Up in the Air

Chapter 22

Listen to Broken Stereo by Sean Fournier in the sidebar. It's one of my favorite songs. Ever. Though it's not really related to this chapter. Haha.

Chapter 22

"Sara, are you sure about this?"

Daniel looked at me. There was a nervous kind of excitement in his frosted pale blue eyes as he scanned my face for any signs of wanting to back out of this.

I didn't want to show him I was nervous. Nerves or not, I wanted to go through with this. So with as much confidence as I could muster in a few low breaths, I gave him a faint nod and a sure smile.

Daniel tried to hide the fact that he was slightly trembling. I wasn't sure if he was shaking out of anticipation or whether his own nervousness was making him jittery. Once more, he looked into my eyes before giving me a tight-lipped smile. "Completely sure? Say the word and we can put this behind us as if it never happened."

I heard myself give off a nervous laugh. Where I got the idea that laughing was acceptable in this kind of situation, I'm not entirely sure. I quickly fixed my face so that I looked more serious and nodded with finality.

"I'll give you the same answer I've been giving you all fifty billion other times you asked me," I laughed.

Why, of all times, was I suddenly adapting laughter as a nervous habit?

Daniel opened his mouth but I didn't want to give him another chance to ask if I was really sure. There were just so many times a person could be asked that question before their head blew up in frustration.

I reached across the few inches that separated us and slipped my fingers into his. Either he was just as nervous as I was or my hands weren't as clammy as I thought they were. I waited until his eyes were once again looking right into mine before I spoke up.

"Playing coy isn't my style. When I said yes, I meant it." My voice, thankfully, cooperated. I sounded sure and confident – completely unlike how I felt inside which can easily be summarized by the words freaking out.

Daniel nodded, apparently finally convinced, before pressing a soft kiss on my forehead. "Here we go then."

In that moment, he'd temporarily looked away from me. I took it as a chance to clench my jaw and steel myself for what he was about to do.

Unfortunately, Daniel caught my brief display of cowardice but before he could give me a way out of this I was once again reassuring him that I was fine and that, yes, I was going through with this.

"It's normal to be nervous if you're in my position," I pointed out.

"Yes," he smiled. His thumb went back to the reassuring habit of gently tracing circles over the hand. "I can promise you that, despite what you think, this won't hurt, Sara."

"Easy for you to say," I mumbled low enough so he couldn't hear.

The past hour had allowed me to connect with the nervous side of myself. In that time, I'd discovered that I had a few habits that popped up whenever I was in a situation that, like the one I was in right now, could be considered stressful.

Laughing, as I'd said earlier, was one of them. Gnawing on my bottom lip, which was exactly what I was doing right now, was another. I suppose you could also add shaking knees and a perpetual thirst to that list as well.

Daniel gave me a gave me a small smile that was undoubtedly meant to calm me down and ease my nerves.

It didn't wipe out my nerves completely but it did manage to keep them in check and hold them at bay. As a gesture of thanks, I reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek.