5. Flying High
5
Flying High
W hen group five is finally called, Eleanor walks slowly into the line of people, making sure not to leave any additional belongings behind—especially and most importantly her precious laptop.
She scans her boarding pass and the machine beeps.
Great… is it the wrong flight?
“You have a seat change,” the attendant reassures her and writes down her new seat assignment. Judging by the number, it seems much better than her original back row seat neighboring the bathrooms, so no complaints here. “Enjoy your flight.” The lady gives her a wink.
Hopefully the person next to her had a chance to shower at least once in the past several days and is not a sprawler. Or a violent teeth grinder. Or a loud snorer. Eleanor really doesn’t ask for a lot. Oh, and if possible—someone who doesn’t stare curiously into other people’s laptop screens and will let her do her thing in peace. There are a few more tasks she has planned for today and not hitting them could mean a delay. Time cannot stand in the way of science. She needs to design twenty primer pairs to be able to order them once she starts her new collaboration with Professor Kowalski, and a few papers to read.
Eleanor goes over the tasks in her head while strolling down the tight plane aisle. She examines the faces she passes, wondering who her seat mate is.
“Are you stalking me?” A maybe-amused-maybe-serious-hard-to-tell warm voice fills her ears. Eleanor shifts her gaze to meet those blue eyes again. She double checks the seat number, matching it with her new assignment because— what are the odds? The numbers match.
“I guess I am.” She can’t help her smile. “Hmmm… your window seat looks very enticing, would you like to swap it for my awesome newly assigned aisle spot?” she offers playfully.
“You want my seat?” The man gives her an incredulous look. She may be imagining it, but there’s a ghost of a smile bouncing on his lips before he gets up and lets her slide in, shaking his head. Yes, he may try to hide it, but Eleanor is pretty sure he’s battling a tiny little grin there.
She positions herself carefully in the window seat, making sure not to bump into his wall of a body on her way there. Well, maybe just once for good measure. Or twice.
“You are very kind,” she says as he takes the aisle seat next to her. She takes in more of his impossible fresh-out-of-shower scent.
How does he do it? He must be magical.
“Your mom sent back heart emojis,” he says. So he hasn’t deleted WhatsApp yet. “And a picture.”
Uh-oh…
“Hopefully not one of me naked.”
The guy smirks quietly and hands her his phone. A family selfie from the airport. Eleanor hadn’t even noticed they took it, but she’s in there too. “Your family?” he asks. His careful-you-might-drown blue eyes have a different shade to them. Is it longing?
“Yes, my grandparents from both sides.” She leans into him, pointing at the little figures in the photo. “My mom, dad.” She points. “My younger brother Har’el, my best friend in the entire world Gillie—“
Eleanor stops mid-sentence. She’s letting a complete stranger into her life and he doesn’t even know her name. How rude of her!
“I’m Ellie, by the way.” There’s a very small circle of carefully selected individuals who are allowed to call her that.
And this guy has just gotten a fast pass.
Is it the life-saving thing?
The fact that he wiped her bloody nose without reservation?
His almost uncrackable serious expression?
Those gorgeous blue eyes contemplate for a moment before the man attached to them finally says, “Aiden,” reaching out his hand.
Eleanor takes it. Warm fingers close on hers, and they shake hands. That light buzz again. And some sort of heart palpitation. Probably part of the side effects of, let’s see: not enough caffeine, barely sleeping, wearing short sleeves and shorts in a cold airport, falling, being blessed with a nosebleed, possibly a concussion, the list is endless. A typical Eleanor-mess. Minus the nosebleed, because that one is new. Must be some crazy symptom of something.
His phone beeps and he takes it back for a quick glance. “Your mom asks if I’m Jewish,” he snickers. “She says you’re twenty-eight and single.” This time there’s no doubt, he’s amused.
