Page 35 of Over & Out (Redbeard Cove #3)

Chris

W e don’t spend the night in LA. Instead, we head back to the airport.

The airplane is right where we left it. Turns out it was cheaper to hang on to it for seventy-two hours than charter it twice.

Unfortunately, the flight attendant isn’t available for the return trip, and it’ll take an hour or more to get a replacement.

“The flight’s only three hours,” Hopper tells me, “and I plan on sleeping the whole time.”

Good. That’s good. Then I won’t have to deal with any of this for a little while longer. Because after what Tru told me, I’m this close to jumping on the man and throttling him. Regardless of what Tru said, he’s still pushing me away. I have no idea what to do with any of it.

Hopper sits beside me without saying a word, and as the plane takes off, he once again takes my hand. Apparently it doesn’t matter to him that we’re not talking to each other. He still wants to make sure I feel safe, and that feels so good it almost hurts.

Hopper doesn’t fall asleep right away. Once we’re level, he pulls out that little notebook again and scribbles something in it.

I can’t help but glance over, curiosity getting the better of me.

Not to see if I can read it, but to see if I can tell what it is.

A journal? A list of grievances? Recipes?

I can’t tell, but it looks like there are a bunch of pages torn out of it in the front.

Hopper snaps the notebook closed. I look quickly out the window, pulse thrumming. To my left, which is east, I can see the sky beginning to lighten. I’ve been awake almost twenty-four hours, and the exhaustion suddenly hits me like a tidal wave. I stifle a yawn with my fist.

“You can take the bed,” Hopper tells me.

“There’s a bed?” I ask and immediately regret it. Of course there’s a bedroom on a plane like this.

Hopper doesn’t bother making fun of me about it. “It’s only a double, but it’s the door at the back. Go nuts.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “You can have it.”

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“Impossible,” he yawns. “G’night.” He folds his arms, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes. There’s a decent recline on the chair—I could probably sleep here too. But I won’t do it next to him. I can’t.

I get up, heading for the chair across the aisle. But I don’t sit. I glance back at Hopper, who’s already breathing deeply. I want to see the bedroom, not that I’m going to use it. I don’t know why I’m being stubborn about it, but it feels weird taking it .

I push open the door at the back of the plane. It’s very nice, if a little masculine: all glossy wood and plush, smoky gray bedding.

I go over and sit on the edge of the mattress, telling myself I’m just going to see how it feels.

But the minute I settle into it, I let out a breath. It’s some kind of memory foam, damn it, and it feels so, so soft under me. I unzip my ankle boots and slip them off. Then I lie down, just for a minute.

I’m startled awake sometime later by a soft clap. I blink, then sit up fast. A glance at my phone says I’ve only been asleep for about twenty minutes.

I try to close my eyes again, but that sound sticks in my mind. What if it was some kind of mechanical issue with the plane?

That immediately sends a spike of adrenaline through me, nixing any thought of more sleep.

The ride’s been smooth so far, but if there’s something wrong, I need to tell the pilot.

As the irrational panic builds in my chest, I curse our rush to leave so fast. A flight attendant would know what to do.

I get up, tiptoeing into the main cabin.

Hopper’s star-fished across his seat. His head is lolling at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Maybe he’ll wake up with a massive crick in his neck.

Then I see what made the sound: his notebook has fallen onto the ground.

Relief settles over me. Okay, so I was overreacting about it being an engine thing. I sigh and bend down to pick it up. But when I do, my fingers slip, and the book falls again, this time landing on its spine. The book flops open to Hopper’s chicken scratch scrawled across the pages.

I don’t mean to snoop, I really don’t. But the words are right there. The date is right there. These are last night’s words; the ones he wrote when we were bickering on the way over.

I drop down to my knees, telling myself I’m just going to close the book.

But I freeze, because of course my eyes land on the words. And what I see makes me unable to move.

It’s not enough. Even when I’m with her, it’s not enough.

She’s so fucking beautiful, and she doesn’t see it.

When I’m being a jackass, and she looks like she wants to kill me.

When she’s just sitting there, eating her oranges.

Right now, she looks even more beautiful than she did three seconds ago.

She’s like a flower. Or a star. It hurts me to look at her.

Because I’m completely head over heels, upside down.

The page ends there. I look sideways, my heart thundering in my chest. It’s not about me. It can’t be. He doesn’t think like that. He’s not…

I take a breath, my eyes moving down again.

All it would take is reaching over and flipping to the next page. With my brain screaming at me about what a terrible idea this is, I reach out my hand.

“You sure you want to do that? ”

I startle so badly at Hopper’s voice I nearly lose my balance. “Shit!”

I right myself and stand up fast, my heart thudding even harder than before. I force myself to look at him. But when I do, I can’t process what I’m seeing. I expect him to be pissed. To want to reach down and snatch the book off the floor. Instead, he looks laid bare.

“They don’t stay in the notebook,” he says. “I rip them out and put them in the jar, so there’s not much more in the book. If you want to look.”

My heart’s going to beat right out of my chest. It’s going to fly out onto the floor just like this book.

“The next page is pretty telling, though,” Hopper admits.

