She peers closer. “Use the double doors marked ‘fire valve’ just past gate forty.” She looks at the numbers of the gates we’re passing and points. “There it is.”
Probably helps that Vincent has already opened the door. But she checks my phone again for instructions. “Ooh, a secret code.”
Rather than piggyback through the door with Vincent, I let it swing shut so she can enter the secret code herself, like a spy. The light blinks green, and she pulls the handle victoriously.
“This is fun.” One flight attendant’s sketchy is another flight attendant’s fun. “What’s next?”
The dingy room we enter offers double doors to a back hallway on this level and an elevator standing open with Vincent inside.
“We descend to the dungeon,” he answers.
After we roll our luggage inside the elevator car, the doors slide closed ominously.
Claire peers at my phone again. “Are there multiple rooms?”
I glance at the website to see what she’s reading. It lists door codesfor bag storage, kitchen, computer use, and a quiet room with recliners for sleeping. “Yep. Not all airport crew lounges have so many rooms, but Denver is pretty big.”
The elevator opens to reveal a poorly lit central area with lockers, vending machines, and plastic picnic-style benches. They aren’t for our airline specifically, but a couple of Premier Air pilots are sitting there munching chips and talking on their phones. I wave hello.
From this central area, various hallways fan out. Paper signs with arrows are stuck to the walls here and there, offering directions, though they don’t all agree. You pretty much just have to wander around and ask for help when you see a friendly face. For Claire, I’m that friendly face.
“This way.” I follow Vincent, who is already zigzagging his way toward the bag room. It’s basically a walk-in closet with shelves and even worse lighting than the hallway.
Though our long sit was cut in half by the delay in Walla Walla, we still have half an hour to kill. So we store our bags and make our way to the kitchen, which also offers tables, recliners, and a television. The room itself is dated, with linoleum floors and beige walls covered in posters promoting safety and advertising our company’s credit card, so it’s not the kind of lounge first-class passengers are used to. But our recliners are leather, and someone decorated for Halloween with paper garland and centerpieces.
I wave again, this time to the pilots kicked back in recliners, though most of them are too busy looking at their phones to notice. I don’t recognize any of them, so it’s okay.
The room smells spicy, like taco meat. Naturally, Vincent has beaten us to the folding table pushed against the far wall. It holds paper plates and bowls, slow cookers, and sadly, an empty cake dish.
I frown at my watch. I guess we’re in Mountain Time here, so previous crews have already descended with the appetites of locusts.
Claire stops next to me. “What?”
I nod toward the table. “Your roommate ate all your birthday cake.”
Claire follows my gaze and smiles. “It’s okay. I’m just enjoying the escape room vibes.”
That’s a nice twist on the sketchy dungeon where she’s celebrating her birthday.
Vincent brushes past us toward the exit, apparently more put out by the lack of cake than she is. “I’m going to see if there are any open recliners in the quiet room.”
“Set an alarm,” I call after him, because he overslept once when he hadn’t planned on falling asleep at all.
He presses his back against the door to open it and mock scowls in my direction at the same time. “Oh, I’ll be there to beat you with my next landing.”
“Dreamin’ already.”
His boisterous laugh echoes down the hallway. But his lack of concern for being late gives me an idea. Because while flight attendants have to be present on the plane when passengers board, pilots don’t.
I walk Claire to our next gate but don’t join her in flashing badges to the agent. “I’ll catch up with you,” I say, hoping she’ll assume I’m using one of the nice new airport restrooms rather than the tiny airplane lavatory.
“Okay.” She smiles, sans suspicion.
Thankfully, Larry isn’t around to narrow his eyes and question my true intentions. Because I’m actually going to jog the length of this terminal—with aid from the moving walkways—for a cupcake from the new refrigerated vending machine. I’m not normally a sweets person, so I’ve never tried them, but I’ve heard good things.
Claire enjoyed discovering the crew lounge way more than anyone ever should, which just shows how low her expectations for her birthday have been set. It’s time to change that. Time to show her someone in her life thinks she’s worth honoring.
Not that I’m in her life. I’m a man outside her life—treating her better than the man in her life.
