Page 3 of Give In

“I tend to get bored easily,” I say, “and if a job doesn’t keep my interest, I get myself into trouble.” I don’t mention that I technically don’t need to work. My family’s money affords me a very comfortable life without the necessity of employment. Because that’s not conversation fodder for hot men you meet on airplanes. Also, it just sounds pretentious and obnoxious.

Now he looks like he’s fighting a smile. “I’m going to need some examples.”

“Fair enough.” I turn slightly in my seat to face him better, tucking one knee up. The middle seat passenger is still gone. It feels like a gift, this temporary removal of the buffer between us, and I am aware enough of my own tendencies to know that I am going to fill it with words. “Before the cakes, there was massage therapy. Went to school, got my license, and lasted all of two clients. As it would happen, I find touching naked strangers a little off-putting.”

He laughs. It’s big and boisterous and completely unguarded. It’s the kind of laugh that fills a space and makes people three rows up glance over. It is the best sound I’ve heard in a long time.

“Before that, I taught nursery school.” I shake my head. “Big no there too. It is very difficult to teach tiny people that it’s impolite to touch others with snot on their hands. I mean, I could deal with that; it wasn’t my favorite, but I was handling it. But then came the day when half the class got hit with the norovirus.” I pause. “I probably didn’t handle it well, but I knew if I stayed, things would have gotten worse, so I called 9-1-1 and fled the scene.”

He’s still laughing, and I find myself watching the lines that fan out from the corners of his eyes. Actual laugh lines. Deep ones, sexy ones. Something about that, about knowing that this man has found the humor in life consistently enough to carve it into his face, does something warm and specific to my insides.

“One more,” he wheezes.

“I went to school to be a court reporter. I mean that’s cool, right? But here’s the thing, I really wanted to be the courtroom illustrator. You know how they show on the news the drawings of the tough prosecutor and the stoic jurors? Oh, or the sobbing widow?”

He nods.

“The court reporting didn’t work because I would forget to type, I’d get so involved in the testimonies. And well, the drawing, that didn’t pan out because I have zero artistic talent.” I lean a little closer to him across the middle seat. He smells really good. It is not helpful. “Besides, everyone knows the sobbing widow murdered her husband for his life insurance. Not to mention her new boy toy.”

“Sounds like you’ve been watching too much Dateline,” he says.

“Ohh, I love Dateline. Keith Morrison is the man.”

“Sounds like you live an adventurous life.”

“I suppose.” I look down at my hands for a moment, then back up at him. “My sister is the real adventurer though. She’s getting married this weekend. It’s why I’m flying to the island.” I smile thinking about Juniper, about the way she’d sounded on the phone when she told me about Leo, like something in her had finally clicked into place. “They had a whirlwind romance. Super fast. But I guess when you know, you know.”

He grunts. “This particular island is as well known for quick weddings as Vegas is. They’re just less kitschy.”

“Are you going for a wedding too?”

“I am.” Something shifts slightly in his expression. Not closed exactly, but complicated. “My son’s. Though I’m hoping I can talk some sense into him. I have no doubt this girl he’s found is only after his money.”

“Oh no, that’s terrible.”

He lifts one shoulder. “He’s technically an adult, so there might not be anything I can do.”

“I get it. You’ve got to protect the ones you love.” I think about Juniper again, about how certain I am of her and Leo, and feel a small pulse of something like gratitude on her behalf. “My sister’s romance was fast, but it’s real. They’re amazing together. I’ve never seen her so happy, and man would I love to find a man who looks at me the way he looks at her.”

Heath is quiet for a moment. He’s looking at me in a way that is hard to describe. Like he’s reading something and taking his time with it. “So you don’t have a boyfriend waiting at home for you?”

I snort. “Hardly.”

The middle seat passenger returns with a coffee and a bag of pretzels and the temporary geography of our conversation rearranges itself. Heath and I exchange a brief glance over the man’s oblivious head, the particular look of two people who have been interrupted mid-something and both know it.

I put my headphones in. Still not connected to anything.

For the next two hours, I am extremely aware of the man two seats to my left. I am aware when he shifts position. When he orders a drink. When he laughs quietly at something on his phone and the sound of it ghosts through the ambient noise of the cabin and lands somewhere in my chest. Once, when I fall into the shallow half-sleep of the deeply exhausted traveler, I surface briefly to find that my head has drooped toward the window and Heath is looking at me with an expression I don’t have enough context to read.

I close my eyes again.

When we land I am slow and groggy and I drop my headphones twice getting them back into their case. The middle seat passenger has already gone. Heath is standing in the aisle, my carry-on in his hand.

“You didn’t have to—” I start.

“I know,” he says. He hands it to me easily, no ceremony, and then steps into the aisle ahead of me to clear the path, which given his size is a meaningful contribution.

I follow him off the plane into the thick warm air of the island evening and think that this is the end of it. A nice conversation with a handsome stranger. A thing that happened on a plane. I will tell Juniper about it and she will want every detail. I will give her said details, and we will both agree that he was the most attractive man I’ve ever spoken to. And that will be that. Because while my sister is the type to have a grand romance that leads to her happy ending, I am far more likely to end up with poison ivy on my rear end.