The mousy girl and I lock eyes. Her pink-lipped mouth is set in a firm line. She means business.
“You said there’s one seat left?” I ask.
The frazzled-hair woman nods. “Think so. I’m gonna go check.” She smiles, raising her shoulders slightly. “I’ll let you know.”
I turn to the girl. “I need the ticket.”
She smirks. “Me too.”
“I know you are probably thinking I’ll just hand it over, to be a gentleman and all, but it’s Christmas and I need to get home.”
She nods, her lips pursed. “Well, like the lady said, you’ll have to fight me for it.” She drops her tote bag and raises her fists, moving her right foot back in a fighting stance. “Come on Mr. Bah-Humbug, let’s do this.” Her eyebrows raise and I know she is playing with me, but this day has been way too long.
“So you’re a southpaw?” I ask, crossing my arms, assessing her.
“That’s it?” she asks, fake jabbing me. “I need that ticket. My dad is counting on me. He told me he hung up a stocking and everything. He’s baking a ham. I can’t let him down.”
“You should have gotten here earlier, Rhonda Rousey.”
She drops her arms and picks up her bag. “Let me have the ticket.”
“No way,” I tell her. “You may be ready for a fight, but that flight attendant has a sweet spot for me.”
The girl rolls her eyes. “Oh, give me a break. Let me guess, you gave the poor woman who’s been on her feet for twelve hours some pickup line about sitting on your figurative Santa’s lap.”
I smile. “Listen, I gotta do what I gotta do. If she wants to suck my candy cane, I’ll let her. It’s not personal. It’s Christmas.”
She looks at me with disgust, and I’ll admit, maybe I went a tad overboard with that comment, but this girl is unnerving as fuck.
“Right. Which is why I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do.” She grins, and starts hollering, “This man is harassing me!”
My mouth drops, she is playing dirty. “Stop it,” I tell her. “That’s so not cool.”
She stops yelling, as people stare at me uncertain of how to respond to her claim.
She crosses her arms. “I’m not standing around waiting. I’m getting that ticket.” She moves past me toward the ticket counter. “Excuse me?” she asks the attendant I was flirting with. “Is there a standby seat left? My dad’s dying in the hospital as we speak.”
Her eyes go wide, “Oh sweetie, let me check.” And she rapidly begins typing on a keyboard. “Yes, yes, we do. We have one seat left.”
“You told me he was baking a ham.”
She instantly gets red in the face. “Well, I mean. Figuratively.”
But the attendant isn’t having any of it. “You’re lying about your father?”
“Umm. Sorta. But he,” she says pointing her finger at me, “told me he planned on having you lick his candy cane during the flight.”
Holy shit, this girl is fighter, a liar, and knows how to play dirty.
Now it’s my turn to get red-faced and backpedal. “I didn’t say that. Exactly.”
The mouse-girl responds, but I can’t even hear her, because the attendant is scowling, clearly disgusted with our antics, and is asking a man behind us to come forward.
Then she gives him the last standby ticket.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say to no one and anyone willing to listen, but the only person to hear me is the girl with a smart mouth. Everyone else has either boarded the plane or cleared out of the gate.
“Fuck me now,” mousey girl says, huffing as she pulls her rolling suitcase, glaring at me the whole time, before leaving the gate.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” I think, before making a beeline to the bar with three hours to kill.
Chapter Three
CeeCee
During my three hours of sitting around the Seattle airport, I manage to update my LinkedIn account – mostly because I need a new job ASAP. I can’t answer phones forever when what I really want to be doing is helping people promote their businesses.
After that, I sit in an airport bar nursing a Chardonnay and reading a Christmas romance on my Kindle. It may not be the most glamorous way to spend Christmas Eve, but at least I’ve had a little fun getting tipsy and fantasizing about a mountain man who is unable to keep his hands off of me.
Eventually, I slide off the barstool and head towards the gate. It’s a relief to find that the earlier hustle and bustle at the airport has dissipated. At this point, everyone left is just tired.
No one is fighting -- not even the sexy guy who was an asshole about the standby seat earlier. We all just get in line to board the plane while staring at our smartphones, jealous of the Facebook feeds that mention marshmallows and hot cocoa and cute kids in matching Christmas pajamas.
Maybe next Christmas will be different. Maybe next Christmas I’ll have someone who cares about me, who wants to share a life with me. Maybe next Christmas I will have a life that I am excited about.
This is not how I expected my life to be just a few years out of college.
After boarding the plane, I stow my carry-on overhead and find my seat by the window. Before tucking my purse at my feet, I pull out my Kindle once again and begin where I left off.
Snowflakes. Kissing. Mistletoe.
Sigh.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I look up and see the sexy-yet-argumentative-man from earlier looking at his boarding pass and then the seat numbers. Then he shakes his head and sits down in the aisle seat, leaving one seat between us.
Of course, that’s my luck.
I smile -- very tightly -- and look back at my screen. Determined not to say anything to this guy.
Yes, he may have a beard that reminds me of the mountain man I’m reading about, and he is wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing scrolling tattoos across his forearms. Which do turn me on; and yes, does make me all fluttery in my belly. Against all better judgment, I have the urge to press my face against his chest and inhale. Wanting to know if he smells like fresh air and pine trees and firewood.
Which is ridiculous.
He is not a mountain man carrying an axe that I’m reading about. He’s just a guy, carrying a grudge.
Against me.
He must have the same ignore-me idea because he doesn’t even give me a second glance. He sits down, pulls out a paperback novel. A classic.
He’s reading A Christmas Carol.
Which, okay. That’s pretty damn sexy to be reading that on Christmas Eve.
But he is not sexy. He wanted some flight attendant to suck his candy cane.
His words, not mine.
Just when I think the plane has finished boarding, a mom and her screaming kids walk on.
“Sorry. Timmy, get back here. Walk, please. No running.” The woman shakes her head, carrying an infant in her arms and has a five-year-old barreling down the aisle.
I feel bad for her and am reminded that I am pretty much the ultimate self-centered bitch.
All day I’ve been thinking about myself and how hard it is to be traveling on Christmas Eve. And here’s this woman with her two kids, all alone.