Huh.
I had to lean forward to check if it’s real, andyup,it so is. Nothing fake or cheap here. Not even the thick dove-grey carpet absorbing the sound of my sneakers. They’re not carpet tiles you can buy from your local hardware.
Icelle slides into her seat the way she does everything. Without fuss, without looking around, without giving any indication that this is remarkable in any way. She buckles herself in and pulls out her phone, and I realize this is just how she gets places. The limo, the airfield, the jet. For Icelle, this is Tuesday.
I sit down across from her. The leather is incredibly soft, and the seat is wide enough that I could tuck my legs up if I wanted to. One of the cabin crew glances at me from the galley entrance, and I can tell she’s noticed I’m not exactly a regular.
Icelle only looks at me once the seatbelt sign goes off and Connecticut is shrinking beneath us. “Don’t bottle it in, Ti. Just get it all out so we can enjoy the rest of the flight.”
Iwasplanning to bottle it in, but since she’s now making it sound like I’m such a saint for wanting to do that, and being saintly means being weak in my book...
“Please tell me you didn’t let my mom know how rich you are?”
Icelle gives me a two-second look.
“I need subtitles for that one.”
“Go to sleep. I think it’s been a long day for you.”
I want to argue about that, but she’s already closed her eyes, and honestly? Ithasbeen a rather long day, and the hum of the engines is already pulling me under, so...
Yeah. I think I’ll just take a nap.
It’s my last thought before my eyes get heavy, and I’m not sure how much time has passed, but when I open my eyes again, Icelle is gone...and there’s the most ridiculously good-looking man seated across me instead.
Chapter Two
YOU KNOW HOW MOST GIRLShave this incredible talent for telling the difference between cerulean and teal, or green-blue and blue-green? So amazing, right? But unfortunately, that’s just not me.
The best I can tell about his suit is that it’s blue bordering on black. That’s as far as my vocabulary can go. Oh, and its fit is really good. Exceptional, actually, in a way that makes me think his suit is tailor-made for him, literally.
And that...
That’s just more proof of this mannotbeing real, and I obviously have to be dreaming because the last thing I remember is falling asleep on the flight, and before that, Icelle introducing me toeveryone,andnope.I don’t remember my friend introducing him, so either he’s not real or he’s somehow found a way to be one place one moment and then here the next moment, even though here is a jet flying 35,000 feet above the ground at Y per hour.
Yeah.
