12. Holden
TWELVE
Holden
MISSED CONFECTIONS
I managed to get through security without the paparazzi spotting me, but now literally everyone is walking around JFK with Christmas cookies and Cinnabon rolls and pizza and I want to punch a wall and then eat it.
Oh, and thank fuck almighty, this is the terminal with the chocolate store. Fucking A. I’m gonna go walk right past that fucker and stare at all the Mface with three hearts emoji
I keep an eye on Piper while calling Rory.
She answers on the second ring. “Don’t worry—I didn’t write out your name on the confetti paper, world-famous movie star.”
“She’s here,” I mutter.
“Who is? Where?”
“At the airport.”
She gasps. “Piper?!”
“Shhh. This is bizarre.”
“OMG. I made this happen.”
“Yeah. That makes sense.” I watch as Piper chooses two bars of chocolate and takes them over to the cashier. I like those boots and I like the way she walks.
“Oh, well, I guess it’s fate , then. Either way, you need to talk to her.”
“I do, right?”
“Are you asking for my permission or something? You have it. Hurry up!”
“Okay, I’m going to talk to her… Hello?” She hung up on me.
I slide the phone back into my pocket and step away from the rack of neck pillows.
Piper, who’s facing away from me, paying for the chocolate, pulls out her ringing phone just as I’m about to walk over. “Hey, Dad.”
Nope.
Back into the shadows I go.
“Yeah, I’m on my way to the gate,” she says. I like her voice. Friendly and girlish, but there’s that raspy hint of something not so innocent. “I just got a snack…”
She is a snack.
I can hear her getting closer.
“Yeah, I still have the weird nutcrackah gingerbread man she gave me, but I threw out the leftover chicken before I went through security—don’t tell her… I know, Daddy, but someone’s optioning one of my scripts, so I probably won’t need a job at your company next year. But thank you.”
Optioning one of her scripts?
She walks right past me, talking into her phone. Doesn’t notice me at all. I follow a few feet behind her as she heads down the concourse.
“You should concentrate on driving. Miss you already too… Yes, I’ll text you when I’m on the plane like I always do. Love you. I’m hanging up—bye.”
That scent. She leaves a heavenly scent trail. I remember that fragrance. She smells like the back seat of the cab that night I found the journal. That was her. That intoxicating scent that I hadn’t encountered since and haven’t been able to forget. Seriously, who is this person?
She slows her pace as she reaches a seating area. The gate is for a flight to Los Angeles. Different plane from mine. Looks like her flight’s leaving in almost an hour, but mine’s supposed to board in…less than ten minutes.
Fuck.
I’m about to reach out to tap her on the shoulder and blow her beautiful mind when there’s an announcement over the PA system. “Virgin Atlantic is paging Flight 4727 passenger Piper Puckett to the desk at Gate B31. Piper Puckett to the desk for a seat upgrade, thank you.”
Piper Puckett.
“Oh my God,” she says under her breath as she goes over to the desk to talk to the gentleman. I take a few steps closer, looking down at my phone, as I overhear the gate agent telling her that someone called in a request to have her bumped up to first class. A guy he knows. “Let me guess,” she says happily. “A guy in Boston?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, Miss Puckett,” he replies, winking at her and handing her a new boarding pass.
Who the fuck is this guy in Boston who’s buying her plane tickets?
“He’s my uncle, sort of,” she explains to the gate agent.
Ah. A sort-of uncle. That’s good, I guess.
I step behind a family of four when she turns to look for a seat in the lounge area.
Piper Puckett.
She settles into a chair that faces the windows onto the runway, and I take a seat behind her. Out of the corner of my eye I clock a couple of teenage girls who are staring at me and whispering to each other. If I get up to talk to Piper now, they’ll be watching all of it. Does it matter? Only if they film it and post it on their social media.
Is there a better way and time and place for me to tell Piper I’m the guy she’s been emailing? Yeah. If she’s headed to LA, then I can find a way to meet her there.
I look down at my phone again, contemplating what to say in a Google message to her, when I see a notification from ShayAnything.83 on Backroom.
Dammit.
What to do about Shay?
I like her when we text, but she was not doing it for me when we talked the other day.
ShayAnything.83: Hey. You still in NYC?
I type out a text telling her I’m about to head back to LA and ask if she’s in Sedona. A second later, I hear the familiar ping of a notification from Piper’s phone behind me.
ShayAnything.83: Yep. Still got a few tension knots left to work through.
I type back an LOL, and one second later I hear that ping behind me again.
The timing is…an uncanny coincidence. I get up from the seat and wander over to lean against a nearby pillar so I have a view of Piper’s back. What is going on?
There’s a boarding announcement on the PA system for first-class passengers on my flight.
Shit.
My gate’s at the other end of the terminal.
I decide to ask Shay something only Piper would understand.
HoldUp.76: Your little brother still going around squawking like a chicken?
I watch her read the message, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
ShayAnything.83: No, but he’s probably farting in the back seat of my dad’s car right now.
