“And if I am?”
“Stew said I should go too.”
“Stew’s on leave. He doesn’t get a say.”
“You want me to call him up in theCCUand tell him you said that?”
I ignore him. “Don’t you have better things to do than fly to Bozeman? Like putting together a coaching staff?”
“I’ve got Javy for the pitchers. I want to take my time with the others.”
The two passengers ahead of us start moving and I follow, trying not to look left toward first class when they turn that way as we board the airplane. I make a right and check my ticket.
“Keep on going,” Charlie says behind me. “Gregory said we’re in the last row.”
“Together?”
“They were the only seats left. It was this or flying to Houston with a seven-hour layover before connecting.”
“Last row it is.”
The rows are three across and our seats are pressed up against the back of the plane, unable to recline, with a toilet just to our right.
Lovely.
“Been a minute since I’ve flown like this,” Charlie mutters as he settles into the aisle seat after I move into mine beside the window. My knees arenearlypressed into the seatback in front of me. Charlie’s even worse off: his frame both too long and too wide for the narrow space.
And so we wait with growing trepidation as the rest of the flight boards. If we got the last two seats, that means the one between us is taken, but maybe whoever it is didn’t make it to the airport? A missed connection or, I don’t know,somethingthat’ll make this trip fractionally more pleasant.
But then it happens. A tall young man, probably the same height as Charlie, lists side to side as he walks down the aisle, stumbling just slightly as he comes to a stop at the row ahead of us and then squints up at the numbers listed.
Great.
“I’m here, fucking middle seat,” he slurs lightly at Charlie,and points to the open seat, but then his vision focuses on me and his eyes widen, a slow smirk lifting. “And lucky me.”
I’m annoyed at the gate agent for letting him on the plane when he’sclearlydrunk, but mostly I’m pissed at myself for getting outmaneuvered by Dan Wilson. This is my punishment. Four hours and change trapped next to this overgrown cowboy playing city slicker as he flies home for a football game.
“Nah, man,” Charlie says, standing up, blocking me from the guy’s view. “I’m middle. You get the aisle. More leg room.”
He claps the guy on the shoulder and then folds himself, somehow, into the middle seat beside me.
“You didn’t have to . . .” I whisper, but he cuts me off.
“Yeah, I did,” he says, yanking his seatbelt on, shifting against the straight back of the seat before crossing his arms over his chest and letting his eyes fall shut. “Wake me when we land.”
“Will do.”
As soon as we take off, I pull my laptop out and get to work. Charlie’s deep even breathing is as constant as the absolute leaf-blower snores emanating from the drunk guy he gave up his seat to. Every now and then the man jerks awake and disappears into the bathroom, where the sliding pocket door does absolutely nothing to disguise the noises he makes in there.
Somewhere over South Dakota – according to the flight tracker on the seat back – our row buddy tosses himself back into his seat, his elbow jutting hard and fast into Charlie’s side. It jostles him, not enough to wake him up, not entirely, but enough to have him shift with a light groan.
His arms unfold and his shoulders slump before his head slides down against the back wall at what has to be a terrible angle. He must realize it, even in his sleep, because he shifts his body until he’s curled almost entirely to one side and his head lands gently on my shoulder. Or rather his chin does, hisforehead cushioned lightly in my hair, his nose nudging at the sensitive spot just below my ear.
His contented exhale sends a soft breath against my skin, his lips nearly grazing my neck. A gentle quaking shiver slides through my body, radiating down to the tips of my toes and back up again before settling in a swirling rush of heat deep inside of me.
I let out a shaky breath, biting hard into my bottom lip to hold back a moan as he buries his face into the curve of my shoulder and rasps out a gravely “Francesca” into my overheated skin.
No one calls me that.