He doesn’t wait for me to reply before he steps around me, leaving me all alone in this darkened corner of the bar with nothing but the lingering scent of his cologne and the pain of rejection.
It’s four in the morning when we pile into the airport. Bree stayed behind in Tennessee, but Keanna is here with the rest of the guys and Marcus is meeting us in Vegas. I am exhausted beyond measure because after last night’s fiasco with Clay, I haven’t slept a bit. I’m pretty sure I just laid awake in my hotel all freaking night until my alarm went off thirty minutes ago. Maybe I can sleep on the plane.
Keanna does what she normally does at airports and snuggles against Jett while they wait in the seating area of our terminal. Since Clay is there, earbuds helping him ignore the world, I decide to walk around the airport. I am officially done trying to be his friend. Even though deep down I secretly think Clay might still have a crush on me, and in a place in my heart that’s even deeper down, I know I secretly still have a crush on him, I am done caring about it. If he wants me to stay away from him, I will.
Besides, I should be looking for a guy who’s not so closed off and mean all the time. I want a guy like the rest of the Team Loco guys. They’re all friendly and sweet and outgoing. Clay is the black sheep of Team Loco. He’s going to live his entire life alone if he keeps pushing everyone away.
I find another section of the airport that has leather reclining chairs instead of the hard plastic chairs in our terminal. There’s still forty-five minutes until we board, so I sink into a recliner and close my eyes for a moment after setting my phone timer for thirty minutes. Even with the hustle and bustle of an airport, I find myself drifting off to sleep.
I wake up to my phone buzzing in my hand. It’s time to head back to the terminal but I’m so tired I want to keep my eyes closed a little longer. When I finally do blink them awake, I look down at my phone to turn off the timer.
Oh crap.
The timer has been running for fifteen minutes! I jump up and grab my suitcase, not even bothering with the handle or the wheels as I clutch it to my chest and run across the airport to my terminal. When I arrive, the last person is boarding the plane.
“I’m here!” I call out, waving my boarding pass in the air.
“You barely made it,” the woman at the counter says with a laugh as she scans my ticket.
I breathe a sigh of relief. That would have been bad. Marcus would have been so pissed if I had to buy another ticket and show up late. He’s already emailed me the itinerary and I’ll scheduled to be super busy today. I start to walk away but the woman stops me.
“You’ll have to check your bag,” she says, slipping a paper tag around my suitcase handle. “The overhead bins are full.”
I sigh, but I let her take my suitcase. Marcus had told me on my first flight with Team Loco that it’s always best to get on the plane first that way there’s room for your bag on the plane. I guess he wasn’t joking.
I race down the tarmac and onto the plane, my chest heaving from all the rushing. I hate that the first thing I see is Clay, sitting alone in his aisle up at the front, earbuds in, watching me with that casual expression he always has. Swallowing, I pretend I didn’t see him and I glance down the aisle, looking for a place to sit. My stomach lurches into my throat. I can’t find an empty seat.
One aisle toward the back has an empty seat but the larger than life man sitting next to it is spilling over the armrest, and I really, really don’t want to sit there. I glance around the small plane, panic rising in my throat as I nervously look for somewhere to sit.
“The plane is full,” some older woman says to my right. She points toward Clay. “That’s the only empty seat, I think.”
I exhale and look at Clay. “I’ll ask someone to switch seats with me,” I say.
He grabs my arm as I start to walk away. “Just sit down.”
I’m grateful for his kindness even if he’s only doing it because the plane is full. I shrink up as small as I can get as I sit next to him, keeping my elbows tucked in toward my body. I angle myself toward the center aisle so I don’t have to look at him.
I’m so tired, I can feel myself drifting off to sleep as the plane takes off. Normally I might be scared that I’d snore or something embarrassing, but screw Clay. I don’t care what he thinks of me. I curl up in my chair and try to catch up on all the sleep I missed while I was thinking about him last night. It doesn’t help that I can smell his cologne next to me, or that my entire body feels like it’s electrified because he’s so close to me, but I try to put him out of my thoughts anyway.
I don’t know how much time passes, but soon I’m jolted awake. It feels like I’m falling. I flail and jump, and reach for the armrest. My heart is pounding. The plane is shaking and dropping and I can’t think straight. I’m woozy from sleep and panicked from the sensation of falling. What is happening?
“This is your captain,” a voice says over the speaker. “We’re experiencing some pretty severe turbulence, but rest assured, we will fly out of it in about twenty minutes.”
The pilot’s soothing voice does nothing to soothe me. The plane rocks and jolts and feels like it’s going to drop out of the sky. Somewhere behind me, a child is crying, and another woman is asking for a vomit bag.
Oh, gross.
I sit up straight, my knuckles going white on the armrest. I feel sick. I feel scared. I’ve never felt turbulence like this before. Why isn’t everyone freaking out?
“You okay?” Clay’s voice is soft next to me. After falling asleep, I had forgotten he was even here.
I turn to him now, fear making me unable to speak. The plane swoops down again and I flinch. “I don’t like this,” I say quietly, closing my eyes tightly.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Clay murmurs. “It’s just turbulence.”
“Have you felt it this bad before?” I ask, desperate for him to tell me it’ll be fine. That this is normal.
He nods. “A few times.”
