Chapter 25
25
‘Would your son like a bar of chocolate?’ a flight attendant asks Ethan.
‘He certainly would,’ Ethan replies. ‘Thank you.’
Ethan takes the bar of chocolate from her and hands it to Jake, who is sitting in the window seat next to me.
‘We’re sharing, right?’ Ethan checks.
‘I guess,’ Jake says with a sigh as he takes the chocolate.
Ethan doesn’t let go of it quite yet though.
‘Wait, do your real parents let you have chocolate?’ Ethan checks.
‘Yeah,’ Jake replies – but then his conscience catches up with him. ‘Well, my mum doesn’t, but my dad does.’
‘Which one lives in Australia?’ Ethan asks.
‘My dad,’ Jake replies.
Ethan lets go of the chocolate bar.
‘You’re a pushover plane dad,’ I tell him with a smile.
‘Well, we’re over international waters,’ he reminds me. ‘And we’re closer to Australia than we are the UK, so I think this falls under his dad’s jurisdiction.’
I laugh.
I was grateful, when it came time to board, and the lady at the desk said she would allocate us seats together on the plane. I didn’t really think about the fact that we might have a third person with us.
Jake, it turns out, is flying the same route to Sydney as us. He’s ten years old and currently splits his time between his divorced parents who live on the opposite side of the world to one another – I suppose that’s one way to avoid your ex.
So poor Jake is flying alone – except not all members of the flight crew seem to know that, so most of them keep assuming that Jake is our child, so we’ve taken on the role of honorary plane parents, and believe me when I say we are not strict.
After sleeping for the first stretch of the flight, it’s sort of like our daytime now. The in-flight entertainment system looks decent but it seems like the number-one way they keep you happy and distracted through long-haul flights is by feeding you and feeding you and feeding you – oh, and plying you with drinks, of course.
‘We should really make a plan, for how we’re going to handle this,’ I say to Ethan.
‘Isn’t the idea of a plan counterproductive to what we’re turning up to do?’ he points out. ‘I thought you wanted to turn up and just kind of piss around.’
‘Bad word,’ Jake ticks us off.
‘Don’t swear in front of our plane son,’ I playfully remind Ethan.
‘Sorry, Jake,’ Ethan tells him before leaning in closer to me, lowering his voice to make it more difficult for little ears. ‘So, I figured we were just going to turn up and be ourselves. That’s usually chaotic enough.’
‘That’s too chaotic,’ I remind him. ‘I need a more manageable chaos.’
‘Ooh, I’m not sure I can help you there,’ he jokes. ‘You see, with me, what you get is fires, floods, explosions.’
‘Explosions?’ Jake repeats a little too loudly.
A woman sitting in the seats over the aisle from Ethan coughs loudly. We glance over at her to see a concerned look on her face. She narrows her eyes at us, trying to work out if we might actually be plotting something. I can’t help but notice that she’s reading a copy of what looks like it would be a murder mystery (well, you don’t have to be a detective to figure out that The Mysterious Murder of Mr Black is probably not a romcom) so I’ll bet she’s the type to fantasise about suddenly becoming a lead character in her own life when she happens upon something story-worthy. I can see her imagination going into overdrive.
‘No, no, no, don’t say that word on an aeroplane,’ I tell him quickly and quietly. ‘You’ll freak people out. He just means explosions like… fireworks.’
I turn back to Ethan.
‘Wow, kids are always listening,’ he whispers.
‘We just need to talk more… in code,’ I suggest.
‘Fireworks is code, is it?’ Ethan says with a smile. ‘Did I give you fireworks?’
Boy, did he!
‘You gave me fireworks – it’s just that you threw in the bonfire too,’ I point out.
‘There’s no pleasing some women,’ he dares to joke.
‘I just want to turn up to this wedding, and wear my unsavoury dress, and have my unsavoury date by my side – no offence – and just piss them off by living my best life…’
‘Bad word,’ Jake chimes in.
‘…and just be unapologetically myself,’ I continue. ‘Living well is the best revenge, right?’
‘I thought revenge was a dish best served cold?’ Ethan replies.
‘Who is getting revenge?’ Jake asks.
‘No one,’ Ethan reassures him. ‘We’re just doing a bit of role play.’
‘What’s role play?’ Jake asks.
Honestly, how on earth does anyone with children say anything about anything? They’re like a smart speaker, always listening – and usually responding with a random reply.
‘It’s something grown-ups do,’ I tell him. ‘And it’s really boring, so we might just pop to the toilets – but we’ll see if we can get you more snacks on the way back. Sound good?’
Jake nods before going back to whatever it is he’s watching on his tablet.
‘Aww, you’re such a great plane mum,’ Ethan jokes as he follows me down the aisle. ‘But didn’t we always say we would never appease them with sweets?’
‘Hilarious,’ I tell him as we pause in the small space where the toilets are. ‘We can probably hover here for a moment, while the loo is occupied, without looking weird.’
‘Do you ever think that maybe you worry too much about what people think?’ he asks me.
‘Do you ever think that you don’t?’ I reply.