“Oh, come on, she’s already playing matchmaker! Please delete the app before she turns it into a new version of Tinder. You can block her too—“
But he’s ignoring Eleanor, typing something back on his phone. “Wait, don’t answer that, it will just keep her going, don’t encourage her!” Eleanor protests but he turns the screen away from her and keeps typing away. He’s almost chuckling now. She can tell this guy doesn’t get amused often. Well, her mom does have this effect on people.
His phone beeps again. “Okay, time to put your phone on airplane mode,” Eleanor tries a different approach that fails as well. “Give me that!” She attempts to grab the phone away, but he intercepts, and she lands in his arms for the second time today. Her cheek pressed against his chest.
Yeah, he works out, no doubt about it.
“Sorry,” she mumbles as she straightens herself back up to a more appropriate doesn’t-really-know-her-seatmate-that-well position. Which means keeping all of her body parts on her side of the seat. Not an easy task, considering the recently discovered magnetism.
The flight attendant gives them an admonishing look, as apparently, they were making too much fuss and interrupting the usual crash-landing-and-oxygen-mask safety training. Her partner in crime finally puts his cell phone on airplane mode.
Thank goodness.
Eleanor tries to dig out her sweatshirt from her backpack, since planes do tend to get cold, just like she already knows and was told, but then forgot and ignored. “Shit!” She sighs loudly. This seems to be a recurrent theme for the day.
“What now?” her favorite stranger, now known as Aiden, asks from his side of the seat.
“My sweatshirt didn’t make it,” she explains.
“Did you leave it with your cell phone?” The blue eyes looking at her are impossible.
“No, I’m pretty sure I forgot to pack it when I left home this morning. The weather in Tel Aviv was—“ She starts to explain the soup-level humidity, but then turns to the flight attendant who’s passing by. “Excuse me,” she says to the lady, who is now busy giving Aiden a once-over. Eleanor can’t blame her. “May I please have a blanket?” she asks in the nicest voice possible. The flight attendant mutters something in Spanish, then disappears.
Eleanor turns her eyes to Aiden, clueless. “I’m pretty sure she said they had no blankets,” he explains.
“Interesting day,” she huffs.
“Here.” He pulls a hoodie out of his backpack and gives it to her. “Don’t want you to freeze to death next to me.”
“Meeting you today has proved very handy,” she says. “But I can’t take it, what if you get cold?”
“I won’t,” he says with an admirable degree of certainty. “Take it, you really do look cold.”
And despite him being a complete stranger, going through this entire flight wearing jean shorts and a short-sleeve shirt might end up being a unique hardship. And unique hardships call for unique solutions. And since everything with Aiden has been unusual so far anyway, quite insane to be precise, this would just be one more item on the list. She might as well take it. And she can’t really complain, because of all strangers’ sweatshirts she could possibly borrow, this one smells amazing, like Aiden obviously. And reaches all the way to her thighs.
“Thank you,” Eleanor says, feeling all shades of happy in it. Aiden just nods, as if none of what he’s done for her today required any effort.
Once they’re allowed to use large electronic devices again, she pulls out her laptop in an attempt to squeeze in some work. That is, until the flight attendant strolls in with their dinner and Eleanor has to stop and devour it. Everything tastes superb, or she’s just starving to the point of not being able to tell the difference between a gourmet meal and bad airplane food. Probably the latter, based on the interesting look Aiden gives her at the sight of her empty food tray, offering up his dinner as well.
Then back to work. Aiden’s eyes wander to her screen, as if he understands all those terms she has up there, and for some reason this makes her too conscious to focus.
Well, at least he smells good, gave her his hoodie, doesn’t seem like a teeth grinder, and she wouldn’t mind if he’s a sprawler, so the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Eleanor decides to call it a night, stows away her laptop, cuddles herself inside Aiden’s hoodie, hood on head and all, and tries to get some sleep.
When Eleanor wakes up, the lights are back on and breakfast is being served, or whatever meal it is—she completely and utterly lost track of time. Again.
