The Card
862 Words
Lunch arrived at 30,000 feet and Elyn ignored it.
Not because she wasn’t hungry.
Because Rhys Calder had ordered the exact same thing she had without looking at the menu and she refused to sit beside him eating matching meals like they were people who did things together.
She was not people who did things with Rhys Calder.
She was people who did things alone and preferred it that way.
The flight attendant hovered. “Ms. Crest you really should eat something the flight still has.”
“I’m fine,” Elyn said.
“She’ll eat,” Rhys said at the exact same time.
Elyn turned to look at him slowly.
He picked up his fork. Completely unbothered. Like he hadn’t just answered for her like they were people who answered for each other.
“Mr. Calder,” she said quietly.
“You haven’t eaten since the lounge,” he said. “And you didn’t eat in the lounge either because Gerald ruined your morning before you got the chance.”
The flight attendant looked between them with the expression of someone who had stumbled into something they didn’t have the clearance for.
“Leave the food,” Elyn said without breaking eye contact with Rhys.
The attendant left immediately.
“How do you know I didn’t eat in the lounge,” she said.
“I was there.”
“You were on your phone.”
“I was on my phone,” he agreed. “And you were sitting twelve feet away not eating and pretending Gerald hadn’t gotten to you.”
Elyn picked up her fork.
Not because he told her to.
Because she was hungry and the food was there and it had nothing to do with Rhys Calder whatsoever.
“You watch people,” she said.
“I notice things,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
“You said that already.”
“Still true.”
She ate in silence. The food was actually good. She was annoyed that it was good because now she couldn’t be annoyed about the food.
She needed something to be annoyed about.
Outside the window clouds stretched white and endless in every direction. Clean and unbothered. Like the sky had never heard of Gerald or Rhys Calder or acquisition briefs or any of it.
She almost envied it.
“You said yet,” Rhys said.
Elyn set her fork down. “We’re not doing this.”
“You said it. I’m just.”
“Drop it Mr. Calder.”
“Rhys.”
“Drop it.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “Okay.”
Just okay. No pushing. No circling back through a side door like men usually did when they wanted something. Just okay and then silence and she didn’t know what to do with a man who stopped when she said stop so she did the only reasonable thing and went back to her food.
They ate in silence.
It was not uncomfortable.
That was the problem.
It should have been uncomfortable. She was sitting beside a stranger who had followed her from a lounge to a gate to a first class cabin and knew how long she’d been staring at a single page and somehow that should have felt threatening or invasive or at the very minimum deeply irritating.
Instead it felt,
She stopped that thought immediately.
Killed it. Buried it. Moved on.
She shifted in her seat.
The card pressed against her fingers again.
Sharp edged. Small. Insistent.
She had been ignoring it for two hours and forty minutes and it had not once had the decency to feel less present.
She looked down.
Slid it out slowly.
Plain white card. No logo. No company name. No title.
Just a number.
Eleven digits in clean black print and nothing else.
She stared at it.
Then she looked at Rhys.
He was looking out the window. Jaw relaxed. One hand resting on the armrest between them close enough that she could see the line of his knuckles but far enough that it wasn’t a statement.
Or maybe it was a statement.
She couldn’t tell and that bothered her more than the card.
“This is yours,” she said.
He glanced down at the card in her hand. Then back out the window. “Is it.”
“You put it under my.”
“Did I.”
“Mr. Calder.”
“Rhys.”
She held the card up between two fingers. “I don’t call numbers I don’t recognise.”
“Then don’t call it,” he said simply.
She waited for the rest. The pitch. The smile. The lean in. The thing men did when they gave women their numbers and expected gratitude in return.
Nothing came.
He just sat there looking out the window like a man completely at peace with whatever she decided to do with that card.
Like it genuinely did not matter to him either way.
She looked at the card again.
Looked at him.
Slipped it into her jacket pocket.
She would throw it away when she landed.
Obviously.
That was absolutely what was going to happen.
- Writer
