11. Darby
11
Darby
No Reservations
T he departures haven’t been updated on the boards yet, but it’s obvious people know the storm’s ending soon by the way the overall mood has lifted. There’s a bit more of the usual hustle-bustle energy in the terminal, even though none of us is actually going anywhere just yet. People are up and moving around, and there are fewer morose expressions.
We pass a cluster of people doing yoga and lots of power-walkers getting their steps in.
“You never got that massage,” I say as we approach the spa.
He shrugs. “Maybe next time I get stuck here.”
“I give a decent backrub. If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll show you when we get back to the room.”
“Are you campaigning to go back to the room right this minute, because that’s what I’m hearing.”
I laugh. “Did you not hear the part where I said you had to be nice to me to earn it?”
“Haven’t I been nice to you since we met?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “You have.”
It’s true. He was nice when I was surly about spilling coffee on him. He was nice when I left him in the coffee shop and when I almost didn’t let him share my table at dinner and when I practically plowed into him in front of the spa . . . and in his hotel room.
He’s probably way too nice for someone as skeptical by nature as I am. There was a time I would’ve amplified that thought in my mind until it became a hard and fast reason to avoid him.
Hell, for my entire adult life, I would’ve done that. Until yesterday.
Zane Jacoby is the kryptonite to my well-honed defenses. But at the same time, he makes me feel stronger. It makes no sense. None of this makes any damn sense. Nobody finds their soulmate while stranded in a fucking airport.
Then again, not everyone gets to fuck in the airport. But great sex doesn’t mean you’re soulmates. We just made the best of a bad situation.
I need to stop analyzing it and enjoy what’s left of it.
“This reminds me of hanging out at the mall when I was in the eighth grade.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks with that sexy grin on his face. “What store did you have sex in?”
“The theater. Duh.”
He laughs. “Thank goodness for those dark movie theaters.”
“I wasn’t actually having sex in the eighth grade.” I don’t know why I feel the need to state that. “Maybe a little experimenting.”
“I think we all experimented in a dark theater at some point.”
“The absolute grossest place possible.”
“That might be an overstatement.”
“Okay, fine,” I concede. “The grossest place in the mall, though.”
“I don’t know. I think being groped in the Christian bookstore could’ve been worse.”
“Your mall had a Christian bookstore?”
“Right next to Victoria’s Secret. To this day, the sight of a bible brings back the memory of bald mannequins wearing push-up bras.”
“I do not remember a Christian bookstore in the mall.”
“Maybe it was a Florida thing.”
“Theme parks, alligators, and Christian bookstores,” I joke.
“Don’t forget the bikinis, drive-thru liquor stores, and adult video shops.”
“Damn. Why’d you ever leave?”
“I couldn’t bear the thought of never being trapped in an airport during a blizzard.”
“Well, there’s one thing you can’t get in Florida.” He takes my hand, and I let him. “I bet the floors were a lot less sticky in the Christian bookstore than in the theater.”
“Maybe upfront. That back room, though . . . you know some of those bibles are illustrated, right?”
“Ewwww, stop.” I’m laughing too hard to come up with a response to that. He wins.
I pull him to the window at the next gate. The snowflakes are sparse, but they’re still the big, fluffy ones that look like puffs of cotton candy drifting down. “Isn’t it wild that something so beautiful can cause so much trouble?”
“Plenty of devastation is caused by beautiful things.” He steps behind me and lightly squeezes my shoulders. “Anything can be dangerous in the wrong circumstances. Calm water is peaceful. Raging rivers rushing out of their banks are terrifying. Lightning far away from any structures? Stunning. A campfire or a flickering candle is great. Wildfires, not so much.”
“Too much of a good thing is never good.”
He leans down to kiss my neck. “But there are some things you just can’t get enough of.”
“What if it turns out to be bad for you?”
“What if it doesn’t?”
A fat snowflake tumbles in slow motion, hovering so close to the glass it looks as if I could reach out and touch it. Its edges are illuminated by the lights on the airport. I stare at it in awe, wondering why, out of all the people in here, I’m the one who gets to see this uniquely beautiful creation, like it’s falling just for me.
“Wow,” he whispers. “It’s barely moving. It’s like seeing it through a microscope the way the lights highlight every detail.”
He sees it, too. We are looking at the same unique snowflake.
“Quit staring at my snowflake.”
“You quit staring at my snowflake.”
When we laugh, it swirls away like it’s been blown by our breath. We should’ve held it for just a little longer. I know that isn’t real, that we had no control over how long the snowflake would stay. All we could do was enjoy it while it lasted.
“Do you think blizzards will always remind you of me?” I ask.
He turns me around to face him. “Yes, but I won’t forget you in between the storms either.”
Stop lighting sparklers in my core. You did enough of that earlier.
“Thanks. I don’t think I’ll forget you anytime soon either.”
“That might be the nicest thing you’ve said to me since we met.”
“Oh, please. I offered you a back massage earlier.”
“And I’m looking forward to it, but if I thought forgoing it would keep you from forgetting me, I would.”
“I’d just find another reason to put my hands on you.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and yanks me forward until our bodies are pressed together. His other arm snakes around me, and he holds me firmly. The earnest gaze of his hazel eyes is all at once too serious for playful comebacks.
“We’ll both fly to Florida tomorrow and return to our separate original plans, but I want to make some plans that include you, too. I know your life feels uncertain right now. So does mine, but I want to know you better. Make room for me, Darby. Don’t shut me out when we leave here.”
I can hardly swallow around the lump forming in my throat. This is so much raw honesty, and I wasn’t prepared for it. I want to see him again, too, but I don’t know how to do this without sarcasm and flippancy. And I can’t make use of those things when he’s looking at me like this.
This is some kind of moment of truth and we’re not in an appropriate place for it and it feels like an ambush. Like he has me surrounded. Technically, he does. His strong arms surround my waist, and his soulful eyes have me completely fucking captive.
I nod. “Okay.”
“That means you won’t freak out and block my number, right? You’ll take my calls and you won’t ghost me?”
Wow. It’s like he’s read The History of Darby Bartlett.
“I won’t ghost you, Zane. I promise.”
He kisses me softly. “Good. Because you’re going to really like me once you get to know me.”
“I already like you.”
“Yeah, but soon, you’re going to like me with no reservations.”
“Well, I might always have a few reservations . . .”
He releases me and shakes his head. “None. You’re going to be in pure, unadulterated like with me in no time.”
We pass the family from the train when we start walking again. The little girl recognizes us and shouts from her stroller, “Hi! We still here, too!”
Her oldest brother says, “We’re never getting out. We live in this stupid airport now.”
The middle brother looks at us like he’s never seen us before. Both parents smile and wave.
It’s weird to wave at strangers who’ve caught you making out on a train as if they’re old friends, but it’s certainly not the weirdest thing that’s happened to me today.