“No,” I say, sudden anger flooding my system. Because no. This is not okay. “Hopper, you can’t be like that.” I point a shaking finger at the book on the ground. “And like this.” I point to nowhere. To the space between us.

Hopper just looks up at me like he’s waiting for me to figure something out.

Everything inside me is wobbly and loose. I can’t believe he feels that way. I can’t.

That wobbly thing inside me is going to spill everywhere. Then what?

“Fuck you,” I whisper. I turn on my heel and run to the bedroom.

“Chris, wait!” Hopper calls.

I slam the door shut behind me, but it just bounces off its useless hinges. Sinking down onto the bed, I clutch my ribs, as if my thundering heart might try to bang its way outside my body.

Hopper appears in the doorway, his knuckles white on the frame, his chest moving up and down as he breathes.

“No,” I whisper. Then “ Hopper .” My voice is strangled. Barely a whisper.

Hopper bends to fit under the doorway. He drops down in front of me. “Chris,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that. I didn’t mean for?—”

“No.” I shake my head, tears welling in my eyes. “I don’t want sorry . I want you to be straight with me. Like you promised.”

A shadow slips over Hopper’s face. He looks down.

I laugh drily. “Of course.”

But Hopper doesn’t move away like I think he will. Instead, he wraps his hands around my ankles, clinging to me as if he wants me to stay. “Everything in the book is true,” he whispers. “It’s the inside of my head, twenty-four fucking hours a day.”

The feeling of his rough fingers over my bare skin is torture. The heat that climbs up my limbs is torture. The way I feel about this impossible man is torture.

“Do you know,” I say, my voice unsteady, “that I’ve never been in a relationship longer than a few months?”

Hopper says nothing, just searches my eyes.

“It’s because I’ve never trusted anyone enough to let them in. Trusting someone—it’s a whole thing for me.”

“You can trust me, Chris.”

But that makes me rage. I kick his hands off my ankles.

“No I can’t! I can’t, Hopper, and you know that!

The minute I open myself up to you, you freak!

And that kiss”—I press my fingers to my lips as if I can still feel him there—“that kiss wasn’t the first time.

Remember in the hotel? We were having a great time, and then you just changed.

” I shake my head. “How can I ever believe I could trust you with my heart?”

“Because you have mine,” he says simply. “I never wanted to hide anything from you, Chris. But there are things going on. Complicated things.”

“Try me!” I exclaim, suddenly deeply glad there’s no flight attendant here with us. “Fucking try me, Hopper.”

His jaw tenses, his eyebrows slanting.

He wants to, I realize. He desperately wants to; he just doesn’t think he can.

Suddenly it hits me. He’s been hiding his whole life.

From his awful dad, who, by all accounts, exploited his son at every opportunity.

From the press, who did the same. From the world, who’s taken all his pain and made it their own public story.

“I’m not going to be like them, Hopper,” I whisper. “I think you know that.” I grip the bedding on either side of my thighs. “And I’m not asking you to tell me your deepest, darkest secrets.”

“I want to,” he says, his voice barely a rasp.

“I’ve never wanted anyone to know me before, Chris.

Not once. Some people do, by proxy, but never all of it.

Not the dark thoughts I have when I feel so fucking alone.

Not the fact that I shouldn’t feel those things when I could call anyone up and they’d come running over, ready to be at Hopper Donnach’s fucking service. ”

I reach a hand out before I know quite what I’m doing. I press my palm against his cheek, rough with stubble. His eyes close as he catches my hand with his.

“But you can trust me,” he says. “As little as my word is worth, I promise, sweetheart, you can trust me with your life.”

There it is, that word again. Sweetheart . It strokes some deep, desperate part of me.

“Okay,” I say, knowing how foolish this is.

How easily I walked back in. But I’m powerless against him.

Weak. If this is all I get, it’s enough.

Because looking at those words, I feel the same way as he does.

The knowledge of that should strike fear through me.

It will, later, I know. But right now, it’s heady.

Desperate. It sends heat coursing through my chest. And want throbbing between my hips.

“I’m still not good for you,” Hopper whispers, kissing my thumb. “You should know that.”

Delicious tendrils of need curl from where his lips meet my thumb. Tendrils that explode when he takes the digit into his mouth, the hot wet of his tongue curling against me in a way that has heat coiling low in my abdomen.

“You’re right,” I whisper. “Hopper Donnach. World-renowned asshole.”

His teeth come down on my thumb, just enough to be a tiny threat. Or a promise.

My tongue darts out of its own volition, flicking across my bottom lip. Like my mind is trying desperately to intervene, to find words that will put a stop to this.

But all my tongue does is appear to make Hopper go a little wild.

Because he makes a low, rumbling sound in his chest as he releases my thumb, setting my hand down in my lap.

Then he grasps my hips and pulls me to the edge of the bed.

“Last chance to say no,” he whispers, his lips so close to mine his mustache brushes against me. “Say no, Chris.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I say. Then I dart my tongue out, grazing the tip against his upper lip.

He lets out a sound that’s almost one of pain. Then he cups the back of my neck and pulls me in, crushing his lips against mine.