The toilet door opens and a man steps out, pushing between the two of us before heading back to his seat.
‘Look, I get it, you want me to turn up, to be myself, to look bad on your arm but you?—’
‘Oh my God, that woman is coming, the one who thinks we’re going to explode the plane,’ I tell him in hushed tones. ‘Quick!’
I shove Ethan into the toilet before squashing in with him, closing the door behind us.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks through a laugh.
‘If she thinks this one is occupied, she might go to the other one,’ I tell him.
‘And why don’t we want her to see us talking?’ he asks, bemused.
‘Because she thinks we’re up to something,’ I reply. ‘And here we are, out of the way, talking together, looking all… conspiratorial.’
Ethan gasps theatrically.
‘Look, I don’t want to risk anything going wrong,’ I admit. ‘Things around us just seem to go wrong – the last thing I want is for some air marshal to detain us, because he thinks we’re up to something.’
‘You watch too many movies,’ he replies. ‘But if it makes you happy, we can wait until the coast is clear.’
‘What were you going to say before?’ I ask.
‘Hmm?’ he replies.
‘You were talking about what you were going to do, on the trip, and then you said but…’
I shift on the spot, trying to get more comfortable. It’s such a tiny toilet with barely enough standing room for one person. Our bodies are pressed close together, our faces just inches apart.
My heart is beating like mad and as I breathe in the air feels much heavier than usual. We just need to focus on the task at hand – that way I can get my mind out of the gutter, and we can de-escalate this situation. We both just need to calm down.
‘Oh, I was just going to say, you might not want floods or fires, but what about explosions and fireworks?’
He flashes me a cheeky smile and, oh God, why did he have to say that? We’re supposed to be calming down, not whipping each other up.
Ethan wraps an arm around my body and places his other hand on my face. I gaze into his eyes as he strokes my cheek lightly – my face cheek, that is… wait… scratch that, his other hand has settled on my bum.
I swallow hard. Obviously I want him, how could I not? But things always seem to get so messy, if we so much as think about getting it on. It’s like we’re jinxed or cursed or something. That’s silly, right? There’s no such thing. It’s just the two of us, alone, in a room. If we were to just kiss, just this once, just to see…
Ethan reads my mind. He leans in, his lips parting ever so slightly, and my common sense vanishes. All I can think about is kissing him but, come on, what’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like we’re going to make the plane fall out of the sky, is it?
I take a deep breath before mirroring his body language, leaning in, and I swear the anticipation alone sends a shock wave through my body.
Of course, right on cue, a loud banging on the toilet door interrupts us before we can actually kiss.
‘Come on now, that’s enough,’ a woman’s voice calls out. ‘Come on, get out, both of you.’
‘Shit,’ I say quietly.
Ethan purses his lips, like he’s trying to hide his amusement from me.
‘What do we do?’ I ask him.
She bangs on the door again.
‘Come on, come out,’ she demands.
We do as we’re told, opening the door and stepping out one after the other, like a couple of naughty schoolkids.
‘So sorry, I was just feeling so sick, so my partner brought me to the toilets,’ I tell the furious-looking flight attendant.
‘Do you think I was born yesterday?’ she asks, looking down her nose at us.
‘Honestly,’ I insist.
‘Even if I were to believe you – even if I didn’t see couples like you trying to get away with… this all the time – it was your poor son who gave you away,’ she replies.
‘What?’ Ethan says.
‘I asked your son where you were, and he said that you had both gone to the toilets to do role play,’ she tells him. ‘Your poor son…’
‘Oh, no, he got the wrong end of the stick there,’ Ethan tells her. ‘You know what kids are like.’
‘I do,’ she replies. ‘Their brains are like sponges – you need to be more responsible. Do I need to sit the two of you apart?’
We shake our heads.
‘Then go back to your seats, please, and don’t do this again,’ she tells us.
Ethan and I skulk back towards our seats.
‘Well, that went well,’ he says with a laugh, now that it’s just the two of us again.
‘What that did was remind me why we need to keep things platonic,’ I tell him.
‘What?’ he says with a laugh. ‘Come on…’
‘No, I’m serious,’ I tell him firmly. ‘You plus me equals disaster. I can’t have a disaster while we’re here, okay? We really do need to just stick to being friends.’
‘Okay, well, if that’s what you want,’ Ethan says.
‘It is,’ I reply.
I sit back down next to Jake.
‘Kid, you really shouldn’t just repeat everything you hear,’ I tell him, semi-amused. I’m sure it will seem funnier when the embarrassment wears off.
‘Okay,’ he tells me. ‘Did you bring me more snacks?’
‘I’ll get you something,’ Ethan tells him. ‘I’m starving too.’
I slump down in my seat a little. I’m not crazy, am I? The two of us almost just kissed and, right on cue, disaster struck. Imagine if we had started kissing, if we’d started tearing off each other’s clothes – ugh, imagine that! – she could have caught us in the act and then what?
I know that I’m doing the right thing, keeping things friendly, I’m just really not sure how easy it’s going to be – for both of us. It definitely felt harder a moment ago…