The line was crawling at a snail's pace, my rolling carry on bag clicking to the same pace as my feet, but soon enough we were on the bridge connecting the airport to the plane.

"Welcome aboard," the friendly pilot greeted us as we boarded, but I felt anything but welcome with the shadow of Eli right behind my back. Since discovering that we'd be seat partners, Matthew hadn't said much, but he had carried one of my bags for me, something that a few onlookers hadn't ignored.

There was media scrutiny involving him as well because he was following in Eli's footsteps to the NBA. There wasn't any question as to why I was easily recognizable in the public eye, but I thought that my incognito outfit would help conceal my identity, but when walking next to a six and a half foot tall man who was most definitely a basketball player, it was easier than I would've liked for others to figure out who I was quickly.

I just hoped they didn't sell any pictures to the stupid gossip magazines that bored housewives and impressionable teens bought when they were in line at the grocery stores, or the internet blogs that touted multiple conspiracy theories about me and my father, most of them involving Eli as well.

"Swanky," Matthew commented the moment we found our plush white seats close to the front and settled in after stashing our bags in the overhead compartments, getting comfortable for the roughly three hour plane ride where we'd be sitting directly next to each other.

"You good with me calling the window seat?"

I didn't let on that if he said no, I would've most likely freaked out and had a panic attack in the middle of the airplane with other passengers still boarding in a steady stream, but thankfully he agreed without complaint, saying the aisle seat had more room for his gargantuan legs anyway.

Small talk abounded, and while it was awkward at first, our conversations grew deeper, delving into childhood and family matters.

"I know I said it earlier, but I am sorry about what happened with your dad, again, I can't imagine what that's like."

"So your family is pretty normal, then?"

He huffed out a quick laugh, garnering some attention from a teenaged girl sitting next to her parents on the row beside us.

"Hardly. Every family has their own level of drama, but my family's drama is thankfully more my mom bitching at me to call her when she hasn't heard from me in a few hours. I mean, the craziest thing that's ever happened in my family was getting expelled for steroids that weren't even mine..."

I cringed as he trailed his sentence off, knowing exactly who had set him up for that expulsion, and I knew that they'd somehow made up for it.

At my facial expression he cracked a side grin.

"Yeah, I know that he told you what happened between us. I don't hold it over him anymore, not after he explained everything and what led up to that with his sister and his stepdad."

"You-he told you about that, and that I knew about it too?"

"Yeah, I mean, we had a real truthful conversation about why he thought he had to do it, and of course I was more than pissed at him, but I figured what I did was worse. I tried to hurt him physically on the court that day of the charity game. He was lucky he didn't break anything with how hard he went down. That was on me, and if he did end up hurting himself to the point where his career would've ended because of it...I don't know if I could've forgiven myself once I found out the truth."

"So are you guys--how is he?"

I just couldn't help myself, though I knew I should've been able to. I just couldn't go three hours without asking the question I'd been dying to ask the second I laid eyes on Matthew.

"He's good. Yeah, he's actually about to be in talks with quite a few teams, but ultimately its not up to him, just like it's out of my hands, too, which teams grab us up, but he's good. I feel like that's not the question you really wanted to ask me, though, is it?"

I groaned and covered my face with my hands.

"Am I that obvious? Is he...seeing anyone?"

"No, but not for lack of trying, at least when it comes to the media. They see him step outside barely beside a breathing female and they're trying to make it seem like they've been a secret couple for months and all that bullshit. It gets old, especially when you just want to go to the grocery store or the gas station and run your errands but you're held up by assholes with cameras trying to get you picking your nose or walking around with your actual secret girlfriend. No, anything you see online is fake and made up. He's...nah, I probably shouldn't say that."

"Say what?"

"He would kill me if I told you this...but the guy's miserable. He puts on a good front, like he's happy and content with just the basketball side of things, but I can tell he's lonely. I don't know what happened between the two of you and I'm not going to ask, but I think you should, I don't know, talk to him? He told me about that necklace he got you, actually, and I can see that you're still wearing it. I don't have all the details about exactly what went down and I won't ask but what would it hurt to just reach out?"

It was so easy in his world to just 'reach out' wasn't it? I sighed out, wondering if there was any way possible to articulate the fact that it was much easier said than done, that there was a block inside of me that kept me from even thinking of Eli, because thinking about him led to longing for him which led to an aching chasm deep inside my chest where the happiness from him was supposed to be, but never could. Because he was gone. Because I couldn't trust him...because I was too fucked up to get over my own issues and damage to ever open myself back up to how I used to be with him before everything happened.

Because I couldn't confront the roaring thoughts in my brain that told me I wasn't good enough, that I didn't deserve love or to be loved, that I was permanently cursed to continue this melancholic trend of loneliness that had taken over my brain following the funeral, even months before...years...like it all started with my mother's death and the way that it affected me.

