A flight attendant arrives at our row in short order, napkin in hand. “Anything to drink?”
Distracted, I blurt, “Coffee, please,” then mentally kick myself. For one thing, airplane coffee is barf, and for another, now I’ve outed my childish refusal of Ryan’s offer at the airport. It’s like the scent wafting from his latte embedded itself in my subconscious. I was powerless against it.
He watches as I take the small paper cup from her, declining cream and sugar. Ryan raises a hand to indicate he’s fine, his eyes not straying once from my burning face.
I avoid eye contact as I take a sip from the cup, and the flavor of the lukewarm liquid—somehow simultaneously burnt andinsipid—causes me to gag involuntarily. I school my features, unwilling to let the revulsion show.
Ryan’s attention is rapt on me.Go back to your astrophysics book, perv.
“Good coffee?” he asks, his voice low. Taunting.
“Mmhmm,” I murmur, feigning absorption in my laptop screen.
“Smellsgood. Not quite sweet, but definitely smoky. Almost charred.” Finally, he drags his gaze away, raising his own cup to his lips to take a long swig of his latte. “Wonder if they grind the beans fresh on the plane.”
Chapter 4
Being on the road has many positives. Exploring new ground, meeting new people, the general excitement of change. And hotels. Maral would say the high-thread-count sheets or fancy aromatherapy toiletry sets or plush robes are the best part, but I’m not exactly arelaxer. For me, who has sprung awake with energy to burn since I was in diapers, a well-appointed hotel gym is manna. The vast array of equipment is a pleasant shake-up from the stationary bike, free weights, and resistance bands I exhaust on a daily basis in my apartment.
The time difference between Chicago and New York is only an hour, but my body can’t help its commitment to rising before the sun. Just as my mom can’t help her commitment to sending Good Morning memes. She and Maral’s mom, Sosi, text them to us every day at the crack of dawn—garishly cutesy greeting-card-esque images with the wordsgood morningemblazoned across them. Today’s, for instance, is an AI-style illustration of a doe-eyed kitten holding a bouquet of sparkling roses. I respond to Mom with a simple text wishing her good morning back, short and sweet given we were on and off the phone for over an hour yesterday.
After we arrived at the hotel from the airport yesterdayafternoon, Mar, Shanthi, and I gathered in my room to get some work done. (We get our own rooms when we travel because a. we’re adults and b. to quote my sweet cousin,We get quiteenough of you during waking hours, thank you very much.) But I spent a fair bit of time dealing with Mom’s gardener, followed by her bank, correcting their system glitch that keeps sending her mortgage and credit card bills to her instead of me. I called Mom to fill her in on each development along the way, Maral ushering me into the hallway when my cell yell—necessary to be heard over Mom’s TV blaring in the background—started to give her a headache. By the time I was done, Ryan had sent a message confirming the new bookstore for the event today, saying he was headed over to take care of logistics, and the three of us spent the remainder of the afternoon spreading the word to ticket holders about the change of venue.
“See?” Maral said in the elevator when we broke to grab some dinner—Shanthi had said she wanted to try a Chicago-style hot dog and our grumbling tummies wholeheartedly jumped on board. “It’s all coming together. No storm in the forecast.”
“Do you ever get tired of I-told-you-so-ing me?” I muttered, even though my relief was a living thing.
“No,” she said.
Now I hop out of bed, wasting no time digging through suitcase number two for running shorts and a cropped racerback tank. Teeth brushed and sneakers on, I’m out the door less than ten minutes after I open my eyes.
Being a (super-)early-morning person—though Maral calls me arelentlessly all-day person—means I’m usually solo in a hotel fitness center. But when I arrive at the mirror-walled room filled with treadmills, spin bikes, ellipticals, rowers, and various strength training machines, someone is already there, running at an impressive speed on a treadmill that faces the window overlooking a still-dark North Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier beyond.
It’s only after I enter through the glass doors and catch a glimpseof the runner’s thick, dark hair, damp at the base of his neck, that I recognize it’s Ryan.
His confident stride and the slick sheen of his skin indicate he’s been at this a while. His even breaths, despite the significant speed and incline, betray his level of fitness. I don’t want to notice how his threadbare gray T-shirt clings to the perspiration on his back. Definitely don’t want to notice that that back is corded with muscle, lats and deltoids that make me wonder what other movements would cause those muscles to flex. What other activities might showcase his strength. His vitality. His endurance.
His thighs and calves are shaped like an athlete’s, pounding that belt like it’s wronged him. A determination in his tread that says he’s not just working out, he’s workingsomethingout.
“What did that machine ever do to you?” I ask.
Ryan’s pace falters, and he braces himself on the handrails, lifts his feet to rest on the sides of the running belt, and turns to me.
“Good mor—” he starts to say, but doesn’t finish. His eyes flick away from mine for a breath of a second, lighting on my bare midriff and legs. He clears his throat.
I feel the corner of my lip lift. So. I’m not the only one checking someone out around here.Well, get a load, Grant. These aren’t even the shortest shorts I own.
“Good mor to you too,” I say, climbing onto a treadmill a couple stations over. “I see I’m not the only early riser among us.”
He starts running again, his gait less stompy. “Didn’t sleep great.”
I power up the machine to start at a light run. “Travel can throw people off.” Sleeping in a different bed, those tight hotel corners, the unfamiliar surroundings. I try to imagine the kind of creature comforts Ryan might rely on at home, but other than stacks of Nobel-worthy ARCs and an ironing board to press his one hundred identical gray shirts, I come up blank.
“What about you?” he asks. “Nerves?”
“Nerves?” I say, as if it’s a foreign word.
“Big deal, a book tour. Lots of authors get anxious.”
