Chapter Three
three
Lanie
“Five of spades,” Lanie said as her eyes ran the length of Dr. Ridley Aronsen while he, in turn, watched her closely. They faced each other in competition, each taking the other’s measure.
Lanie’s tongue pressed against her front teeth in consideration. In that moment, Lanie squinted, wondering if he knew precisely how fine he was. Particularly since he seemed so consciously and boringly professorial in his carriage and dress, she was beginning to suspect that it was a put-on. Like, perhaps he was deliberately trying to downplay his looks to be taken seriously. As if a simple boring sweater, dark slacks and the tortoiseshell-colored, brow-line glasses could somehow obscure those intense matinee idol–esque eyes and enviable bone structure. Though truthfully, she did appreciate his “cover” a little. Because she feared he’d have been a little too intimidatingly handsome otherwise.
“C’mon, then,” Lanie groused, all but pouting at the handful of playing cards she held on to tightly.
Whatever his motivations, Ridley was terrifically unsuccessful in hiding his charm. Because in addition to being visually appealing, he was attractive in other ways too. Lanie felt an almost instant rapport with him. Like they’d known each other for years instead of hours, telling stories and sharing jokes. Over the duration of the flight, she’d discovered that she enjoyed him, this perfect stranger. And she recognized quickly that kind of chemistry was something she hadn’t experienced since childhood.
Not since Jonah .
Lanie’s heart gave a faint but pained kick at that thought. The ease with which she and Ridley had shared anecdotes and embarrassing foibles already felt like the stuff of lasting friendships...or possibly even more. Her cheeks warmed at the prospect of it.
“Bullshit!” Ridley declared, startling her out of her contemplative silence.
“Damn. You’re good at this,” Lanie grumbled, eyeing the two cards remaining in his hand. “Or you’re a low-down, dirty cheating cheater.”
“Or, counterpoint, you’re transparent, totally easy to read.” The corner of his mouth rose slightly.
“No, you’re definitely cheating.” Lanie dropped her cards on the discarded stack sitting atop Ridley’s tray table anyway. “I fold.”
“Smart decision.” He winked.
“I know when the jig is up.” Lanie’s smile lost its luster as their final round of “Bullshit” gave way to the topic they’d been discussing over their playing cards. “Well, usually.”
“So, your friend and your cousin, huh?” Ridley crossed his arms, returning to their subject of discussion. “And you’re not happy for them?”
Lanie shrugged, reshuffling the deck to return to the flight attendant.
When she’d finally, and with great reluctance, unburdened herself, Ridley was surprisingly understanding and nonjudgmental. Lanie had spent the last hour recounting her reasoning for this trip: the engagement celebration of her favorite cousin, Gemma, to one of Lanie’s closest friends, Jonah. A surprise engagement at that. Lanie still wasn’t sure why she’d decided to confide that, other than that Ridley looked like a safe person to tell. More than likely though, he’d just mesmerized her. Ensorcelled her with those warm and inviting cognac-brown eyes of his. And his scent. Ridley smelled really, really good, like summer campfires—spicy, woodsy and clean. Ultimately, whatever it was, the story had fallen from her lips with ease and alarming candor.
“Supposedly being a captive audience for over a year had given them a chance to really get to know one another.”
“Makes perfect sense.”
Lanie bristled. “The thing is, they’ve already known each other their whole lives.”
“Ah well,” Ridley reasoned in the same breezy manner he’d displayed for the past few hours. Long gone was the uptight and caustic Mr. Rude Businessman. “You must admit, the circumstances of the past few years have made for a lot of strange bedfellows.”
Lanie groaned.
“Poor choice of words. Apologies.” Ridley caught himself but smirked slightly.
Lanie couldn’t completely marshal her frustration. “As a result, they’d gotten very close, they said.”
“Sure.” Ridley’s expression remained sympathetic.
“I think what really gets me is they don’t actually have anything in common. He’s a lawyer and she’s a hairdresser.”
