Chapter 5 #2
The question is one that’s been ping-ponging off the walls of my brain since Friday morning in Calvin’s office, never coming into sharpened focus until now.
Benjamin Carter can have his choice of publications.
Hell, with his Instagram following alone he could probably hawk a few products or start a YouTube channel and be set for life.
Around the Globe is a well-respected publication and all, but for someone featured numerous times in National Geographic, something doesn’t add up.
“The assignment’s easy,” he states, matter-of-fact, as he fidgets with the cuff of his jacket.
“Cal’s been calling for a long time, and it’s a short trip compared to most assignments I take on.
” He lifts a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.
“Ten days and then I’ll be able to edit from Mom’s house while I finish getting things packed up. ”
Since we’ve accomplished saying more than two normal sentences to each other, I take that as a positive sign and press further. “Are you looking to join Around the Globe permanently? Calvin seems pretty thrilled about you taking on this assignment.”
“No,” he scoffs with an air of condescension that raises my hackles. “This is a one-and-done kind of thing.”
Ben’s dismissiveness of my employer combined with his one-and-done wording plucks a deep-seated nerve, and just as I feared, my No Worries!
mask slips out of place and crashes to the floor.
“And why is that?” I demand, voice rising sharply.
“Because the Benjamin Carter is too good for our measly publication? His high standards could not possibly be lowered to cavorting with such amateurs on a permanent basis?” Drawing looks from the glassy-eyed businessmen nearby, I stand and shove my barstool under the countertop, slinging the strap of my duffel bag over my shoulder in the process.
“Or is it because you just can’t commit, Ben?
You always were a one-and-done kind of guy, weren’t you? ”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
The instant the words leave my mouth I want to pluck them from the air and stuff them back in. Swallow them down with the stiff drink I admonished Ben for partaking in.
As for Ben, he stares at me now, eyes wide as a muscle ticks in his clenched jaw. “Mona, that’s not…” He hesitates, eyes shifting about as he looks exceedingly uncomfortable. “I mean…I’m not…Are we talking about—”
“Forget it,” I cut him off. “I have work to do before we board.”
Then I make my way across the terminal, slump into a chair facing away from the bar, and pull out my laptop. I better get focused real fucking fast. This article needs to knock Calvin’s argyle socks off his feet, because I’m pretty sure my recruitment effort just went up in flames.
* * *
Two and a half hours later, my short-lived attempt at distance is shattered as we clamber on board and locate our side-by-side seats in the main cabin.
Around the Globe typically shells out the cash for first-class tickets for the Internationals, again something us Locals can only dream of from our seats in basic economy or, more often, the driver’s seat of a two-door budget rental car.
However, there was a snafu in the rebooking process with the last-minute changes to the trip, so here we are among the masses, but at least we’re in an exit row with only two seats so there won’t be a stranger who has to suffer through our inevitable awkwardness.
After wrangling my luggage into the overhead compartment—because I refuse to let Ben help despite his impatient huffing at my back—I claim the window seat before it’s up for discussion.
Ben carefully tucks his backpack beside my duffel and closes the compartment with a flick of his wrist. Then he’s in the ocean blue seat beside me, his thigh so close to mine they’re practically touching.
As a Local, I usually meet up with my photographer onsite, and one thing I hadn’t thought to worry about (until this very moment) is the unavoidable intimacy of traveling internationally with someone.
But it’ll be fine.
Separate hotel rooms, after all!
What could go wrong?
Unfortunately, Ben’s clean cotton scent doesn’t play fair, drifting into my space along with the smell of the cinnamon gum he feverously works with his jaw. My stomach flips in traitorous response at the specific familiarity of it all, and I know I’m a complete fool.
Ben stiffens in his seat next to me, and I wonder if he’s thinking some version of the same thing.
Then again, he seems perfectly cool and completely unaffected by this trip together, so he likely isn’t thinking about me at all.
He’s probably just uncomfortable in the main cabin seat when his broad, six-two frame is used to first-class luxury.
