Page 6 of Looks Real Good Now
I shook my head. Behind her, Teddy was my closest friend. Had been since eighth grade.
“No, we’re still close. He was part of the reason I made the move to Detroit. I couldn’t pass up the chance to play with him one final time.”
“Always the poet,” she muttered to herself. “Anyway, it’s not like that much time has passed since we started supposedly dating, so it should be pretty easy. Besides, you were right, we did know each other quite well, a lot of it might end up beingmuscle memory.”
As if by magic, our gate was called, and I picked up my well-worn duffle and the backpack that Lenny had shucked off her shoulder sometime after I handed over her coffee. We both started towards our gate.
It was only as we joined the queue at the gate that she noticed I had her bag over my shoulder.
“I can take that, you know,” she said. She held her hand out to me. I shifted the strap up higher on my shoulder.
She huffed and dropped her hand.
“This is lighter than you used to pack for a carry-on. You finally figured out how to pack light?”
“Yes and no. I stopped doomsday packing. At least when I’m going to certain places. Like home. I could say the opposite for you though.” She gestured to my duffle, which was almost bursting, but still within the weight limit.
“The thing about spending so much time on the road is that it gets annoying having to pack all the time. You get really good at stripping everything down to the bare bones. It turns out that the skill also translates to longer trips.”
“You mean to tell me that you have managed to pack everything you need for what…two weeks? Into that one bag?” Her mouth was slightly open.
I nodded.
“I’d say teach me your ways, but I know I wouldn’t be able to swing it when travelling in the winter months.”
“You still got that sweater obsession?”
“It’s not an obsession, Liam. Sweaters are an essential layering piece. Need I remind you that we were raised in a state that getssnow?” She was pouting at me as she handed her ticket over to the clerk. It was checked quickly and then she moved on to mine.
“No, I remember that we were raised in a state that gets snow. I also remember that you wear sweaters year-round. Which I think is what makes it an obsession.” I followed her down the tunnel, ignoring the flirty eyes that the clerk tried to give me as she handed my ticket back.
Lenny noticed, though, and a furrow between her brows appeared for the length of a heartbeat before her face smoothed back out.
“I can take my stuff now,” she held her hand out again.
“Where are you sitting?”
“17F.”
So she was the reason I couldn’t choose my preferred seat.
“Well, it’s your lucky day, I’m 17E.” It was a dreaded middle seat, but that didn’t seem so bad now I knew who had the aisle seat. If I was lucky, she might switch with me mid-flight to give my legs some room. Like she used to.
“Of course you are,” she grumbled as she walked down the tunnel. I let her put some distance between us for now. She could only get so far, anyway.
When I got to our seats, a man was standing very close to Lenny. His head came to her shoulder, and he looked like he wastrying to say something in her ear. Lenny had a resigned look about her; it was one I was used to seeing on her.
She was trying to figure out how to get this man to back off without angering him to the point that he got abusive.
Melanie used to love finding herself in those situations because it gave her a chance to say that Liam Mulligan was her boyfriend. They usually backed off after that.
Lenny’s eyes flicked away from the man to me, and I saw relief bloom in her eyes when she saw me. “My boyfriend is gonna need to get by you.”
The way she said ‘my boyfriend’ made my blood feel hot, which could not be more inconvenient if it tried.
The man seemed to take a moment to hear what Lenny said and when he did, his head turned to look behind him. There was a split second just before he recognised me that he looked annoyed that I was impeding his opportunity to hit on Lenny, and then when the recognition hit, I tried to figure out if he was a fan or if he had simply seen one of my many billboards in the city. Billboards that I would have happily burned down instead of constantly seeing them throughout Detroit. Mom told me New York was worse. Which I could believe because mymotherwas telling me about how she kept seeing me in my underwear around the city while she went about her day.
“Gunner?”Well, that answered that question.