He didn’t respond to that, pushing his glasses up his nose, a slight frown forming as if he was trying to decipher her meaning.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not being some classist jerk. Gem’s my favorite cousin, she’s beautiful. I love her. But she hated school, dropped out at fifteen and refuses to read anything more challenging than the features in Glamazon magazine. Whereas Jonah memorized the Declaration of Independence on a dare .”
“Was it you who dared him?”
Lanie smiled without comment. “Point is Gemma’s a Corrie addict. She likes reality TV and soap operas. Unless there’s a drag queen, top model, housewife or paternity test involved, she doesn’t want any part of it. Whereas we like action movies and anime, for God’s sake!”
“So, they have different interests.” He nodded. “Got it.”
Lanie got the impression Ridley was humoring her; he’d heard the “we” she’d let slip but didn’t remark on it. She shook her head. She was doing a bad job explaining this.
It was more than differing interests. It was different circles, different lives, different choices. When Lanie was ten and Jonah was twelve, Gemma was fourteen. That was like residing on entirely different planes of existence. As kids, that age gap might as well have meant Gemma was ten years older than both of them. In fact, really Gemma only ever associated with Lanie because she was like the little sister Gemma’d always wanted.
“But,” Ridley said, cutting into her thoughts with another one of his own, “other than Coronation Street and RuPaul, I don’t really have any idea what you’re talking about either. That doesn’t mean we aren’t still having a perfectly good conversation, does it?”
Aww. She liked that he was enjoying himself too.
“Yeah, but we also aren’t about to fall madly in love with each other and get married, are we?” she shot back sarcastically.
“Touché.”
She sighed, her quick little fantasy-bubble popping for the umpteenth time. Lanie was fatigued with her own peevishness about this whole thing with Jonah and Gemma.
“My point was that things change. People evolve,” he clarified.
Lanie nodded; she knew they weren’t children anymore, of course. Still, it didn’t make sense.
Lanie’s lifelong close relationship with Jonah was based on shared goals, shared interests and shared experiences: collecting trading cards when they met at ten and twelve; charting Pokémon evolutions at twelve and fourteen; winning a multiplayer game competition during an all-night, Red Bull–fueled, transatlantic binge at fifteen and seventeen; quizzing each other during his intense GCSE revision at sixteen then her SAT prep at seventeen; standing in line for hours at the first midnight screenings of the latest Star Wars movies in their early twenties. They had each other’s backs through both their college admissions processes. And he guided her through the challenges of her college years, sometimes trading dozens of emails and texts with her a day, then they supported one another through the trials and tribulations of being people of color in predominately white graduate programs.
She and Jonah had history, even across borders and oceans. Tons of it, years of it .
What did Jonah and Gemma have?
Proximity? They had Lanie’s grandmother’s church fellowship with Jonah’s family for years. They had the neighborhood and one or two mutual friends. But at the heart of it they were still two people who had barely interacted, except to say “hi” and “bye” and occasionally sit in the same pew at church. Until two and a half years ago, when somehow everything had changed. And now they were getting married. Make it make sense.
“So...” Lanie took another cleansing breath, pretending she wasn’t still stewing. “Anyway, that’s the story. I’m headed to their engagement party. Gotta represent for the North American contingent of the fam. Like a good sport.”
“Commendable, since having just played ‘Bullshit’ with you, I know you’re hardly a good sport,” Ridley said, tapping the tip of her nose with his index finger.
Lanie was so stunned she whipped back in surprise and banged her head against the window.
“I’m sorry!” Ridley was as startled as she was. “I don’t know why I did that!”
Lanie rubbed her head, feeling awkward about how forcibly she’d pulled away. “It’s fine. Misjudged the space is all.” Suddenly she was aware of how small their row was and how close Ridley sat to her. She cleared her throat. “Mind if I head to the restroom?”
Ridley nodded.