“Sorry about the seats,” I say, not wanting Ben to think Calvin doesn’t provide nice amenities for Around the Globe staff, even though for most of us he doesn’t.
Despite my earlier offense at his seeming snub of my employer, the truth is I’m not even sure why someone as successful and well-known as Ben would ever choose to work for Around the Globe.
So I’m already fighting an uphill battle here without putting Calvin’s faults on display.
“I’m sure you’re much more of an enter-the-plane-and-turn-left guy, but there was a booking issue since we were last-minute fill-ins. ”
“It’s fine,” he replies shortly.
Okay then.
Needing a distraction, I pull out the safety pamphlet from the seat in front of me and study it as if it contains highly guarded secrets of the universe.
Next week’s lottery numbers. Who really killed JFK.
Paul Rudd’s skincare regimen. All this and more could be in the palm of my hand and I couldn’t possibly pay more attention to it than I am this poorly illustrated instructional handout on how to use my seat as a floating device if shit gets real.
“Could you…put that away?”
Looking up, I see Ben staring at the sketches of doom in my hand.
My gaze sweeps from his clenched jaw to his tensed shoulders and settles on his large hand—currently white-knuckling the armrest between us as if he may hulk out and rip it from its place at any moment.
He’s nervous. Really, really fucking nervous.
Nervous in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with me or this awkward situation we’ve found ourselves in.
“Ben?” I wait until he lifts his shifty gaze. “Are you okay?”
He swallows hard, blinking several times before answering. “I, uh, I don’t like flying.” His voice is barely more than a whisper, his breaths shuddered and uneven.
“I didn’t know you were afraid of flying.”
“Yeah, well, I’d never been on a plane when I knew you, so I didn’t, either.”
“But you fly all over the world,” I say, tucking away the safety pamphlet as the plane fills up around us. Takeoff shouldn’t be long now.
“I do it. Doesn’t mean I like it. But I’ll be okay.” The sheen of sweat glistening above his brow suggests otherwise. “It’s only this bad until we get in the air. I usually have a few drinks before each flight to calm my nerves but…”
But I was a petty bitch.
Guilt surges through me. “Oh shit. Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. Just ignore me.”
Ben diverts his attention forward again, and after a moment I do the same, respectfully letting him suffer through his anxiety in private.
The official safety demonstration begins playing on the screens in front of us, and an attendant briefly stops by our row to ask for verbal acknowledgment that as exit row passengers we’re willing and capable of assisting during an emergency.
Ben manages a stiff “Yes,” but to be honest, I have my doubts.
Once the attendant is gone and the plane eases away from the gate, the strangled gasps at my side become impossible to ignore.
I look his way again, and Ben’s eyes are squeezed so tight that I can’t count the number of lines forming at his temples.
Watching him struggle, my mind reflects on Ben as a small boy, those wide green eyes when he lifted the lid of that cedar chest and found me inside, the way he held out his hand and rescued me once when I needed it.
The image is so clear it might as well have happened yesterday.
No matter the resentment I feel now, I have to help him because of then.
I press my hand against his forearm and he startles, those same brilliant green eyes opening to search mine.
“Take this off.” I tug at the sleeve of his jacket. “You’re sweating.”
With a stiff nod, he leans forward in his seat, and I pull his sleeve down his arm in our small, shared space, helping him strip down to his plain black T-shirt.
I lay his jacket across my lap and lean forward to fish a bottle of water from my tote bag near my feet.
I hand it to him, and he takes a long swallow before screwing the lid back on and tucking it in the pouch by his knee.
“Thank you,” he says in a low voice ridden with embarrassment.
As we gain speed down the tarmac, I keep my focus on Ben: the exaggerated movements of his throat as he swallows, the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he tries his damnedest to keep his anxiety at bay. And god help me, as a person with my own severe phobia, I can’t take it.
My hand leaves my lap of its own accord, hesitating only briefly before covering his on the armrest between us.
At my touch, his surprised eyes bolt to mine, and if nothing else, I’ve at least shocked him out of his fear for a few seconds.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say in my most reassuring voice as my fingers spread over his thick knuckles. “It’s going to be fine.”