Page 11 of Holiday Romance
My phone buzzes as a photograph comes through of my very small, very single childhood bed, made up with blankets that I’m pretty sure my parents had since before I was born.
#Glamour, Zoe writes underneath, and I sigh, mentally apologizing to my poor back muscles. I’ll need to book a massage as soon as I get back here.
Traffic slows as we near the airport, but at this time of year, I suppose I should be grateful we get there at all, and I tip the driver as I get out, checking in my suitcase and keeping my laptop bag on me. By the time I make it through security, I have zero time for delays and head straight to duty-free like a woman on a mission.
“Excuse me,” I ask, stopping the nearest worker with a lanyard around their neck. “What’s the worst-selling perfume you have?”
Five minutes later I leave smelling like an obnoxious concoction of pop-star-branded scents, with one sparkling pink bottle swinging from the bag on my wrist.
Eventually, I get to my gate, weaving through tired, disgruntled families and solo adults staring into space until I spy a dark-haired man sitting hunched over aNational Geographic. I can’t see his face, but I can picture his creased brow as he reads, the way he mouths every other word even though he swears he doesn’t.
For a moment, I just watch him, and then I take a step and then another and another, and with each one, I feel the world outside slowly slip away. No more worries, no more planning, no work, no nothing. I’ll have to deal with it all when I get back. Hell, I’ll probably have to deal with it when I land. But not right now. It’s the one time of year when I put my work second.
I’m smiling when I reach him and don’t hesitate as I reach forward to pluck the magazine from his hands.
“Excuse me, sir,” I say as he rears back, startled. “I think you’re in my seat?”
Andrew Fitzpatrick’s shocked look disappears as soon as he sees me. He grins up at me with those hazel eyes as if I’m the best thing that’s happened to his day. I know he’s the best thing that’s happened to mine.
“Hey, stranger,” he says, leaning back against the chair. “Fancy seeing you here.”
CHAPTER TWO
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Flight Two, Chicago
Just don’t meet his eye. Don’t meet his eye and don’t even look his way. Look down! Look down at your phone and pretend to be busy like the coward you are. Look down look down look down.
I look up, watching Andrew joke with a flight attendant as he makes his way slowly toward me.
He’s shaved off all his hair and it doesn’t suit him. I would say I barely recognize him, except for the fact that I definitely do. I’d know that face anywhere. I’ve thought about it enough these past few months, putting our flight last year right up there with the time I called my teacher Mam, or when I forgot to lock the restroom door on a train and a poor woman saw a lot more of me than either of us would have liked.
That is to say, it was embarrassing as hell and I’ve replayed the moment I snatched the phone from his hand at least once a week. After the Hayley incident, we didn’t say another word to each other and, when we landed, he vanished up the aisle before they’d even opened the doors. The last time I saw him was in baggage claim at Dublin airport, where he was yelling down the phone at someone. One guess as to whom.
Hayley, I only hung out with once more, at some random guy’s party she dragged me to a week after I got back. I called her out on what happened and she laughed it off, but she stopped texting me soon after and I let her. I made new friends, I settled in, I moved on.
But now?Now??
I mean, I know we’re both from a small country, but come on.
I slink farther into my seat, pretending to scroll through a news article while I remain extremely aware of the empty seat beside me. Aware because it’s one of the few empty ones left.
And Andrew keeps coming.
My heart starts to pound as I watch him approach from the corner of my eye. I mean, this is ridiculous. There’s coincidence and then there’s just plain old cosmic injustice. He could have booked any seat on any plane on any day, so why does it have to be this one? Why does it have to—
“Excuse me? Do you mind if I move your coat?” Andrew stops right beside me and I have no choice other than to glance up, clinging to the vague hope he’s forgotten all about me.
He has not.
He stares at me, hands frozen above his head, about to shove his bag into the locker. As soon as our eyes meet, all that embarrassment increases tenfold, and I flush when he just stands there.
“Hello,” I say with the biggest, falsest smile on my face. The word seems to trigger something in him, and his expression wipes blank as he drops his arm, swinging his bag back to his side before he moves on like he didn’t even see me.
Okay, not great.
I turn weakly back to the front, pretending not to listen to the polite conversation happening a few rows behind. A minute later a confused woman appears next to me, smiling sympathetically as she slides into the seat.