Lanie dug into her backpack for her toiletry bag before getting to her feet. Ridley rose with her, crouching until he cleared the overhead bin and following her into the aisle.
She spun on him with a raised eyebrow. “You planning on following me into the bathroom?”
He stopped short, stunned.
She only belatedly thought of the “mile-high” implication of the question. Lanie covered her mouth with her hands. “I—I didn’t mean that.” She shook her head vigorously, dying a little inside. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
A small grin threatened to crack the placid fa?ade of Ridley’s face. “Well, um, I was actually planning to use this opportunity to head to the bathroom myself...if that’s okay?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Thataway,” he added, thumbing aft, in the opposite direction of where she was headed.
Lanie bit her lip but continued to nod, face boiling hot. Ridley shook his head. Then, a deep, rumbling chuckle emanated from his chest that made Lanie feel lightheaded yet forgiven for her faux pas. They shared a brief, knowing but nevertheless awkward look before turning away from each other.
A minute later, Lanie pushed the lavatory door closed and then leaned her head against it. She smiled hard, until the apples of her cheeks flamed, her mind swirling with ideas.
She shook off the highly involved love fantasy she’d already begun constructing, letting go of the “how I met your father” story forming in her head to examine her very real face in the large mirror. Her large, thick-lashed, almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones accentuated the small bags forming underneath them, made worse by harsh mirror-mounted lights. Her usually honeyed and freckle-dotted complexion was a little sallow. The recirculated air had dried her out and red-eye flights were known to be rough on a person’s general constitution. She dragged her fingers over her face then rummaged through her beauty bag for something to do about it. Thank God for Gemma, who had insisted she get a ton of products to deal with it.
Lanie pulled a moisturizing spritz out of her bag. Then she plucked at her cheeks a little, hoping to get some of her golden-brown color back. She dabbed her full lips lightly with some tinted lip balm and then rebrushed her thick, tightly coiled, hickory-brown hair into something approaching its original do. That was the extent of her makeover abilities when in an airplane lavatory, so she decided it would have to do. She swept a paper towel across her underarms, then reapplied her deodorant and smoothed down her rumpled shirt. Then, taking a last look in the mirror, she stepped out of the bathroom.
Ridley was already standing in the aisle waiting on her. He leaned against his seatback with his eyes closed, his arms crossed over his chest, head resting on the overhead bin.
Good God , she realized again with a quiet groan, glasses or no, he is an inordinately attractive man...
Lanie tried to keep her composure but even looking at him made her heart gallop. It didn’t make sense since they’d only just met. Of course, it didn’t hurt that standing there, tall, dark brown and sharply angled like some preternatural combination of mahogany and statuary marble, he was a sight to behold.
No, no, we are merely plane pals, more ephemeral than pen pals. Which she’d had plenty of hopping back and forth across the Atlantic over the years.
Sensing her approach, Ridley’s eyes opened and he stiffly straightened to his full height as she came down the aisle. Lanie was certain she was grinning like an idiot, but he wasn’t.
Not at all.
He moved out of the way so she could shuffle into the window seat again. Ridley glanced at her briefly before refocusing on the screen that activated the in-flight entertainment system. Neither of them had found use for it before because they’d been having far more entertaining conversations and a lively game of cards with each other. But now he pressed buttons, opening his mouth before hesitating. He eyed her again, almost guiltily, yet still without comment. Then he gave up, searching around himself for something Lanie couldn’t identify.
Why did it feel like they were back where they’d started six hours ago? She looked him over, feeling like she’d missed something. But she hadn’t been in the bathroom that long.
“I’m sorry,” he said at long last.
For what, she wasn’t sure.
He reached over her for the book he’d abandoned hours ago, tucked in the seatback pocket in front of her.
She leaned back reflexively so that he wouldn’t be close as he did it, since even his smell enthralled her.
But then Lanie noticed a new thing on his hand as he stretched an arm across for his book.
“No, I’m sorry,” she muttered, taking in the wedding ring that had materialized on his left hand.