Same Gate, Same Problem
727 Words
Gate B3 was crowded, loud, and smelled like airport cinnamon rolls and poor decisions.
Elyn hated it immediately.
She found a seat at the far end of the waiting area, away from the family with the screaming toddler, away from the man on a loud speakerphone call, and away from whatever chaos was happening near the charging station.
She sat. Opened her laptop. Pulled up the acquisition file.
Thirty seconds later a figure dropped into the seat directly beside her.
Not one seat away this time.
Directly beside her.
She didn’t look up. “There are forty seven other seats available.”
“This one has a better view,” Rhys Calder said.
“Of what?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
Elyn closed her eyes for exactly two seconds. Opened them. Kept reading her document.
Fine. He wanted to sit there he could sit there. She was Elyn Crest. She had negotiated with men who had tried to dismantle her entire company over lunch. She could survive one unbothered man at a departure gate.
Probably.
“You’re going to Harlow City,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re about to do next.”
He smiled again. She still didn’t look at him directly but she had unfortunately developed a peripheral awareness of his smile in the last twenty minutes and that was nobody’s fault but his.
“I was just going to say it’s a four hour flight,” he said.
“I’m aware.”
“Long time to share a gate with someone you’re pretending doesn’t exist.”
Elyn turned a page in her document. “I’m not pretending. You simply don’t register.”
“And yet you knew exactly how many seats were available.”
Her finger paused on the trackpad.
One beat.
Two.
“Goodbye Mr. Calder,” she said.
“We haven’t boarded yet.”
“Consider it practice for when we land.”
He laughed again and pulled out his own phone and actually stopped talking and Elyn would never in her life admit that the silence felt slightly different from the silence in the lounge. Heavier somehow. Like it had a presence.
She read the same paragraph four times.
Boarding was called twenty minutes later. First Class. She stood, smoothed her jacket, and joined the small queue at the front. Professional. Composed. Completely in control of every aspect of her morning.
She handed her boarding pass to the attendant and walked down the jet bridge.
Found her seat. 2A. Window. Perfect.
She settled in, tucked her bag overhead, and sat down.
The seat beside her was empty.
Good.
She opened her laptop.
Footsteps.
The rustle of a bag being lifted.
A figure folding itself into the seat beside her with the unhurried ease of a man who had never been surprised by anything in his life.
Elyn stared at her screen.
“2B,” Rhys said conversationally, buckling his seatbelt. “Interesting.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to say something insufferable.”
“I was going to say it’s a comfortable seat.” He settled back. “But now I’m thinking about what insufferable thing I could say instead.”
Elyn shut her laptop.
Turned to look at him directly for the first time.
Up close he was the kind of handsome that was almost offensive. Sharp jaw. Dark eyes that held absolutely nothing she could read. And the most irritatingly calm expression she had ever seen on a human face.
“Mr. Calder,” she said quietly.
“Ms. Crest.”
“I don’t know if this is a coincidence or something else entirely.”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
He looked at her for a moment. Unhurried. Like he was deciding something.
“It’s a coincidence,” he said.
“And if I don’t believe you?”
His mouth curved. Slow. Deliberate.
“Then it’s going to be a very long four hours,” he said.
The cabin doors closed.
Elyn faced forward.
Four hours.
She could do four hours.
She had survived worse than Rhys Calder.
Probably.
Under her left thigh, completely by accident, the corner of a small card pressed against her fingers.
She didn’t look down.
Not yet.
- Writer
