“Earth to Ember,” Luke sang.
“Oh, sorry.” I shook my head.
“Okay, well, if you’re done mentally fucking your boyfriend, I think I might have an idea. Remember that little expansion team my dad owns?”
I paused mid step, making Luke back up to fetch me. “I’d hardly call the Louisville Bobcats little. They’re an NHL team.”
“Yeah, well, I guess he got bored with hotels. Anyway, how about we get you guys phenomenal seats to the Sunday game, and then follow up with a suite at 21C? A little sports for him, a little pampering for you, some hotel sexy-times… What’s not to love about that send-off?”
The gears in my mind raced. “He owns the Bobcats.”
“I think I just said that. Really, Red, you’ve never cared about the money before, and this little thing does it for you?” He arched an eyebrow.
“No, it’s not the team…it’s the ice.”
A slow, scheming smile spread across his face. “Oh, I like where you’re going with this.”
“Yeah,” I said with a grin. “Me, too!”
Josh’s last weekend stateside was going to be perfect.
Chapter Six
JOSH
Three fucking days.
I tried not to think about it as we drove toward Louisville, but that was like ignoring the countdown on a nuclear bomb. Not going to happen. No matter what I did, the thought was there, tainting everything around me. Even Ember’s coffee creamer was a reminder that she’d be drinking it in an empty house in just seventy-two hours.
Because I’d be back in Hell. It would be different this time, right? I’d be medevacing the wounded, saving lives instead of taking them. The rescuer instead of the rescued. I’d be paying back what I owed to the crew that landed under fire to get my sorry ass.
So if everything would be different, why had the nightmares started up again? For the first year or so, they’d been hellish, but I hadn’t had them since Ember and I got together senior year in college. Now they were coming damn near every night. I’d never been so thankful that she could sleep through a hurricane.
She didn’t need this on her plate, too.
It sure as hell didn’t help that we’d had hardly any time together. Getting me progressed for flying in time meant flying odd hours and staying even longer ones at work prepping to leave. When I had managed to be home, she’d been at school.
“So where exactly are we going?” I asked her as we got closer to the city, threading through the traffic. Her feet were up on the dashboard of my Jeep, newly painted toes wiggling. It wasn’t my old Wrangler, but she looked just as good in the front seat of the four-door model as she had in my first one.
“Ummm…” she mumbled, flipping through screens on her cell phone like she did when she needed to distract herself from the speed I was driving.
“You could just put the address in the GPS, babe.” Besides, curiosity was killing me. I’d been instructed to pack for an overnight, and that was the only information I’d gotten until she pointed me toward Louisville and said, “Drive.”
“What’s the fun in that?” she asked. “Okay, in three miles you’ll get off.”
The corners of my mouth lifted. “Will I?”
She smacked my shoulder. “Seriously.”
I caught her hand and brought it to my lips, pressing a kiss against the soft skin. “But, honey, don’t you want to give me a good send-off?” I glanced over with fake puppy-dog eyes. “I’m going to war, you know.”
A laugh tumbled past her lips. “Did that really work for you the first time?”
My smile slipped. “I didn’t leave a woman behind last time.”
She stroked the back of my neck. “You didn’t have one to come home to, either. This isn’t like the last time,” she finished quietly.
“I’m not planning on leaving any pieces behind this trip,” I tried to joke. It fell flat, and I regretted the words as soon as I saw her turn to stare out the window. “Hey,” I said to get her attention. She looked back at me, her eyes holding a depth of sadness I couldn’t tease my way out of. “It’s going to be okay.”
She didn’t bother to fake a smile. “This is our exit.”
I followed her directions until we pulled into a posh hotel in Downtown Louisville. “Nice choice,” I said with an appreciative nod once we hit the art museum-style foyer.
She smiled like a little kid at Christmas. “Wait until you see what else I have planned.”
She signed us in while I waited by our bags, checking out the artwork. Hell, she’d barely let me get the luggage when we parked, even insisting on unloading the car herself. She was so hell-bent on making this weekend perfect, and it was adorable, but she had to realize that we could have spent the time binge-watching Netflix on the couch and it would have been just as perfect.
I only needed her.
“Let’s go!” She waved the room keys, and I followed her lead, taking the elevator up and up until we reached the penthouse.
The doors opened into the kind of hotel room seen in movies, the kind where black-tie parties were the norm, and butter-bar lieutenants didn’t belong. “This is amazing,” I said, already having mentally kissed half of this paycheck good-bye on what it would cost us. Entirely worth it.
She looked into the separate bedroom, and then checked out the view from the window while I checked her out. The afternoon sunlight made her hair a brighter red, the locks heavy where they hung down her back.