Don’t fall for it, I will her, and sure enough, she rolls her eyes.
Liam doesn’t take a hint. He moves in closer, pinning her in against the counters. Lizzie scowls as he keeps talking, and I can practically see the steam start to come from her ears. I’m just about to go in there and pull him the hell away, when she jostles him, and somehow manages to spill her cup of hot coffee all down the front of his shirt.
Ha! Liam leaps back, cursing and dabbing at his shirt, but Lizzie just grins and sashays away.
I relax. I should’ve known she can take care of herself. But why do I care? We’re not dating. In fact, we’re not anything at all.
And I need to keep it that way, I remind myself, even if it kills me.
Which it damn well just might.
19
Lizzie
Okay, I tell myself, pacing back and forth at the boarding gate, ready to fly to LA. I can totally do this. It’s just a business trip! A business trip with a hot guy I totally want to screw senseless, but these are just details, right? I mean, what better time to practice self-control or mindfulness or whatever the hell they were talking about in that yoga seminar Della dragged me to last week.
Except all I could think about that whole yoga session was a thick slice of gooey tres leches cake, and now is no different; except instead of wanting to lick up every last drop of sugary goodness, I want to lick—
Well. Yeah. That.
My pulse is racing like I’ve just run a 5K, and I take another sip of my coffee, praying I’ve remembered to pack my Xanax. I’m not a great flier, to put it mildly. Planes terrify me, and without a knock-out dose of tranquilizers or a few very stiff drinks, I’m libel to slip into full on panic-attack mode, the minute the wheels leave the ground. Which would be highly embarrassing in front of a certain cocky, arrogant someone.
Wait. Did I pack my Xanax? I’m rummaging frantically through my bag when Jake arrives, looking predictably perfect in a pair of black pants and a light cashmere sweater that was probably made from some almost-extinct strain of sheep raised in the Scottish highlands.
“Are they boarding yet?” he asks in lieu of actually, you know, greeting me. And I shake my head no and keep tearing through my purse, hoping against hope that the orange plastic bottle will somehow miraculously appear.
“Not yet. Any minute though.”
“Rough day?” he asks, watching as I finally give up and shut my bag, flinging it over my shoulder.
“Not at all,” I say, trying for a breezy tone of voice.
“Right,” he says, clearly not buying it. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink,” he says, craning his neck to presumably look for the bar . . . just as they start boarding our flight.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath. No Xanax, no booze . . . this is going to get ugly.
“Guess we’re out of luck,” he says, hoisting up his black leather duffel bag and getting in line.
My stomach sinks as I walk down the narrow hallway and onto the plane, dragging my red rollaway suitcase behind me. I take a deep breath as I find our seats and after storing my bag in the compartment above, I slide into the one closest to the window. I just hope the flight is smooth—if there’s anything I hate more than flying, it’s turbulence.
As I settle into my seat, it dawns on me—I’m going to be inches away from Jake Weston for the entire flight, which, while it actually may take my mind off of my impending death, also makes our two hours spent in a movie theater in close proximity seem like a joke. He slides in beside me. “Fasten your seatbelt,” he says, turning to me with a wicked grin, “it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
“If that’s your best Bette Davis impression then the next six hours are doomed,” I say, pulling down the window shade, hoping to block out as much of the outside world as possible.
“Don’t you want to watch us take off?” Jake asks, reaching over and flipping the window shade back up. “It’s the best part!”
“Only if you’re clinically insane,” I shoot back, grabbing the window shade and pulling it down again. “Besides, my seat, my shade. So keep your mitts off it, okay?”
“Touchy, touchy,” he mutters. “Are you going to be like this the entire flight?”
“That depends.” I close my eyes and say a prayer. “Is it too late to get off?”
Jake smirks. “It’s never too late for that, baby.”
I hit his arm, just as the stewardess comes around. “Excuse me?” I lean over. “Is there any way I could get a couple of those tiny bottles of vodka before takeoff?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “We don’t serve alcohol until we’re in the air.”
“Sorry about my friend,” Jake interjects. “She’s got a problem,” he adds in a hushed voice. “Real sad. We’re trying to get her help but—Oww!”
I hit him again. “I don’t have a problem,” I tell the stewardess as she gives me a scared look and moves off. “Really, I don’t!”
Jake chuckles. “Why did you do that?” I moan, my one shot at oblivion disappearing down the aisle.
“C’mon, is sitting with me really that bad?”
“Yup.” I pull on an eye mask and plug in my earbuds. I could be sitting next to Brad Pitt himself and I’d still need a drink.
This is going to be one hell of a long flight.
Forty-five minutes later I’m gripping the armrest as the plane dips and drops in the sky so hard that my stomach turns over like we’re on a carnival ride—one with a bonus thrill of crashing into the ocean at 300 miles per hour.
So far I’m having a super great time on this trip.
On top of this, I’m trying to hide my panic from Jake, who is reading the in-flight magazine like it’s his religion and actually circling things with a red pen. You know, so he can buy them later? I can’t. I let out a long breath.
Just five more hours. Three hundred minutes. An infinity of seconds—
“You’re a pretty terrible flier,” he says without taking his eyes off the magazine.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I moan, leaning my head back and closing my eyes for a second.
“Is there anything I can do to help? Do you have any meds you can take?”
“I forgot to pack them,” I wail. “And now I’m gonna die in this tin can—with you, no less!”
He laughs, and I want to punch him. Instead I concentrate on squeezing my eyes as tightly shut as possible, willing the plane to stop its violent shaking from side to side.
“Seriously,” he says, “what can I do to help? You know that turbulence is the same thing as a bump in the road, right? It’s just air pockets—it’s not going to bring the plane down or anything. We’re totally safe—safer than in a car, actually,” he points out.
I open my eyes, incredulous.
“Did you really just say ‘bring the plane down’ to a nervous flier? Do you know nothing?”