Whatever the case, Rhys swallowed heavily, still looking at her out of the corner of his eye as if trying to make up his mind about something.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “well, I –”
A loud, eardrum-piercing, braying laughter filled the restaurant. Maisie flinched, ducking instinctively – though shedidn’t think she could be blamed for that after the past couple of days, between Rhys falling in through her window, and then a door exploding and a cassowary appearing on the other side of it.
After a moment, however, Maisie recognized the sound, from only about five hundred late night Saturday shifts.
Oh, great. Drunken yobbos.
She’d had her fair share of dealing with those, since it wasn’t all that uncommon for a huge number of them to show up at the hospital after having got into a punch-up over something that probably didn’t matter, and it was her job to patch them up and send them on their way.
She didn’t mind as long as they weren’t belligerent – but unfortunately, they usually were.
Turning, she saw all the signs: Bintang singlets. Raucous yelling. The stench of alcohol.
Great.
It was early in the morning, so maybe they’d just all got back from an overnight flight from… somewhere, or were currently transiting on their way to somewhere else, and had decided a bit of alcohol would make the flight go faster.
Whatever their deal was, there was about twenty of them all yelling and hooting at the top of their lungs, and they’d decided to take the tablerightnext to Rhys and Maisie.
She suddenly found herself extremely irritated. She’d just been trying to have a nice conversation with Rhys and find out a little more about shifters!
“Let’s get out of here,” she declared, grabbing his arm before she could think twice.
Again, that electrical hum from yesterday –only yesterday?! I feel like I’ve known him forever– thrilled up her arm and into her body, settling into a warm glow in her stomach, but she held on, dragging him out of the café as he stumbled to keep up.
“Were those guys bothering you?” Rhys asked, glancing over his shoulder. “I could have asked them to keep it down –”
“No, no, don’t worry about it,” Maisie said hurriedly. For some reason, she had no doubt Rhys could take any of those guys – or all of them, if it came to it – but she’d rather avoid creating a hassle for the poor restaurant staff. “It doesn’t really matter. And anyway, we need to get some stuff.” Her hand still on his arm, she hauled him toward the security section. “I refuse to wear scrubs for the entirety of my trip.Ourtrip.”
She felt her face heating up inexplicably at those last words, and after another moment she dropped his arm, ostensibly so she could empty her pockets and place their meager contents into one of the trays.
“Sure,” he said, though he sounded a little breathless, which was weird. She refused to believe that a guy as built as him would get out of breath walking a hundred meters through an airport!
The security guard waved her forward, and she walked through the metal detector, trying to appear relaxed. Why did she feel like she’d committed a crime? She was literally just catching a plane that she’d bought tickets for! It wasn’t her fault that someone else had illegally upgraded them without asking her!
It felt like an eternity before her phone and wallet and keys entered the X-ray scanner… and then they stopped again. Started. Stopped.
She twitched.
“Just seeing someone off, are we?” the guard asked.
Great, I got a chatty one! Since when are they ever chatty?
… Or maybe it’s just that I’m acting like I just stole an entire ham and shoved it down my shirt. He’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security.
Maisie forced herself to breathe more slowly, trying – and possibly succeeding – at looking like she wasn’t completely crazed. “No, just heading off to lovely Burr Island!”
Her itemsfinallycame through at that moment, and she snatched them up maybe a little too quickly. The other security guard raised her eyebrow. “Traveling light, aren’t we?”
Shit! Shit!
Rhys’s words from earlier sprang into her mind.
Just act natural. Easy as.
She took a breath, squaring her shoulders.
