Flying

Stella sighed, no longer interested in this drama, not wanting to engage, wishing everyone would stop staring so she could sit down and stop being some kind of rom-com heroine. “Whatever. Do you see the enormousness of the fuck I do not give?”

  He blinked rapidly, his chest rising and falling. Shit, was he pushing himself into a heart attack? She’d be forced to be some kind of freaking first responder, saving his life after she goaded him into a near-death experience. Stella cut her gaze from his and took up her carry-on so she could sit, praying he’d give up. Go away.

  “My son is dying,” the man said.

  Stella froze. Around them, there was a collective intake of breath. A sense of waiting.

  “He has terminal cancer. We thought he’d have another few months. My wife called to tell me they moved him to hospice care last night. He’s going. I have to get home.” His voice broke, but not in grief. Rage drove this man, evident in every droplet of sweat, every clench of his jaw, in his fists.

  She waited for sympathy. For empathy. It should have come, swift and sure, to her of all people after hearing his words. Instead, all she found was anger of her own.

  “Using your dying son as an excuse to treat anyone else like crap only makes you an asshole.” She spoke quietly because she really wanted to open up her mouth in a siren-strength scream. Because she wanted to shatter him with the force of it like an opera singer breaking a glass.

  “I just want to get home,” he said.

  “Sir?” The clerk’s hesitant voice turned him away from Stella. “If you step over here, I’ll be able to help you.”

  He leveled a stare at Stella. She waited for more anger. He shot her a look of triumph that turned her stomach so fiercely she thought, instead of screaming, she might spew hatred and bile all over his expensive, kicking shoes.

  Everyone was staring at her and pretending not to, and she did them all the courtesy of letting them think she didn’t notice. Instead, she stared at her feet so intensely she thought she might rupture something vital. She stared so hard she didn’t hear the clerk calling to her until the little old lady sitting behind her tapped her shoulder and pointed it out.

  Warily, Stella hefted her bag onto her shoulder and went to the desk. The plane had already been canceled, and she knew they were going to try to put her on another just as she knew she was going to be polite about whatever they offered no matter how irritated she was. The clerk smiled at her, and Stella managed to smile back.

  “Thanks,” the clerk said in a low voice. “For... You know.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry, but your flight’s been canceled, as you know. We were able to book you on a 5:00 p.m. flight and upgrade you to business class for your trouble.” The clerk smiled and again lowered her voice. “And for what you said.”

  It did pay to be nice to people. “Five will be okay. Business class is great, thanks.”

  “No problem.” The clerk busied herself with making the arrangements, then handed Stella the updated paperwork with a small frown. “Though, with the weather...”

  Stella put a finger to her own lips. “Shh. Don’t jinx us!”

  They shared a laugh. Five o’clock was a few hours away, and Stella didn’t feel like sitting at the gate for that long. She pulled out her phone and sent Tristan a text message telling him she’d be home later than she’d thought and for him to send her a message when he got in. Typically, he didn’t answer. She tried telling herself he was busy with his friends, that it didn’t mean anything, that the bad weather keeping planes on the ground in Chicago didn’t mean bad roads in Pennsylvania. It didn’t mean their car had spun off the road into a ditch or any of the other hundred bad things her mind wanted her to imagine.

  She found a bar the way she usually did, this one more crowded than usual. Probably because of the weather. People tended to seek out liquid refreshment when they were forced to wait longer than expected. That’s why she ended up sitting at the bar instead of at one of the heavy round wooden tables set with chairs that looked like wagon wheels. What the hell? Since when was Chicago the Wild, Wild West?

  The bartender looked vaguely familiar, but then they all sort of did. White shirt, black pants, black bow tie. He gave her a smile that made it seem as though he might know her too, but only if she was willing to acknowledge him. Shit. Had she slept with him? Stella eyed the dark, slightly too long hair, the crooked smile. It was entirely possible. Sometimes she couldn’t find a businessman.

