Chapter Seventeen
I walk outside to sit, only to find Preston already sitting there reading US Weekly. Yeah, right. Like he just happened to pick it up from the seat?
“I got this for you,” he offers me the magazine and some 7-up.
“I thought your stomach might be upset. Hey, did you know it says here that Brad and Angelina are cooperating with the Maui authorities to try to find their impersonators? Apparently they’ve been on some sort of tour for World Hunger this whole week.” He shrugs as if it's no big deal, but I snatch the magazine from his hands.
I begin searching the table of contents frantically until I hear laughing next to me. “You're kidding, aren’t you?” I say in a panicked voice.
“Oh yeah.” He peeks around the magazine. “You should have seen your face though. Priceless.”
I roll my eyes and try to hide my smile as I look through the magazine.
“Is that a smile I see on that pretty face?” he says, leaning in.
Why is he torturing me?
“No,” I fight to hide my smile and turn away from his tempting face
“Oh good. I wouldn’t want you being happy or anything.” He pats my leg and then looks at his watch. “Time to go to the gate.”
I follow him numbly. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. This is where I finally see who this mystery woman is. This is….wait a second…
“Hey, Bobby! Over here!”
I look to see who Preston is talking to and see a kid–well, okay, he's probably around nineteen, a young —approaching us with some sort of crate. “Hey, brother. Long time no see.” They do some sort of ritualistic high five before looking at me.
“Amanda, I’d like you to meet Bobby, or BJ for short.”
BJ holds out his hand, and I take it. This isn’t the Bobby from my past. This is an entirely different person, and that means the text messages could have been from this Bobby.” I immediately feel sick again.
BJ looks back to Preston. “Sorry, dude, when you called to talk to Ashlyn, I was in the process of getting patted down by some foreign guy in the airport. Get this; he made me take off my shirt? Who does that?”
“Ah, so you’ve met Jorge,” I interrupt.
“Yeah! That was his name. Hey, how’d you know?” BJ asks.
“Oh, lucky guess.” I shrug.
Preston looks at me and smiles, then says, “Amanda, meet Ashlyn.” He opens up the crate and pulls out the tiniest, and honestly, the cutest little lab I’ve ever seen in my entire life. She’s chocolate with deep brown eyes. I nearly squeal from joy at the size of this little thing's paw—wait.
“Ashlyn?” I swallow hard.
“Ashlyn,” he repeats positively pleased with himself.
“Ashlyn, as in, Ashlyn is a dog?” I gasp. “As in, your ex-wife is a dog?” I ask, confused and half hoping it’s true. Then I won’t look stupid.
“No. Ashlyn, as in, Ashlyn the firehouse dog I’ve been taking care of the past few months,” he says, lifting an eyebrow.
“But I thought your wife was named Ashlyn!” I blurt, because I’m panicking.
“Where would you get that idea?”
“Yeah,” BJ interrupt. “Her name is Sara, and she doesn’t even live around here anymore. Seriously, dude, if she was still dating Bobby, I’d bring physical harm to that dude. Ugh. They deserve each other.”
I’m listening to the conversation, but at the same time, I feel rather faint. This means the texts from Bobby were really from BJ, and Ashlyn was the puppy, and…oh wait, this also means the bet had to do with something else entirely.
“You bet you’d marry me so you could get a dog?” I shriek as my fists tighten.
“Um, no,” BJ interrupts again. “Actually, he bet he could marry you, so he could give you the dog as a present. Because, apparently, he thinks your cat, Mrs. Butterworth, is it?”
I nod.
“Yeah, your cat is like clinically depressed or something, because it has no hair. Which, if you ask me, is just weird. Anyway Preston here has been my mentor at the firehouse, and he gets annoyed with how many times I call him and make mistakes with the dog and with…other things. So, I told him that if he could get a girl as hot as you, I’d not only transfer to a different firehouse, but let him keep the dog. And well, he won. Because look at you. You look like you’re crazy in love, or maybe just crazy. I can’t tell. I blame my inability to commit.”
He finishes his little rant, and I take a seat at the gate. Oh. My. Gosh.
I’m going to kill Preston. I’m going to tell Mrs. Butterworth and Ashlyn to scratch his eyes out and feed them to the turtles in the pond by our hotel. I can't help but smile evilly as I fantasize about my revenge and look toward Preston, whose starting to look a little worried.
“Don’t.” He holds up his finger, and then he takes off running.
I jump up and chase him around the airport screaming, “I’m going to kill you!”
I notice that he starts to sprint. Smart man. I mean, I’m fast and he knows it. I try to catch up to him but have to stop suddenly when he jerks someone else's luggage between us to hinder my progress.
“Now, Amanda,” he says, holding his hands out in front of him. “Let’s try and be reasonable. You never gave me a chance to explain. You just ran your mouth over and over again about what you thought was going on and never once asked me about it.” His hands were still out in front of him. I gave him a polite smile before grabbing my purse and smacking him over the head with it.
“Um, guys,” BJ says, catching up to us. "Sorry to interrupt this bonding moment, but I gotta get on the next flight."
“Wait,” I say, turning to him. “What do you mean, you’re getting on the next flight?”
“Well,” he says, handing the crate over to Preston. “My parents own some property in Kona. And since they wouldn’t let the dog travel alone, it was either go visit them or fly directly back to Boise, so...” He shakes my hand forcefully. “It was a pleasure meeting you, and I’m sure I’ll see a lot more of you now that you and Preston are getting married.”
I hear Preston snicker behind me before I give him another warning lunge with my bag. He backs off slowly and walks around to give BJ a high five.
“Thanks, man. I owe you one.” Preston winks.
“Actually,” BJ says. “It was totally worth it, seeing her chase you with her purse like that. Just wait until I tell the guys. We’ll see ya!” He waves and walks off, while I turn to glare at Preston again.
“Anything you wanna ask me,” he says, and then it hits me. All the shrimp, the throwing up, the talking incessantly about how hot he is to his face, the blaming, the embarrassment... I look at him and my eyes widen in astonishment over all of the things I’ve said in his presence over the past day.
“Oh, so it’s hitting you, is it?” He grabs my arm.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie through my teeth.
“Well, let me refresh your memory. My hotness, my awesomeness, you saying you’re not attracted to me anymore, the shrimp incident…Need I go on?” He’s beaming, and I’m ready to throw up again. That is, if I had anything in my stomach besides 7up.
Suddenly, I feel two hands grab my arms and a low voice say, “Come with us, please, ma'am.”
I mean, honestly, I don’t even look like Angelina right now. Oh my gosh. This is how my life is going to end. I’m going to get kidnapped in Maui!
Preston’s face pales slightly as a man in a police uniform asks him the same. We’re escorted to the side of the building to a door which reads Security Office. You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding.
“Ma'am,” the man in the uniform asks me. “Do you realize it’s a federal offense to make death threats in an international airport?” I look up at him and lock eyes on his nametag. Jorge. Seriously, what are the odds? And come on, it's not like I said bomb. I then proceed to explain just that to Jorge, who looks at me like I just confessed to having a bomb.