I powered off my phone before she could reply, twisted my hair into a messy bun, and pushed back into my seat while the captain announced we were next in line for takeoff. Closing my eyes, I squeezed them shut and giggled to myself.
Janie was probably going ballistic from my text. She could never wait patiently for the scoop. I imagined the two of us later, laughing until it hurt over cocktails, our hair blown out, stilettos on our feet, and not a worry in the world.
Then later, remorse set in. I was a grown woman, not a college coed, laughing at another human being. I shouldn’t make jokes at this guy’s expense, an innocent bystander I didn’t even know,and I shouldn’t even want to find it funny. I mentally scolded myself for acting like a spoiled Manhattan socialite until we were in the air.
That’s the problem with moving too fast in life ... you skip important stages like getting the giggles out. If I’d had a normal college career, maybe I’d be able to move forward without turning my nose up at this guy. Then again, Janie had one, and I bet she couldn’t behave around this dude either.
I need a new life.
The minute we reached cruising altitude, I opened the tray, pulled out my laptop, and looked toward Ms. Perky Pants, sending her urgent mental signals for my drink.
I powered up Lucy and signed in to the back end of my work. I was an editor forBubblePOP, and I’d been off for a week due to my grandmother’s death and funeral. Now I had a shit-ton of work to make up and my mom was going off half-cocked, trying to set me up with Garrett, my fourth cousin twice removed. He was adopted and half Asian, so it was all kosher in her mind.
“Garrett’s a real catch, Char, ” my mom had whispered into my ear after the funeral. “He’s got a good job at some law firm, travels to all these exotic places because he’s trilingual, and he’s ready to settle down. Look at him. He’s not bad at all, and his life is a perfect combo of wanderlust and settled. And he’s going to be in New York for the next six months! You’re twenty-eight ... enough with the crazy career stuff already. Time for you to make a life with someone. It’s meant to be, like Dad and me. For the right guy, I didn’t mind giving up everything,” she’d practically squealed in a house of mourning.
Garrett had been standing in the corner, drinking tea. When I gave him a hesitant smile, he’d practically peed himself. Bottom line, he was a dweeb loser who was smarter than most but had little to no experience with the opposite sex—except for the occasional call girl in Hong Kong, I presumed. And based on the designer Euro-trash skinny suit he was wearing, his secretary obviously dressed him.
I had zero clue as to why my mom wanted me to date him. She’d always been a free spirit and now suddenly she was all too serious. I chalked it up to my grandmother’s death and shoved Garrett to the back of my mind.
“Ouch,” I yelped as a sharp pain shot through my elbow and jolted me out of my daydream/nightmare.
“I’m sorry,” Biggie murmured as he dragged his own laptop up to his tray after accidentally smacking me in the arm.
“It’s okay,” I huffed. I went back to Lucy, scrolling through recent posts in the section I oversaw.
“So,BubblePOP?”
My concentration was again interrupted by the large person next to me. He was leaning over the armrest and inserting himself even further into my personal space.
Actually, he smelled kind of good. Like rain and something else, maybe cinnamon. Was that his gum?
“Excuse me?” I turned my head the slightest bit so I could see him.
He had wedged one of his very large neon-green Beats noise-cancellation headphones to the side, freeing an ear, and smiled as he nodded at my screen. His smile was so honest, so endearing, I found it hard to be annoyed at his spying.
“BubblePOP? You know, the online megasite with Bubble in script letters and then POP in all caps? You like it? I see you’re reading it.” He prodded me with questions, pointing at my screen and beaming that epic smile my way the whole time.
“I do like the site. I mean, I work for them and I’ve been off, so I kind of have to get caught up.”
Semi-reluctantly, I gave him the brush-off. We had a ninety-minute flight ahead of us and I needed to work, yet something about his confident smile made me want to chat more. But that would make me weird, right? He certainly wasn’t my type, nowhere near what I’d convinced myself I needed or wanted. Or both.
“Here you go, ma’am.”
The stewardess—flight attendant—handed me my drink, mocking me with a little smirk on her face. She should; I sat there with my tight smile and even more strangling attitude.
“Cheers.” My seatmate good-naturedly tipped his glass toward me. He wasn’t going to leave me alone.
I took a long gulp and looked back at my computer screen.
“Do you like working for them?”
I tugged at my turtleneck; it was so freaking hot all of a sudden. My nosy neighbor’s face had a slight sheen to it, clearly from being hot, and now his warmth was seeping into my space.
“I do. They’re a growing company and ... I’ve made great strides there.”
What the heck? Why was I even answering him? Because he asked, and if I was honest, it was the nicest anyone had been to me in months.
Furthermore, why did I sound like I was on an interview? Or an infomercial?
