Chapter 4
FOUR
CAMERON
JFK Airport, Celestial SkyPort
Queens, New York
The yellow taxi screeches to a halt, swerving to avoid collision and just enough to make me grab the door handle.
Typical airport traffic. Beside me, Riley brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and pouts into her compact mirror, inspecting her lipstick like we weren’t two minutes away from being late.
I bounce my knee, my midnight-blue blazer folded across my lap like a security blanket.
“You know we’re cutting it close, right?” I say, eyeing the meter as it ticks higher.
“Relax, Cam,” she drawls, snapping her compact shut and dropping it into her company issued purse. “We’re not late until we’re actually late. And besides, I can’t show up looking like I just rolled out of bed.”
“Riley, you did roll out of bed late. You napped forty minutes later than you meant to.” I try to sound stern, but my lips twitch upward. “I’m the Purser, you know I like to be early to start the paperwork.”
“Well, excuse me for being fashionably delayed,” she shoots back. “Unlike you, some of us don’t wake up looking like a Ralph Lauren catalog.”
I sigh and lean forward toward the driver. “Can you pull up as close as you can to the end, please? We’re kinda in a rush.”
The driver grunts and swerves around a bus that’s blocking half the lane, and a second later we stop.
I shove some cash into his hand and hop out.
Riley emerges behind me, smoothing her golden scarf like she was stepping onto a red carpet.
From the trunk, I pull out our luggage and drop them onto the curb with heavy thuds.
“Thanks for getting the bags, babe. I hope I didn’t over pack.”
Normally, we wouldn’t be checking bags at the crew center, we’d carry everything on with us. But the idea of fighting international restrictions for over nine days made us realize that the giant, hard-sided company-issued cases were a lesser evil.
“You’re welcome,” I grunt, dragging mine to the curb. “I don’t know if I’ll do this trip again. This is too much.”
“You’re not wrong,” she admits, attempting to wrangle her case, a rolling bag, and her purse. “After this, I’m going back to bidding for Rome and Paris.”
“I agree,” I answer in Italian, panting. “And I’ll continue to be your French translator.”
“Grazie mille!” She laughs.
“Alright.” I motion for the terminal. “Hustle for once!”
“I am hustling,” she insists, her heels clacking behind me. “But some of us are in heels! Besides, I’m graceful under pressure.”
“Grace?” I scoff over my shoulder. “You almost left your passport on the kitchen counter.”
“And that’s why I have you, Cam.” Air kissing me dramatically. “My very responsible, lifesaving bestie!”
“You’re impossible!”
“And you’re so adorable when you’re flustered.”
The crew entrance at Celestial’s terminal is tucked away at the end of the main passenger lobby and provides seamless access for flight attendants and pilots.
Frosted glass doors slide open as we approach, revealing the crew security checkpoint.
Hank, the senior security officer, sits behind his curved desk scanning badges with the enthusiasm of someone who had definitely been doing this for too long.
“ID, please,” he requests as I approach, and I hand it over. With a beep, my company photo pops up immediately on his screen.
“Welcome to work, Mr. Hayes.” Hank nods dryly. “Safe travels.”
Riley leans in behind me with practiced charm, flashing her badge and a wide grin. “Hiii, Hank. You missed me, didn’t you?”
“Like I miss my ex-wife,” he deadpans, taking her ID.
“What would you do without seeing me today?”
“Probably have a much quieter night, Ms. Morgan.”
I laugh, earning a sharp-eyed look from her as Hank waves us through.
“Bye, Hank.” Riley sings as she passes his desk, and I swear Hank offers the tiniest hint of a smirk, and we wheel our oversized bags toward a small ticket counter reserved for working crew.
“Hey, I’d like to check this in, please,” I say to the ticket agent as I heave my bag onto the scale.
“Flight number?” she asks as she takes my ID.
“Flight two to Heathrow.”
“Any dangerous goods to declare?”
I blink. “No…”
“Just have to ask,” she retorts, like she too would rather be anywhere else. The agent scans my badge, and attaches a tag to the bag, dropping it onto the conveyor behind her. “Heightened security,” she adds, spinning back to the counter where Riley’s bag now sat.
“Here you go, same flight, no dangerous goods, I packed it myself, and please handle it with care!” Riley winks.
The agent rolls her eyes so hard I feel it in my bones. Another tag, another thud onto the conveyor, and another sigh. “Have a pleasant flight,” she declares, dismissing us passive aggressively.
We collect ourselves, now with two bags each, and start down the wide corridor toward the crew lounge. I glance at my watch. “Five-forty, not bad.”
“See, I told you we’d be fine. Briefing isn’t until six.”