  Of course she’d showered this morning at the hotel, but she hadn’t straightened or even blow-dried her hair, and she’d barely bothered with makeup. Just a swipe of mascara and some powder. Her lipstick had long ago worn off on the rim of her coffee cup. Her slim-cut jeans and oversized cardigan were clean and comfy, but in no way anything close to the outfits she would wear on her turnarounds. Even if she had fucked this guy now sliding a paper napkin and a bowl of pretzels toward her, even if she looked as vaguely familiar to him as he did to her, there was no way he was going to remember her exactly.

  Still, he kept staring at her even after she’d ordered her unsweetened iced tea and a plate of cheese fries. He wasn’t subtle about it either. No cutting eye contact or anything when she caught him.

  Finally, when he came over to freshen her tea, she said, “Do I know you?”

  The bartender grinned. “No. But I think I know you. Diane Lane, right? You were in that movie with Richard Gere.”

  “And The Outsiders,” Stella said after a pause. “Don’t forget that one.”

  “Wow! Wow, that’s right!” He did a small, shuffling dance of excitement.

  “I’m not Diane Lane,” Stella told him, half wishing she was.

  “No? You sure?”

  She laughed, giving him credit for trying...whatever it was he was trying to do with the comparison. “I’m sure.”

  “You look just like her.”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d heard it, though sometimes she got Julianne Moore and sometimes she got Kate Winslet, “that girl in Titanic.” She supposed it was better than only being compared to Lucille Ball. “It’s the hair. We both have red hair.”

  “Huh.” He wiped at the counter, not looking convinced, as if maybe she really was Diane Lane and was just trying to trick him. “Well. You really look like her.”

  “Thanks.” Stella lifted her glass.

  The bartender moved to take care of another customer. Stella sighed and dipped a fry in the cheese sauce. It was disgusting, and she grimaced. Served her right for ordering junk like that in an airport bar. She should’ve stuck to the onion rings.

  “You don’t look like Diane Lane.”

  Stella turned to the man on her left, who had a whiskey glass in front of him that hadn’t been empty since she’d sat down. “Sorry?”

  “You don’t look like her,” he said. “Not really.”

  Half a laugh snuck out of her. “I wouldn’t mind if I did. She’s gorgeous.”

  He hadn’t looked at her when he spoke, both his hands wrapped around the glass and his gaze focused on it. Now he twisted, just a little, to settle his gaze on her face. It moved over her hair, tied in a messy bun. Briefly over her body. Then back to her face.

  “So are you,” he said.

  Heat, all through her, just like that. Stella opened her mouth to speak but found no words. Her breath hissed out like a slow leak.

  “I’m Matthew.” He held out his hand.

  She took it. “Stella.”

  Her real name slipped out without thinking, surprising herself.

  He didn’t seem to notice. He smiled. “Stella, can I buy you a drink?”

  This was far from the first time a man in a bar had offered to buy her a drink. She almost always said yes. But that was when she was someone else, some other woman with a different name and hairstyle
, a woman in stockings and garters instead of a stretched-out sweater and cotton granny panties, one who had a man at home waiting to take her to dinner and a movie sometime.

  “I have a drink, thanks.”

  Matthew lifted his glass and tipped it toward the bartender for another. He looked at her again. He might’ve been drunk, but it was hard to tell. His eyes had a hint of red around the rims, some lines in the corners, but it could be exhaustion. She was sure she looked more than a little travel-weary herself.

  “Your flight’s canceled. If you’re going to stay in the airport all night, you should have something more to fortify you than iced tea.”

  Stella turned her glass around in her palms and looked at the glisten of moisture it left on the bar. “It won’t be all night. They booked me on a five o’clock.”

  Matthew shook his head as the bartender refilled his glass. He pointed at the television set, tuned to some news station. A blonde woman was talking, but silently, while her words scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “All flights will be canceled today and into tonight. I guarantee it.”

  She’d suspected as much herself, but hearing it said so firmly, no hint of doubt, set her back a little bit. “How can you know that?”

