned. “I may have called in a favor with a friend when I knew Grace couldn’t make it.”
My jaw clenched. God love well-intentioned Southern ladies. “I’m not sure tonight was really the night to set me up on a blind date, Paisley, though I’m sure your friend is lovely.”