Oh, and it’d be really awesome if you’d respond so I know you got this.

Unable to hold back, Cam smiled. This woman… She was something else. She was the female version of Dare. That’s what she was.

Thumbing the buttons on the screen, Cam responded with: I heard you. Loud and clear.

Good. Now quit being a douche.

Dropping his phone into his pocket, Cam turned to stare out at the water again. The tightness in his chest was still there, but he felt a measure of relief. Whether it was Dare’s not-so-subtle way of putting him in his place or Milly’s … one way or another, his eyes were open this morning.

And he was seeing things he hadn’t seen before.

Not that he knew what exactly that meant yet.

Planes weren’t her thing, but Milly had learned to get over that fear. Having worked for Gannon for ten years, she’d done it enough times at this point. It seemed they were going one place or another every other week. Usually at this point, she would’ve been meditating while the crew members prepared for take off.

But for this trip, she had other things to worry about.

Like the fact that her best friend was moping around as though someone had run over his dog.

Poor Gannon.

She did feel bad for him. Which was why she’d sent the text to Cam. The idea had come to her last night after she’d forced Gannon to go to bed and made herself at home in his guest room. As she was lying there, trying to figure out how she could fix this, or at least try, it’d hit her. So, she’d snuck back downstairs, found Gannon’s phone, broken into it using the password he didn’t think she knew—seriously, the code was her birthday, how could she not know?—and jotted down Cam’s number.

Being Gannon’s friend, it was her responsibility to take matters into her own hands when he was too upset to do so. And since Cam was obviously in no shape to figure this out on his own, Milly was helping him, too.

“Would you like something to drink before we take off?” the first-class attendant asked her, leaning in and smiling.

Milly glanced at Gannon. He shook his head. “We’re good for now, thanks.”

When the woman moved to the people on the other side of the aisle, Milly turned her phone so that the camera faced Gannon, then hit the button to take a picture.

“What are you doing?” Gannon asked, frowning over at her.

Milly smiled. “Nothing.”

A few seconds later, she’d sent the picture to Cam with the caption: I think the frown is permanent.

She wasn’t above making Cam feel bad for what he’d done. Sure, she felt some sympathy for him. What he’d gone through couldn’t have been easy. Gannon had filled her in on the sad details after he’d had a couple of drinks, and the more he’d talked, the more upset she’d gotten.

But still, these two men were meant to be together. Milly had known Gannon for a long time, and not once in all those years had she ever seen him as happy, as carefree as he’d been for the past few weeks. Cam had lit something inside him, and Milly hated to see that flame die because these two stubborn men were too blind to see it.

So, when she’d woken up that morning, she’d made a vow to do something to help them both. Sure, Gannon would probably be a little peeved when he found out she’d interfered, but if it helped them to see what they’d be losing by giving up at this point, then it would be totally worth it.

Twenty-Nine

One week later—Thursday (Hong Kong)

“What are you doing?” Gannon asked Milly as she was typing away on her phone. They’d just boarded the plane in Hong Kong after a four-hour flight from Singapore. Only eighteen more hours and they’d finally be home.

“Nothing,” she said, looking up at him, a twinkle in her clear blue eyes. “What are you doing?”

Studying her momentarily, he tried to figure out if she was hiding something. Knowing Milly, she was; he just didn’t know what. For the past week, she’d been acting strange, taking pictures of him when she didn’t think he saw her, texting all the time, day and night.

“Who’re you texting?” he asked, glancing down at her phone.

“None of your business,” she muttered, turning her phone screen so that he couldn’t see it.

Any other day, Gannon would’ve dug deeper, tried to get her to tell him, but he didn’t have the energy. He was waiting for the attendants to close the door so he could relax and hopefully get some sleep.

He hadn’t slept for shit all week. Every night, it had been around three o’clock before he finally managed to close his eyes, but at that point, the only thing he could do was relive the moments he’d shared with Cam. Every single one, starting back to the day he’d walked into that marina and gotten his first look at the man who would so easily steal his heart, then crush it into oblivion.

And a week apart hadn’t helped him at all. He still thought about Cam every waking moment, still dreamed about him during the few hours he managed to pass out. But now that he was heading back to Texas, he wasn’t sure how he was going to survive knowing Cam was only a short drive away. It had been relatively easy while he’d been in Singapore. With the time difference, not to mention the miles between them … Gannon had focused on work, because that was the reason he’d been there.

He feared that once he was home, he wouldn’t be as strong.

If only he could harden his heart, forget about Cam, forget about the amazing four weeks they’d shared. Sure, there had been ups and downs, but that was expected. It had been emotional on so many levels. Unfortunately, Gannon was too invested at this point, and the breakup was brutal. He feared he would suffer for a long time to come.

Thankfully, he’d had Milly around to keep his mind off things, even if she’d been acting strange. He was never bored with her around, and since she’d known he was devastated, she’d doubled her efforts to keep him in a good mood. Over the years, he’d learned to fake it, and this trip had been no different. The last thing Gannon would do was let people know he’d been hurt. It was easier to pretend he wasn’t human than to cut himself open and bleed for people.

But now he had eighteen hours to prepare himself for the inevitable.

Only he wasn’t sure that was enough time.

Eighteen hours later—Friday morning

The ding of the seat belt warning had Gannon looking up. A second later, the flight attendant’s voice came over the speaker, announcing they were preparing to land.

Finally.

Gannon was back in Texas—technically, although still thirty thousand feet in the air. According to the disembodied voice, they were preparing to land in the next half hour, and he couldn’t wait. He was antsy and fidgety, something that was completely foreign to him. He’d spent the better part of the flight from Hong Kong to Dallas taking care of business, sending emails to get everything set up for the new operations director he’d hired while in Singapore, but now that he was almost home, he couldn’t focus long enough to do anything more.

From the moment he’d stepped onto the plane in Austin eight days ago, preparing to go overseas, he’d been plagued by thoughts of Cam, trying to figure out how things had gone so very wrong. Not a minute went by when he hadn’t wished he was back in Texas so he could… He didn’t even know what he’d wanted to do. It wasn’t as though he could simply walk up to Cam and insist that the man love him back.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way.

Gannon knew that Cam didn’t like the fact that he traveled, and he knew why. Hell, he even understood why. He sympathized with Cam, understood how Cam felt, how tragic it was that his mother had died while she’d been away on a business trip, but surely other people in Cam’s life had traveled since then. The fact that they continued to come back should’ve reassured him, but that didn’t seem to be the case.