What. The. Hell?
I stare down at the message bubble, look over at Piper, who covers her mouth, then frantically types on her phone again.
I look down and find the text bubble edited to say…
ShayAnything.83: LOL what?! I don’t have a brother.
What. The. Fuck?
Why is PiperThanFiction pretending to be Shay Nicholls?
This makes no sense.
This is the kind of thing that only happens in romantic comedies.
And stalker thrillers.
Of course this was all too coincidental to be anything but psychotic.
The PA system announces general boarding for my flight, and I really have to get going now.
“Hey, you’re Holden Archer, aren’t you?” asks one of the shy teenage girls.
“Yeah, hi.”
“Oh my God! Can we get selfies with you?!”
The girls flank me on either side and hold up their phones to take pictures before I can answer.
“Sure,” I mumble.
“Oh my Gawd , oh my Gawd , it’s Zephyr!” another teenage girl shouts out from fifteen feet away, and suddenly, there’s a crowd of teenage girls and women around me—dare I say a mob of them—holding up their phones and telling me they love me.
“Hey,” I say, politely trying to move through them, trying to smile. “My flight’s boarding.”
“Just one more picture for my friend—she’s obsessed with you!” a girl pleads.
I look around for Piper as I slowly make my way through the crowd, heading for my gate, and spot her standing up, staring at me. Like a deer in headlights. I remove my sunglasses and hold her confused gaze.
For a few surreal seconds, the chaos around me is slowed down and muted, and all I see is Piper and those big brown eyes, her red lips parted. Not like some crazed stalker, like a girl who has so much to say but can’t. And even as I’m staring into those big brown eyes, I get a sense of how her sweater is hugging her curves, and I like it a lot. I give her an apologetic shrug and then continue toward the gate, putting my aviators back on, still surrounded by ten or fifteen or twenty girls who are moving along with me. When I reach my gate, someone from the airline ushers me through and tells the girls to stay back.
It all happens so fast and I have no fucking clue what’s going on; I just wish I could talk to Piper.
I think.
When I’m settled in my first-class seat, they still haven’t closed the door, so I have time to call Rita Baskin. I try her cell phone, and thank God, she answers right away. I don’t think I’ve ever called her on her cell phone before unless I was returning her call.
“Oh my Gawd , Holden Archer, you’re obsessed with me,” she says wryly.
“Hey, my flight’s about to take off, but I need you to do me a favor. Can you find out if Shay Nicholls has an assistant, and if so, what her name is? Just don’t let it get back to her that I’m asking.”
After a beat, she says, “I can get Audrey to ask her business manager.”
“Great. Text me when you find out. Thank you.”
“You owe me a rom-com for this.”
“No, I don’t!” I say right before hanging up.
It’s early, but I ask the flight attendant for a little bottle of whiskey when she brings me my coffee. Fuck it—it’s still the holidays according to everyone besides my dad, and I just had the kind of bizarre fifteen minutes that might only make sense with the help of alcohol, clever editing, an upbeat jazzy score, a Tom Hanks voice-over, and festive thoughts of Piper biting her lip while she stares at my erection.
When we’ve reached cruising altitude and I’ve signed on to use the Wi-Fi, I find a text from my agent telling me that Shay has a new assistant named Piper and that’s all the business manager will tell us.
This is good.
I think?
It’s less weird anyway.
I think.
This must be some kind of Cyrano thing. I’ve heard stories of guys falling for AI-generated texts on dating apps. I guess it’s kind of charmingly old-fashioned that Shay realized how lame she is at texting and got another human to do it for her.
Right?
It definitely makes it easier to go back to imagining my doe-eyed Piper in a miniskirt gently stroking me while articulately explaining the virtues of romantic-comedy logic before I do things that aren’t funny or cute to her.
There’s another text.
From Shay Nicholls. From her phone number, not in the Backroom app.
SHAY: Hey! peace sign hand emoji Just wondering if you’ve made a decision about New Year’s Eve. Need to know because I’ll have to send my assistant to the cabin to get things ready tomorrow morning if so. I’m flying in from Sedona tomorrow, so…
Shay always uses that peace-sign emoji when she texts from her phone number. Never on the Backroom app. I never noticed that before.
And maybe it’s the swirl and buzz of whiskey and caffeine in my bloodstream, but something that feels like a plan is starting to form in my brain. It may not be a rational one, but it’s a plan. Or a resolution, more or less.
ME: Hi. Do you only have one assistant?
SHAY: Yeah. Why?
ME: I’ll meet you there. Give me the address of the cabin.
SHAY: Amazing!
SHAY: So excited :)
I’ve decided I’m glad I didn’t tell Piper I’m the guy who found her journal yet. Because if she agrees to meet with me I’ll know she’s doing it because of the emails. Not because I play a heroic dragon rider in some movies.
I pull up the contact info for my uncle’s property manager.
I just hope Piper Puckett likes comforting surprises as much as she claims to.