We emerge from the corridor into the flight attendant lounge, surrounded by crew members in sharp uniforms and perfectly styled hair buzzing in groups of conversations.
Topics include the best cheese shops in Amsterdam, hair emergencies, and schedule bidding drama.
I overhear someone named Bernadette, and she is livid that she got bumped in seniority by three percent during the recent base transfer, and now she can’t hold Johannesburg, but instead has to settle for Cape Town. The horror.
“Come on.” Riley tugs me toward a kitchenette. “Let’s grab a coffee before we go in.”
“Lounge coffee?” I protest, scrunching my face with exaggerated disgust. “No thanks, I’ll mobile order an iced coffee and pick it up after briefing.”
“Suit yourself. Coffee is coffee.”
We scan the digital displays above each of the briefing rooms that flank two perpendicular sides of the lounge, looking for our flight.
“Looks like we’re in room three,” I determine, gesturing with my chin.
“Flight two, London.” Our continuing itinerary is listed below it, Continuing Service To: Istanbul, Mumbai, Bangkok, Tokyo, Honolulu, San Francisco.
“Let’s head in so I can start the paperwork. ”
“See, that’s why I’ll never be a Purser,” Riley responds. “I’ll just keep bidding for the Business Class galley.”
“You know,” I laugh, leading us across the room, bumping my shoulder into hers. “You’re a damn good galley. So I don’t think I’d encourage you to stop.”
“Grazie! It’s not much, but it's honest work.”
Above us, the overhead speakers crackle to life, and an announcement calls across the lounge: “Attention in the lounge—flight attendant M. Diaz. Please acknowledge schedule change and report to briefing room three, position F.”
Fuck, fucking, fuck! I stop, frozen in place, and Riley grabs my arm immediately. I turn to look at her, and as if reading my mind, she insists, “Surely it’s another M. Diaz? Not Marc.”
But before I can answer, before I can even inhale, a deep, smooth voice speaks behind us.
“Well, well, well, this is certainly a surprise schedule change. And I’m not upset by it in the slightest!”
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath before turning around and forcing a smile at the recent addition to our crew.
“Hey, Marc!” I fake enthusiasm. “I just heard that announcement and thought, ‘Hmm, I wonder if that’s Marc.’”
At six-foot-something, and built like a walking gym membership, Marc Diaz always exudes a presence that commands attention. He has a dark and tight pompadour and a matching maintained beard, but wears enough cologne to stun a horse.
“Si, it’s me alright.” He grins as he pulls me into a hug that's tight and suffocating. The spice and heaviness of Dior Sauvage wraps around me like a memory I’d rather forget. “It's been what, two years?”
“Yeah,” I manage to say. “I think that’s about right.”
“And Riley’s on the crew too,” he adds, releasing me but sliding his hand to my lower back. “Perfecto, this is gonna be great!”
“Oh yeah,” Riley chirps, forcing a smile. “It’s like a little training class reunion.”
“Definitely.” I arch my back away just enough to escape Marc’s hand.
“You know, we were just heading into the briefing room to start paperwork,” I explain, silently begging Riley to help bail me out.
But she only smiles wide at me, and I know this has to be a sort of payback for how I snapped at her this morning when I was clouded by emotion.
She ignores my plea. Traitor. And pushes past us to the briefing room.
Marc lingers behind. “So, how’s everything been lately?” His tone is light. “I know we haven’t talked too much, but you seem… different?”
“Different how?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Quieter, maybe? More introspective?”
“I think I’ve just learned to enjoy silence,” I deflect and turn to follow Riley.
“Yeah, totally.” He touches my arm and it brings me to a stop. I hate that I look down at his big hands, surprisingly gentle. “I just wanted to say, it’s okay if you’re still, you know, working through things. Losing someone isn’t easy.”
My chest tightens.
“And I’m sorry about Drew,” he adds.
Unsure how to respond, and fighting through an undercurrent of discomfort and sadness at the mention of Drew’s name, I swallow hard and lie. “I’m fine, Marc. Really. Life goes on.”
I turn toward the briefing room again, eager to escape and desperate for this conversation to end, but he grabs my shoulder. “Sure, life goes on, but that doesn’t mean that you have to go through it alone.”
I face him directly, keeping my expression neutral and guarded, and I carefully navigate my response. “I’m not alone. I have Riley. My mom. I’m doing fine, I promise.”
“That’s great,” he says softly. “But, you know, some things are easier to share with someone who really gets it. Someone who’s been there with you.”
“Marc, that was years ago.” My tone is firm but not unkind. “We had fun, but that’s all it was, and I’m not looking for anything beyond friendship.”