“No!” she yelled, before presumably turning to the rest of the family as I heard her say, “Soph’s flight is canceled.” More groans filled my ears and my heart clenched as Dave yelled something aboutinsisting on school in a winter wonderland.
“Mom, I have to get out of this airport. I’m going to get a rideshare back to the dorms and we can talk again later, okay?”
My mom promised to call me in a couple of hours, and I pulled up various rideshare apps as I walked to the arrival gate. Tears pricked my eyes as I read the wait times. They were all backed up for hours. It was Christmas Eve, there was a minor blizzard outside, and I was stuck at the airport with no one to spend Christmas with.
Shouldn’t these people know how to handle snow better than this? It happens all the damn time here.
There was one person I could call. One person who I knew was in the city with his family a mere fifteen minutes away. Only, after last night I felt like we’d left things in an awkward place. I hadn’t said what I should have said, and when he kissed me goodnight at my suite door, I could see in his eyes that I’d hurt him. I thought about what my mother had said about falling in love. It was too late anyway; I couldn’t change how I felt. What was I going to do? Just ignore how I felt about him and how I was pretty damn sure he felt about me until graduation? How would that be any less painful than loving freely now and parting ways then? It wouldn’t be. It would be worse because it would be hiding thetruth from him and never getting to experience all that we could be while always wondering.
I dialed his number, anxiously tapping my foot as I waited for him to answer. The call went through but I was met with silence. Then I heard movement on the other end of the line and wondered if he was moving somewhere quiet from his family.
“Hello?” I said, hoping to prompt him to say something.
“Hey,” he said a few seconds later, sounding happy. If he was upset about my lack of ability to admit how I felt last night, it didn’t appear in his voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane headed to a tropical island?”
My eyes welled up with tears at the reminder of my situation. “Leo, I’m stuck at the airport. They canceled my flight and the rideshares are backed up for hours and there’s too much snow to walk back to the dorms.”
“Are you serious? I’ll come get you right now,” he said without an ounce of hesitation.
I love him.
I love how he shows up for me, how he looks at me, how he touches me. I love how much he loves hockey and his family. And most of all, I love how sure of himself he is.
Leo kept talking, “You can have Christmas with us. My family with be totally cool with it.”
I choked as I fought through a lump in my throat. “I don’t want to impose on your family holiday, especially if you’re not sure you want me to meet them.”
“Of course, I’m sure. Just wait there and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I hung up, tossed the rest of the airport sandwich in the garbage, and found a bench inside the arrival gate’s windowed exit.
Leo rushed through the doors thirty minutes later. I jumped up from the bench at the sight of him and rushed into his arms. He held me against his chest as I cried for missing Christmas with my family, and for all the emotions I kept holding back from him that he deserved to hear when we weren’t in the middle of an airport.
“Did you have a checked bag?” he asked, as my tears subsided and I got my breathing under control again.
“No, just the carry-on,” I said, stepping back to look at him. “Thank you for coming to get me, Leo.”
He cupped my face and gave me a playful smile. “Soph, I’ll never leave you stranded in an airport on Christmas Eve. Just in case this ever comes up again.”
I forced a sad laugh and nearly cried again as I acknowledged our reality. “Well, this should be the only time it happens since graduation is just around the corner.”
His face fell and he took my hand and my bag, walking me toward his car. I stepped into the bitter cold, falling snow hitting me in the face, as Leo tossed my bag into the back seat. He turned to face me as he opened the passenger door for me. “My promise still stands.”
I nodded, climbed into the car, and buckled as he shut the door gently behind me.
He got himself settled in the driver’s seat and pulled out onto the road. “Before we get there, you should know my family can be a lot. They’re very outgoing. Definitely sexually charged. They’rereallyclose. Based on what you’ve said about your family I think you might get it, but the warning still feels necessary.”
I chuckled, relaxing slightly now that I was with him. “You just described my family perfectly. Are you sure you’re okay with this? Me meeting them?”
“Of course,” he said. “They’re going to love you. My mom is making up the guest room for you. I told them we were friends. I didn’t really know what else to say.” He trailed off and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.
Twenty minutes before we walked into an apartment full of his family who thought we were just friends was not the right time to confess my newly discovered love for him.
“Wait? You didn’t want to tell them that we’re friends with benefits who got started because I was an inexperienced little weirdo who asked you to fuck me for feedback?” I forced out a laugh.
We stopped at the back of a long line of cars at a traffic light. He turned to me, grabbed my face, and kissed me. “I didn’t tell them that because it would have been mean and untrue. I told them you’re my friend because it seemed easier than describing what’s really going on here before you and I find the courage to have that conversation.”
“Okay,” I said, reaching for his hand. I knew holding it in front of his family would be out of the question. “I should have found the courage last night.”