  “I’ve flown a lot.” He shrugged and sipped at his drink. Cut his gaze toward her again. “Hope you don’t have someplace important you have to be.”

  “I have to get home to my son. He was away with some friends on a ski club trip. He’ll be coming back tonight....” She pulled out her phone, but Tristan hadn’t replied. She thumbed Jeff’s number and typed a quick message telling him her flight had been canceled and to check in with Tristan. He didn’t answer her either. When she looked up, Matthew was watching. “How about you?”

  “I have a flight to New York. But it will probably be canceled, and I’ll just go home.” He swirled the whiskey for a second before downing it and gesturing at the bartender. “One more.”

  That made at least his third, by her count. Not that it was any of her business how serious he got with his liquor. Stella studied him, though, with her practiced eye. He had a businessman’s haircut, dark hair cropped short with glints of silver at the temples, but he wasn’t dressed like one. No suit, no tie. He wore a pair of jeans and a plain blue T-shirt that clung to a nicely muscled back and showed off arms just as nice. She couldn’t see his shoes, but his leather jacket hanging on the back of his chair looked beaten and worn by real use, not prefab distressing.

  “You live in Chicago?” she asked.

  He nodded and waved a hand at her glass. “Another tea for the lady. Can I at least make it a Long Island? In honor of my trip to New York. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and it won’t be canceled. Or, I know. How about a Manhattan? Even better. Corey, get the lady a Manhattan.”

  Matthew’s smile transformed him, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t want the drink. He was tired, she thought. Not drunk, at least not too much. When the drinks came, he clinked his glass to hers.

  “What are we toasting to?” Stella asked.

  “Bad weather.”

  She laughed and breathed in the aroma of liquor without sipping it. She’d never had a Manhattan. “Don’t you want to toast to better weather?”

  “Nope. Because if the weather was better, your flight wouldn’t be canceled, and we’d never be sitting here having this drink.”

  “Ah.” Stella stared at her glass but didn’t lift it to her mouth.

  “Don’t you like it? I can get you something else.” Matthew was already gesturing at the bartender, but Stella shook her head.

  “No. It’s not that. I’m just not a big drinker.”

  “Oh.” He studied her, then leaned a little closer. “Friend of Bill’s?”

  At first, she didn’t know what he meant. Then she laughed. “Me? Oh. No, no, nothing like that. I just...”

  But there was no explanation for it that could come out here, in a bar, with a stranger. There didn’t really seem to be a valid explanation at all. Certainly not that she couldn’t drink, if she wanted to. That she had some kind of drinking problem. She had no idea why she cared if this stranger thought she was an alcoholic, but all at once, it mattered that she prove the idea wrong. With sudden determination, Stella sipped and let the liquor warm her mouth for a second or so before it slid down her throat to settle in her belly. It rose in her cheeks too, and she didn’t need to see her reflection in the mirror behind the bar to know she was flushed.

  She wasn’t prepared for this, but it was happening anyway.

  They drank together. He charmed her, bit by bit, and if he was hitting on her he was so impressively subtle about it that Stella second-and third-guessed herself when she flirted in response. When she leaned a little closer, his eyes widened, just a little. His smile got a little bigger. He didn’t lean in to her, but he bought her another drink, and his eyes never left hers when they were talking. He asked her questions, simple ones about her opinions on pop culture, music, television, the bar’s decor. Nothing too personal. He gave her his entire attention but didn’t stare so intensely she worried he was going to put her in a well so he could make a suit out of her skin—and she’d met a disturbing number of men in her turnarounds who’d made her feel that way.

  Her second plane was canceled, just as he’d warned. Stella was sure Matthew would be gone by the time she got back from making the arrangements to leave tomorrow morning, along with the phone calls to her boss, to Tristan and to Jeff when her son didn’t answer. She tried to pretend she wasn’t disappointed when she went back to the bar and saw his seat empty. She also tried, without success, to pretend that when she saw him standing by the door with his coat on that she wasn’t relieved and excited too.

