Chapter 4 – The Flight
Papi was waiting when Betty got home. She told him she was going to Rome and he smiled at her as he rose from the table. "I'm going shopping now. You'd better prepare yourself, because Hilda's coming up the front walk and she's been more impatient than me waiting for you to get home!" Betty laughed as he walked out the front door and stopped to say something to Hilda. Then her sister was in the door and dragging Betty over to the couch, sitting her down then perching beside her. "Spill it, Betty, you know I'm no good with waiting. Papi says you've solved all the problems you've been moping about. Jeeze, two guys fighting over her and she thinks she has problems," Hilda threw her hands up in the air as she mumbled to herself.
"Oh Hilda, it wasn't like that. Well, okay, I guess it was like that. But you make it sound so…so….easy."
"Of course it was easy, stupid. What did I tell you all along? Henry wasn't right for you. You were meant to be with Gio. That boy has crazy love for you! When you gonna start listening to your big sister anyway?"
"I can't help it Hilda. I just feel so stupid now that I look back at everything. It's just so obvious! Henry was my first love and it was so good in the beginning. It wasn't just Charlie and the baby, I just didn't feel that spark anymore. I was trying to re-capture the way things used to be, and that wasn't going to happen. We were trying to move backwards, and I didn't even see it at the time."
"Uh-huh, I know this part already. Get to the good stuff! What? Don't roll your eyes at me, missy. You're just as eager to tell me and you know it! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gio drives you crazy and is annoying and blahblahblah. Get to the part where you realized you looove him."
"I don't 'looove' him. I just… I just want to… explore the possibility. Okay, okay." Betty held her hands up in surrender as Hilda opened her mouth to contradict her. "I like him. More than just a little. A lot. Are you happy now? It turns out that when I stopped focusing on my problems and thought about the good things, most of them involved Gio. If I needed help, he was either the first one I'd call, or he'd just show up without me even having to ask. If I had good news, I'd rush to the deli to share it with him. He saved my disaster of a birthday, and made it so perfect! So, okay, yeah. I kind of freaked out a little when Henry came back, but that's just because my feelings for him seem so pale compared to Gio. He makes me feel more… Just more. He's so intense, and it's like there's this invisible thread between us, pulling me towards him. I'll tell you one thing, he sure knows how to keep me guessing. It's exciting!"
Hilda was pretending to swoon and fanning herself with her hand. "Girl that is H-O-T! You keep telling yourself that you only 'like' him. I know the truth!"
0-0-0
Betty gaped around the plane's cabin in awe. She'd never understood why Daniel liked to travel so much. In her limited experience, planes were small, cramped things full of crying babies and funny smells. Well there was a world of difference between that and this. Who knew that little curtain between the sections could hide so much! She was nestled into a very roomy, comfy chair snuggled under a blanket with a pillow tucked behind her neck and her complimentary travel pack spread out on the table in front of her. She jumped and let out a little squeak as Gio suddenly dropped into the seat beside her.
"Man, this is unbelievable. If this flight is any indication of what the hotel is going to be like, we have got to let Daniel book all of our trips from now on!" he chuckled as he looked over at her and the assortment of items spread in front of her. "Are you going through that thing again?" He reached over and plucked the eye mask from the tray. "Heyyy, a blindfold. You got a wild streak I don't know about? Maybe you should have joined me in the bathroom," he chuckled as Betty slapped his arm and grabbed the eye mask back.
"It's not a blindfold," she spluttered. "It's an eye mask. For sleeping! And no, I will not go to the bathroom with…" Gio cut off her tirade as he leaned over and kissed her.
"You know, you're pretty cute when you get all uptight like this. Luckily, I know something you don't," he whispered, pulling back slightly and staring into her eyes.
"Oh yeah," she challenged, "And what's that?"
"I know," he stated while giving her a quick kiss, "that there's a wildly passionate woman in there," slower kiss this time, "just begging to get out," nuzzling his way to her earlobe and giving it a quick nip. "And I've got the next 4 weeks to find her!"
Betty shivered as she felt his breath on her ear. Oh the heck with it, she thought. Who cares what anybody else thinks, we're here and we're happy! She ran her hand across his chest and belly, tilting her face to his and enjoying the look of shocked surprise on his face. "That sounds like a great plan to me. Who knows, you might find her sooner than you expected."
She barely had time to register the hungry look in his eyes before he ducked his head and took her mouth in a passionate kiss. She pulled back a moment later, glancing quickly around them. "Stop, someone will see!"
Gio chuckled and tucked his arm around her shoulder. "Ah, there's my old Betty. I knew you hadn't gone that far away. I'm telling you B, by the time we're heading home I'm going to have to fight you off just to get some sleep. You're going to be all over me!"
"I doubt that, Mr. Conceited. I'm perfectly capable of controlling myself!" I think, she added silently to herself, letting her eyes roam over his solid figure before resting her head on his shoulder to get some much-needed sleep.
0-0-0
Gio's shoulder was starting to ache. He knew he'd have to move it soon, but not quite yet. No, definitely not yet, he thought as he looked down at the woman curled up at his side. He still couldn't believe that she was really here. He thought back to the baseball game, and that awful moment when Henry had arrived and started asking about his proposal. He'd seen the panic in Betty's eyes and how quickly she'd left, practically running in her haste to get away from them. He'd spent the entire game sure that he was going to lose her. He'd imagined her running off to Tucson to marry Henry, even having little Egg Salad babies. That last thought especially infuriated him, because he knew Henry was too tame for her. He'd water down all that heat sizzling just under the surface before she even had a chance to realize it was there. She could be so much more, and Gio wanted to be the one by her side while she discovered it. She always took the safe route, and he wanted to show her how exciting it could be to take those giant leaps.
He was crushed when she'd pulled Henry aside after the game, sure that she'd made her choice. Then he'd seen her give back that ring. The ring he hadn't even known she'd had. His fists clenched as he watched Henry lift her hand and kiss it. Jealousy flooded through him until he realized that Henry was leaving and Betty was coming towards him. He cautiously watched her approach, half of him happy, the other half terrified that she was coming to say goodbye. And then she'd kissed him, and all that cocky arrogance flowed right back into him. She'd rambled on, his heart racing as he absorbed everything she was saying, and what it meant. She'd chosen him and now that he had her all to himself for the next month he was going to make every second count. By the time they boarded the plane to fly back to New York he was going to make sure that her heart belonged to him, because he knew that she already owned his.
Just then Betty woke up. She looked up and gave him a sleepy smile before snuggling closer and drifting back to sleep. He forgot all about the ache in his shoulder as he tightened his arm around her. "Sleep, B," he whispered. "Now that I've got you, I'm not letting go." He dropped a tender kiss on the top of her head and settled in to sleep.