Layover in Love (Spring Fling Sisters #1)
Chapter 1
April
I’ve had three break downs today, and only two of them involved airport food.
The third one is happening now, somewhere between Gate B14 and the aggressively teal–tiled floor of Houston’s Terminal C. A woman named Judith—who is either extremely underpaid or genuinely enjoys watching people suffer—is blinking at me like I’m the problem.
“There’s nothing I can do, ma’am,”
she says for the third time, her acrylics clicking against the keyboard in a rhythm that feels vaguely threatening.
“It’s a system-wide outage. All flights are grounded.”
I nod slowly. Maybe if I move in slow motion, the world will follow suit and let me catch up.
“I just—Okay. But listen,”
I say, sliding my phone across the counter.
“This is my interview. Tomorrow, in LA this magazine is… it’s everything to me. I need to get there.”
She doesn’t even glance at the screen. Just keeps typing like she’s submitting my dreams into a black hole.
Around us, the terminal is a blur of rolling luggage, crying babies, and annoyed businessmen pacing while yelling into Bluetooth headsets. Everything smells like stale pretzels and artificial lemon cleaner. The lighting overhead is way too bright, but somehow, I still feel like I’m in a fog.
Tuesday, 2 PM.
Verve HQ, Downtown LA.
Be bold. Bring your story.
I had this job once, two years ago, and then Mom got sick, so I didn’t go.
We used to read Verve together on Sunday mornings. She’d steep two mugs of chamomile tea—one for her, one for me—then spread the magazine across the kitchen table like it was holy scripture.
She always flipped straight to the photo essays first. "Stories without words," she’d say, tapping the glossy page with a perfectly manicured finger. "It’s like they’re speaking straight from the soul."
I was thirteen the first time I told her I wanted to be one of those photographers. The kind who could freeze a feeling and make someone thousands of miles away feel it too.
She’d said.
“You will be. One day, we’ll see your name right there in the corner,”
and I believed her.
She was the kind of woman who made you believe in things: magic, timing, resilience. She worked the night shift as a nurse for twenty years and still made it home to make pancakes in the morning.
When she got her diagnosis, she told me not to cry; she’d lived a life worth living, and she wasn’t scared.
But I was.
And still am.
Now she’s gone, and I’ve been building myself back piece by piece, praying there is still a version of my life that includes dreams and deadlines instead of grief and goodbyes.
Judith sighs and clicks a final key.
“Next available flight is Wednesday morning.”
I blink.
“It’s Monday.”
She blinks back. “Yes.”
I drop my forehead onto the counter for a full three seconds, just to stop the room from spinning. It doesn’t help.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
MAY
have you landed yet?
JUNE
tell us you’re okay. or at least functional.
ME:
grounded. system crash. no flights.
MAY
APRIL NO
JUNE
this feels like a test
MAY
this feels like sabotage
JUNE
breathe. regroup. fight a TSA agent if needed
I smile—barely. May and June. My sisters, my chaos, my entire world. Their voices, even in text form, are the only things holding me together right now.
That’s when I feel it—a weird, unmistakable prickle of being watched.
I lift my head and look across the terminal, and there he is.
Maybe fifty feet away, standing by a vending machine that appears to be rejecting his dollar.
Tall.
Broad shoulders stretching a gray coat.
Messy dark hair. There’s a quiet stillness about him; he doesn’t seem to be in a rush, even though everyone else around him is losing their minds. His hand pauses on the vending machine, and our eyes meet.
It’s a second. Maybe two, but something about it roots me in place.
His brows lift just slightly—as if he’s asking if I’m okay without moving his mouth. I blink, and he looks away.
And just like that, the moment disappears.
I find myself staring at the vending machine he’s abandoned.
Maybe he’s just another unlucky passenger trapped here.
Either way, I’ve got more pressing concerns than broody strangers with stormy eyes and snack-related vendettas—like figuring out how to reach LA before I lose everything, again.