She wrinkled her nose. “Too much trouble.” She leaned over the rope and dropped it all into a trash can.
“I think you’re the one that’s trouble.”
“That was lame. Really lame.”
“I never said I was cool.”
She put her hands on her hips and stared up at me. “I’m Loren,” she said.
“Jackson Williams.” I found myself laughing. This woman was pure chaos. “Headed back to college?” I asked. God help me, why was I asking her questions now?
“I graduated. In May.”
“I assumed you were younger.”
“Most people do. But I’m twenty-two.”
“What was your major?”
“I graduated with a degree in photography. I want to be a wedding and an event photographer.”
“I don’t know much about photography.”
“Would you let me take your picture? I did a whole semester on portraits and candids. I won’t post it online or anything crazy like that.”
“Here?”
“Sure. I can just use my smartphone. I won’t unpack all my equipment.” When I didn’t answer, she smiled. “You don’t have to. I know it’s a weird request to ask of someone you don’t know.”
I didn’t mind. I wasn’t working, so I didn’t see the harm. “Okay,” I said. “But why?”
There was that smile again. I’d never met someone who smiled so big over something so small.
“You were nice to me. I could hear the people groaning behind us, pissed off because I was holding up the line. I like to document everything.”
“But not on social media?”
“No. I do keep a photography blog.” She lifted one shoulder. “But I won’t post yours.”
“You can post it. Not sure why you’d want to, but I don’t mind.” Plenty of my teammates posted ridiculous selfies. As long as we didn’t identify where we were or what we were doing, it was fine.
“I have a feeling you’ll get a lot of hits,” she said under her breath.
“Are you going to objectify me?”
Her skin turned scarlet, but she laughed. “I’d like to say no, but…” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Just look down at your watch. Now look at me. Now smile.” She put her phone away. “You have a gorgeous smile.”
I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about my smile, but I’d take the compliment. “Thanks.” I’d been hit on plenty of times, and I often took the women up on their offers.
Finally, we were at the front of the line for the TSA security check. “Let me go first,” I said. “And you watch.” She did, and she sailed through the process.
I could not watch her struggle with that bag while we walked. “Let me carry that.” Without waiting for her to agree, I picked up her bag again. “What gate?”
“Gate?”
“Look at your boarding pass.”
“This says I’m Gate 54-A.”
We were on the same flight. I wasn’t sure if I should be happy or alarmed. The longer I spent around Loren, the more I liked her. “Headed to Seattle?”
“Yep. And then onto Alaska.”
“Me too.”
She whirled toward me, nearly knocking into a sunglasses display in the middle of the terminal. “I can’t believe we’re on the same flight. That’s serendipity!”
“What are the odds?” I said.
“Pretty small,” she said. As we walked inside the main terminal, she stared up at the ceiling. “It’s huge in here.” She followed me on the moving sidewalks and onto the tram system, where we both stayed standing as the tram rattled along the terminal.
“Where do you usually fly out of?” I had to know.
“Macon.”
Macon was small, but it was still an airport. There were still rules to follow. As we rode, Loren pulled her phone out again and snapped photos of the tram.
“I’m hungry,” Loren said. “Do I have time to stop at one of these restaurants?”
“We have about thirty minutes. You don’t want to cut it too close, but you have time to stop.”
“Do you want anything?” she asked.
“I’ll stop too.”
She picked a little cafe with sandwiches. “Let me get yours,” she said. “As a thank you for being so helpful to me.”
This young woman was not going to pay for my food. “You’ve already thanked me. I’ll get yours. To celebrate your first time at the Atlanta airport.”
She blinked those big eyes at me. The corners of her lips curved up. “I definitely think surviving that line full of hostile passengers deserves a celebration.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Yeah, only because you stepped in. Whenever there are a lot of people around, or there’s a lot going on, I get flustered.”
“Aren’t weddings kind of chaotic?”
“Yes. I’m working on it,” she said.
We both picked out bagels and a piece of fruit and she chose a table nearest the rest of the airport. “I love people watching,” she said. “And this is a great place to do it.”
If we were in a city, I’d have insisted we move. In a city, we’d have been too exposed for me to relax enough to eat. But here, in this weapons-free, closed environment, I could let it go.
I nodded. I watched people too, but not for fun.
She spread cream cheese all over her bagel, and I watched the graceful movements of her hand while she held the knife, and my body reacted. I wouldn’t mind having her hands on me.
Was I losing it? Had I gotten an undiagnosed head injury in Romania? I liked women. I always had. But I’d never gotten hard over something so mundane. Hoping for a distraction, I bit into my apple.
And then out of the blue, she asked, “Which branch of the military do you serve in?”
I kept chewing my apple, trying not to look startled. I wasn’t expecting that question. I wasn’t going to lie to her, although I gave as little details as possible. “Army. How’d you know?” I’d had plenty of people ask me, but most were other soldiers who said they recognized the body language, or some mannerism I had.
“I saw your ID when we were in line.”
Well hell. Apparently I wasn’t very discreet. Not that it mattered. Undercover missions weren’t part of my job, so it didn’t matter who knew.
“Active duty?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Thank you for your service,” she said. Her sunny smile faded. “My cousin was killed in Iraq. He was a doctor in the Army. We didn’t think he’d be in danger. But you know how it is.”
I did know how it was. And I never knew what to say to a grieving family member. Everything seemed inadequate. “I’m sorry.”
“My uncle is in the military too. He’s an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He’s serving at the Pentagon.”
Pentagon? That was probably a signal to me to stay the hell away. The last thing I needed was her obviously well-connected family pissed off at a thirty-six year old soldier for corrupting their baby.
“Time for us to go,” I said, grabbing our paper trash and stuffing it into the trash can.