“Oh?”
“Yep.” I pointed with a shaky hand towards the arcade. “Air hockey.”
Ellery had never played before and was, at first, inclined to think she was too good for air hockey. Nobody, trapped at an airport, is too good for air hockey.
And within about two minutes, Ellery’s sunglasses were off, her hoodie was tied around her waist, and she was making up for lack of experience with sheer, balls out viciousness. It was like the puck had personally wronged her or something, the way she was slamming the poor thing off the sides, into my fingers, and—far too consistently—into the goal. I guess insane competitiveness ran in the Hart family. Although to the best of my remembrance, Caspian had never yelled “Mother-fucking-fucker” during Carcassonne.
Anyway. Air hockey did its job too well and we almost missed our flight—dashing through the gate at so much the last possible second that my arse nearly stayed in the UK. At which point, Ellery pecked me on the cheek, muttered, “See you, sucker,” and was whisked off to first class. Well, not first class.Premiumclass. This was the kind of airline that wanted to manage your expectations.
Trying to ignore the dirty looks I was getting for being the last one to board, requiring pretty much everyone else to tuck in, stand up, or be clambered over, I found my seat and plonked myself in it. And okay, it wasn’tluxurious, but it was…fine. I could totally spend eight and a bit hours like this. Totally. I folded out my little table and then folded it back again. No reason. Just that it was there and it was my folding table, dammit. Yep. Yep. Eight hours. No problem. Also I had my Kindle. Except I apparently hadn’t remembered to charge my Kindle. And I hadn’t paid extra to have a USB socket. Which meant I was going to have to depend on my unwavering mental fortitude and deep wellspring of inner resources.
Oh God. I was fucked.
The plane sat around on the runaway for another forty minutes or so but eventually trundled skywards. Boston, here we came. I tried to sleep, but as ever, when not being conscious would have been awesome, I was helplessly awake and restless.
I checked the time. Ten minutes gone. Wow, the journey was just whooshing by. And I was hyperconscious of not wanting to run out of battery before we landed—since everything I needed was on my phone. After an hour or so, or maybe five minutes, or maybe three thousand millennia, one of the cabin crew came over and told me I had to follow them. Which led to me disturbing my row all over again, and also being briefly terrified that they’d decided I was a terrorist and were going to throw me out the window.
But instead, I was led into the premium cabin, which came equipped with—praise be—reclining seats and electric sockets. I’d been upgraded. Ellery smirked at me from behind her sunglasses. Probably I should have felt bad to be once again benefiting from someone else’s wealth and privilege. But fuck it, I didn’t. Sold out for a slightly bigger chair and a neck pillow.
“Thanks,” I said, getting settled in next to her, and accepting my free bottle of water, because they really knew how to take care of you on ShitAir.
She shrugged.
“I don’t mean to be ungrateful or anything but…was this always the plan?”
“Obviously.”
“Then why did you leave me stewing out there for so long?”
“Dunno. Thought it was funny.”
I sighed and plugged my Kindle into my socket and my phone into Ellery’s. “Of course you did.”
“What’s the matter?” Ellery cocooned herself more deeply in her blanket. “Can’t cope flying economy? God, you’re such a princess.”
“You’re talking to a queer boy, Ellery. I’ve always wanted to be a princess.”
She gave a snort of laughter. “Mission accomplished then.” Whereupon she levered up the arm rest, plonked her head in my lap, and closed her eyes.
Since she wasn’t usually the tactile type, I couldn’t tell if she was experiencing some kind of Ellery-emotion or simply trying to travel in as much comfort as possible. After a moment or two, I touched her hair very gently and, when she made a rough, contented sound at the back of her throat instead of batting me away, began to stroke. She was asleep faster than a cat on a summer afternoon. Typical. With my free hand, I snagged the book she’d brought with her—Harriet Said—and settled down to read.
Chapter 19
It was close to midnight in Boston by the time we arrived, which was disorientating because it felt like we’d already travelled all night. Regardless of time zone, it was still prime Ellery operating hours, so I left her in charge of getting us taxied out to our Holiday Inn. Last time I’d been here, Bellerose had arranged for me to stay somewhere fancy, but it had been a waste of time and money since I’d practically lived at the hospital. Applying this logic to my present arrangements, I’d booked the cheapest place I could find with a hospital discount and a free hospital shuttle service. And actually, it was fine: a generic, brick box of a building opposite a wire-fenced car park and what was clearly a dive bar, and decorated inside with aggressive blandness. Of course, I had to spontaneously upgrade my booking from standard-with-single-occupancy to standard-with-unexpected-double-occupancy, which kind of went over as well as Richard Gere trying to do that inPretty Womanexcept for me not being a billionaire businessman and Ellery not being a prostitute. The weird thing was, she could have easily got her own room but it didn’t seem to occur to her. Or for whatever reason, she chose not to. Maybe she really didn’t want to be alone at Christmas.
Despite the fact it was still early in the UK, I collapsed onto the bed almost as soon as I saw it. Doing nothing and not moving for eight hours was exhausting, okay? I could feel Ellery staring at me.
“I’m going out,” she announced.
I jammed my face into the pillow. “We just got in.”
“Which is why I’m going out.”
“Do you even know anything about Boston?”
“People live here. How hard can it be?”
“So, what, you’re just going to…wander out into the night?”
