Sweet Filthy Boy by Christina Lauren

I check in, silently urging the woman at the ticketing counter to move faster.
    “You’re cutting it very close,” she tells me with a disapproving frown. “Gate forty-four.”
    Nodding, I tap a nervous hand on the counter and sprint away once she’s handed me my ticket, folded neatly in a paper sleeve. Security is dead at night on a Tuesday, but once I’m through, the long hallway to the gate at the end looms ahead of me. I’m running too fast to be worried about Ansel’s reaction, but the adrenaline isn’t enough to drown out the protesting of my permanently weak femur as I sprint.
    At the gate, our flight is already boarding, and I have a panicked moment thinking maybe he’s already on the plane when I can’t pick him out of the mass of heads lined up to head down the jetway. I search wildly, self-consciously, and it’s a horrible, anxious feeling now that I’m here: telling him I changed my mind and want to come to France and
    live with him
    rely on him
    be with him
    requires a type of bravery I’m simply not sure I have outside of a hotel room where it’s all a temporary game, or in a bar where liquor let me find the perfect role to play all night. It’s possible I mentally calculate the danger of being relatively drunk for the entirety of the next few weeks.
    A warm hand curls around my shoulder and I turn, finding myself staring up at Ansel’s wide, confused green eyes. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he shakes his head as if to clear it.
    “Did they let you come down here to say goodbye?” he asks, seeming to try out the words. But then he looks closer: I’ve changed into white jeans, a blue tank top under a green hoodie. I have a carry-on slung over my shoulder, I’m out of breath and wearing what I can only imagine is a look of sheer panic on my face.
    “I changed my mind.” I hitch my bag higher on my shoulder and watch his reaction: his smile comes a little too slowly to immediately put me at ease.
    But at least he does smile, and it seems genuine. Then he confuses me even more, saying, “I guess I can’t stretch out and sleep on your seat now.”
    I have no idea what to say to that, so I just smile awkwardly and look down at my feet. The gate attendant calls out another section of the plane to board and the microphone squawks sharply, making us both jump.
    And then, it seems like the entire world falls completely silent.
    “Shit,” I whisper, looking back down the way I came. It’s too bright, too loud, too far away from Vegas or even the enclosed privacy of his San Diego hotel room. What the hell am I doing? “I don’t have to come. I didn’t—”
    He shushes me, taking a step closer and bending to kiss my cheek. “I’m sorry,” he says carefully, moving from one cheek to the other. “I’m all of a sudden very nervous. That wasn’t funny. I’m so glad you’re here.”
    With a heavy exhale, I turn when he presses his hand to my lower back, but it’s as if our heated bubble has been punctured and we’ve stepped offstage and into the even more glaring lights of reality. It presses down on me, suffocating. My feet feel like they’re made of cement as I hand my ticket to the gate attendant, forcing a nervous smile before stepping onto the jetway.
    What we know is dimly lit bars, playful banter, the clean, crisp sheets of hotel rooms. What we know is the unrequited possibility, the temptation of the idea. The make-believe. The adventure.
    But when you choose the adventure, it becomes real life.
    The jetway is filled with a strange buzzing sound I know will stay in my head for hours. Ansel walks behind me, and I wonder if my jeans are too tight, my hair too messy. I can feel him watching me, maybe checking me out now that I’ll be invading his real life. Maybe reconsidering. The truth is, there’s nothing romantic about boarding a plane, flying for fifteen hours with a virtual stranger. It’s the idea that’s exciting. There’s nothing escapist or glossy