Page 91 of Open for Negotiation
“Fuck!”
I call the next best person I can think of, holding my phone between my shoulder and ear, hopping around from foot to foot to pull on my pants and shoes.
“Hello?” Jackson answers.
“Listen to me. Focus, okay?”
“Whoa, all right. I’m listening.” I can hear him shuffling in bed to sit up. “Dude, it’s like seven in the morning. What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m trying to make something right.” I pull my keys from my pocket and head down to my car. “I need you to get on your phone or laptop or what the fuck ever and tell me when there are flights leaving out of Hartsfield Jackson and heading up to Tennessee, probably the Nashville airport.”
“Okay?” he asks, completely confused.
“Just do it, okay?”
“All right, fuck, hang on.”
He’s still tapping away on his phone when I pull out of the apartment complex parking lot and onto the highway.
“All right, from what I can see, no flights have left Atlanta yet, but there is one that is scheduled to take off in an hour.”
“Fuck,” I say under my breath.
“Now, will you tell me what’s going on?”
I spend the twenty-minute drive, from her side of town to the airport across the city, filling Jackson in on the events of the last twelve hours. I tell him about Miranda, the note, all of it.
“Christ, man. All right, so, now what are you doing?”
“I’m taking my ass to the airport to fight for her. I’m not letting her get on that plane. I can’t.”
“What do you need from me? How can I help you?” he asks.
“Keep doing what you’re doing. Stay there. I’ll be back eventually. If I have to hop on a plane and fly up to Tennessee, I’ll do it.” I check over my shoulder and switch lanes to take the exit for the airport.