  “I don’t like to brag,” Matthew said, “but I was right, huh?”

  “You were. How about yours?” She scanned the flightboard quickly, but couldn’t find his flight.

  Matthew didn’t even look around. “I won’t be flying tonight.”

  “I won’t be leaving until tomorrow, ten-thirty in the morning. It was the first flight they could get me on.” She shifted her bag on her shoulder. “I guess I might as well see if I can get a room.”

  “You don’t want to do that,” he said with a shake of his head and a solemn look. “I have a better idea.”

  Stella forced her breath not to catch. She’d done this so many times before, played this game, danced this dance, but now she felt as if she’d forgotten the rules. She might stumble on the steps. “Oh?”

  She thought if he kissed her she’d turn her head so his mouth hit her cheek and not her mouth. If he touched her, she would pull away. One late night she’d fucked a man in a bathroom stall. Once she’d let a different man get her off under a table in a sushi place. She wasn’t shy, she wasn’t a prude...but those times she also hadn’t been Stella.

  Matthew didn’t kiss her. Didn’t touch her. He didn’t even take a single step closer to her. “Sure. You can stay at my place. It’s not far from here at all. And I don’t have bedbugs. Do you want to come home with me, Stella?”

  She ought to ask him what made him think she was the sort of woman to go home with a man she’d just met, except somehow he’d know she was. Or maybe just hoped she was. Maybe he could smell it on her, like a perfume.

  Stella looked into his eyes, and though earlier she’d been not quite certain if he was flirting with her, there was no mistaking the gleam of desire in his gaze now. He had brown eyes, more like hazel. She imagined herself reflected there.

  She opened her mouth to say no, but instead said yes.

  * * *

  Matthew, as it turned out, had taken a cab to the airport, so she didn’t have to worry about driving with him in the icy rain after he’d had more drinks than she could keep track of. His apartment wasn’t far, just as he’d promised, and thou
gh the frigid wind took her breath away and nearly knocked her over between the cab and the foyer, inside the building was delicious and warm. Beautiful too, with a lovely art deco feeling to the decor.

  Matthew nodded at the doorman. “Evening, Herndon.”

  “Evening, sir.” Herndon obviously knew how to be discreet, because he gave Stella a polite nod, then let his gaze slip away from her as though she were invisible.

  In the elevator, both of them faced the door and stood with at least a foot of space between them. If he kissed her, she thought, she wouldn’t open her mouth. If he touched her, she would put her hands on his to keep them still before she put some space between them.

  The door opened. Matthew let her go first, then pointed to the left and down the hall. His key slid into the lock with a metallic click that sent a rush of sudden, trembling emotion all through her.

  This was real.

  This was her.

  Before it could overwhelm her, this understanding that she really was going to go inside a stranger’s apartment, Matthew got the door open and ushered her through. He closed the door behind them, locked it and tossed his keys into a small bowl set on an ornate table just inside the door.

  If he kissed her, she thought... But he didn’t.

  “Let me hang up your coat. I’ll put your bag here too.” He opened a narrow door, a closet, and tugged on a string to light a bare bulb. There was just enough room for her things.

  For one panicky moment, Stella almost didn’t let him take her coat or give him her carry-on. In the bars when she was looking for a hookup, her suitcase was her anchor. Her excuse to leave if she wanted to. Here and now, there’d be no “oh, sorry, have to catch a plane.” No quick escape, and it would be even longer to leave if she had to fish around for her belongings before she did.

  “Stella?”

  “Oh, sorry. Right.” She shrugged out of her wet, cold coat and let him put her bag on the floor beneath it, but out of the way to avoid any dripping. Her purse too. She rubbed at her arms with a nervous laugh. “Chilly.”

  “Come into the kitchen. It’s usually warmer there. Hungry?” he asked over his shoulder as she followed him down the narrow, high-ceilinged hall and into the kitchen.