“Good morning.” Aiden’s voice sounds closer than expected, rumbling through her. He sounds calm and… sweet, and she drifts off for a few more minutes before realizing her head is resting on his chest. Actually, her entire right side is pressed against him. She must have fallen to his side while sleeping. It was warm and comfortable, come to think of it, not typical for red-eye flights.
“Sorry.” She peels herself off him again. This is really getting old, but after spending so many hours so close to her, he should be used to it by now. “You could have pushed me to the other side,” she laughs.
“Didn’t want to wake you, you seemed like you needed that sleep,” he says nonchalantly.
“You could have lowered the arm rest between us, that would have kept me away.” She smirks. “I’m such an annoying seatmate.”
“Maybe a little when you snore,” he offers kindly.
“I don’t snore!” Eleanor scoffs. That ghost of a smile travels up his lips again, as he looks down in that way that people who don’t smile too often do.
She straightens the hoodie. It has a familiar Pearl Drums logo. “Are you a musician?” She gives him a quick look—his slacks and dress shirt wouldn’t have given it away, but she does recall rubbing her head into some pretty strong arm muscles while she was dozing off.
Not another drummer.
“A musician would be a stretch, but I do play. Drums.”
So apparently, she has a type. Why does the second man on earth that she happens to find skin-prickling-attractive also have to be a drummer?
“Cool,” she says, hiding the storm going off in her brain.
Why does it matter anyway? It’s not like she’s ever going to see him again after this flight.
“Do you play?” he asks.
“Nah.” She shakes away some old memories of her ex, Oren. “I used to be a big Shinedown fan, but I don’t even like music anymore.”
This wins her a stupefied look from the man beside her. “I don’t believe you.”
“About being a Shinedown fan?”
“No, I like Shinedown. The other part.”
“It’s true." She used to like music, and mostly used to like watching others play. Others being Oren Hason… But that was a while ago, and she doesn’t want to be held accountable for it.
“What did music do to you?”
“Broke my heart,” she says simply, despite having decided she wasn’t going to bring it up. Well, great job sticking to her made-on-the-fly decisions.
“ Music broke your heart?” He arches an eyebrow again; this is becoming his signature adorable look. Although Eleanor is pretty sure he means to look serious, not adorable. But he is obviously failing at that. “How?”
“I fell for a drummer, once upon a time.”
“I see.” He seems to be piecing things together. “A drummer who liked to play Shinedown’s songs?”
“Just for fun, not really. He writes his own songs actually.”
“Got it,” Aiden says, but politely enough he’s not trying to fish for additional information.
Yes, Oren Hason, the legend. Her undoubtable ‘ mythological ex,’ Oren’s favorite term. He had always spelled trouble. Her own personal bunch of trouble. Well, used to at least, until he decided he ‘ wasn’t built for serious relationships’ —his words, not hers. And that his calling was to ‘ travel the world with his rock band, go on tours, explore’— again, his words. At least he was honest enough to come up and say it. Although Eleanor wishes he had made this decision earlier, before she poured her entire heart into their relationship, before she started building all those castles in the clouds, before she let herself fly so high. And mostly before her face became smeared all over trendy social media apps attached to the ostentatious title ‘Oren Hason’s girlfriend’ and then ‘Oren Hason’s ex .’
Maybe her crash landing in the end wouldn’t have been so painful had he told her sooner. But just like that, Oren Hason ruined music for her and left her with fractured plans, a shattered heart and several years of starring unwarranted, undesired social media posts. The price paid for daring to be in a relationship with someone who happened to be locally famous. And on top of that was the hideous matching tattoo they’d gotten together after drinking a bit too much—their first-name Hebrew initials inside a heart. So freaking unnecessary. His on the inner side of his right forearm, hers on the outer side of her left butt cheek.
Stupid, revolting tattoo. Her perpetual Oren reminder. That, and a bunch of songs he played, way too many songs, that are still constantly featured on any Israeli radio station, as if she needs a reminder.
Who needs music anyway?