Like I would only ever be this shell of trauma and loss, forced to follow in my own footsteps of abandonment and hope only to be let down at the moment that it all mattered, just like with Jared, Sara, my father, Eli...

But I could't just put that into words, not with Matthew sitting directly beside me, awaiting an answer that I couldn't give.

Instead, all I could say was, "Sure. Yeah, maybe I'll reach out," knowing good and well that there was a bigger chance of me going viral and my music soaring to the top charts within a day of releasing it than me actually following through with those words.

His noncommittal shrug told me that he was willing to let it be that, and instead moved on to other less inflammatory topics that were easier on my heart.

Things like his dream team, his home life, and his dating life were all hot topics, and when it was my turn to return the notion, all I could do was mirror his own shrug from moments before.

"What, no guy waiting for you back in New York?"

"If by guy you mean New York Times reporter waiting to finally write his piece on me that he's been stalking me over for the past month, then sure, there's a guy waiting for me. He's just fifty years old and definitely not my type at all."

"Oh, and what would your type be? Tall, basketball player, brown hair...am I getting warm?"

His flirty banter was confusing. One second he's telling me to reach out to Eli, the next he's...teasing me? Like he's the one that I should be interested in and not his new friend?

"I think I'm actually staying away from guys for a while."

"Oh come on. There hasn't been one guy since you left school?"

"Nope. Single as a Pringle, and I like it that way."

"Do you? Do you really? That's gotta be pretty lonely. You never do a booty call once or twice?"

I wrinkled my brow, wondering when our conversation had turned into a grilling session about my sex life, or lack thereof.

"First of all, that's none of your business. Second, who calls it a booty call anymore?"

He cracked a grin at my question, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"I do. Eli does, too, though he doesn't do them anymore like he did in high school. I should know, I'm his roommate."

"His roommate? In Miami?"

"Well, when he comes to visit Miami, anyway. You know he's following me up to New York this week? The draft is coming up soon, and the Knicks wanted to meet with him in person, see what kind of guy they were going to try to go for."

"Oh."

There wasn't much else I could respond to that with. So, Eli was going to be a car ride away from me. So what? That didn't mean anything...no matter how many times I tried to convince myself otherwise.

"Oh? You going to actually hit him up now?"

"What? Oh, yeah, sure..."

In all honesty, my mind was somewhere else completely, somewhere off the deep end where I tried and desperately failed to get those green eyes out of my head. He was going to be so close...but it wasn't like he was going to be reachable.

What irony, that he was so close but so far away at the same time? I couldn't just hit him up out of the blue. 'Hey, remember me? I broke up with you because I have trust issues, daddy issues, basically all of the issues, and I can't handle relationships or love because I'm scared and have abandonment issues, too! Wanna get some coffee sometime and reignite our relationship even though I still don't know what I want out of it?'

Right. Like he'd even open the message when he had loads of gorgeous women at his beck and call already, and he wasn't even in the NBA yet, he was just a prospective pick for the draft.

The plane lurched and unthinking I clutched onto the arm rest to my right, which just so happened to be occupied by Matthew's arm. Awkward.

"Sorry. Turbulence freaks me out."

"You can hold onto me any time you want. I won't tell Eli if you won't."

His answering smirk and wink caught me off guard and I found myself questioning his motives once more. I quickly let go of his arm like it was on fire, and his laughter caused many other passengers to look at us funny. I thought I even saw the teenager across from us quickly hide her phone, like she'd been taking pictures of us.

"Right," I said awkwardly, like I knew how to navigate this conversation anymore than I had been up to that point.

The pilot's voice came over the speaker and informed us that we'd be landing within the next ten minutes and my quiet, "Thank god," wasn't missed by Matthew.

"What, you don't enjoy my company?"

"No, I-I don't-planes are just-"

"I get it, I get it," he cut me off with a laugh and a wave of his hand.

"You don't like planes, noted."

"Yeah," I breathed out, exasperated by the flight and ready to be back on the ground.

And then the wheels retracted from the plane, our speed slowing as they touched down and squealed against the runway, finally slowing and coming to a stop.

I ignored Matthew's laughter at my death grip on both arm rests and exhaled the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

The plane came to a blissful stop and the fasten seatbelts sign clicked off, as well as the electronic devices signal, letting the passengers know we could take our phones off of airplane mode.

I wished I could've waited in that in between place when my phone had to be off, where no one knew what was going on in the rest of the world for three whole hours. Where my drama couldn't catch up to me.

But that was wishful thinking.

Because the second I turned my phone back on, I had an influx of text messages, social media direct messages, emails from random people I'd never met before, and alerts mentioning me in news articles from reputable sites that I'd never once been mentioned on before in my life, not even when I was the sweet golden child of basketball legend Mike Bruins.

Because the second I clicked on those articles, the ones pitting me against Eli in a love triangle with his 'rival', I knew this was it.

I was in deep shit.