Page 4 of Starrily
“He probably had an eyelash in his eye.” Shehadto get the topic off him. “Do you want to try a joint somersault?”
“Ooh, let’s do it!”
After a semi-successful attempt, Ava left to float around some more, and Callie brought her phone and key set back out. True, this wasn’t a scientific flight, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do a bit of equivalence principle testing.
“We’re coming off the parabola,” the instructor said. “Get ready to lie back down.”
“A second,” Callie murmured, and tried to toss the phone and the keys simultaneously. No, not in sync—she quickly caught them and tried again, as in her peripheral vision, people laid back on the floor.
“Ma’am,” the instructor said.
“Yes, I—”Fine, next parabola.There were still a few left. Callie caught her phone just as the gravity rose—and then she plopped down on the floor.
The floor groaned.
“If you wanted to cuddle, you could’ve said so,” the voice said from under her.
Of course. Of the twenty people in here, she had to accidentally land on him. Falcon. Maybe sheshouldcall him Sexy Pale Ginger Guy, instead of that stupid nickname.
Or maybe just Pale Ginger Guy. No need to delve into the attractiveness part.
“On your back, please,” the instructor said.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She rolled off Falcon, wishing she could also roll off this plane. She didn’t dare look at him, but she heard him snicker.
And then she heard—and felt—something else. A little rumble in her stomach. A burning sensation rising up her throat.
Too many somersaults.
“Uh, are you okay?” Falcon asked—and a second later, got his answer as she rolled to the side and gave him a nice display of her breakfast.
Landing
“How was it?” Stan held the door of the limo open and waited for Simon to slip into the back seat.
“Up to the middle of the flight, it was fantastic.” Simon automatically brushed the sleeve of his left arm, even though by now, he’d changed out of the jumpsuit and was wearing his racer leather jacket.
Stan got behind the wheel, negating half of the late afternoon sun with his massive figure. “And then?”
“Then an infuriatingly humorless woman puked on me.”
“Rough.”
“Ah, well, no need to dwell on it.” Simon motioned Stan to drive off. “It’s not like I’m ever going to see her again.”
***
“See, told you it’d be fun,” Ava said as she and Callie headed towards her car. “Minus the …event.”
“You’re not making it better.” Every painful second of that parabola replayed in Callie’s head, over and over. In some versions, she later apologized to Falcon in a whole, un-stuttered, coherent sentence. In other versions, she caught herself in time and magically didn’t puke on him.
Unfortunately, those versions weren’t her reality.
“Come on.” Ava hugged her around the shoulders. “Happens to everyone. Besides, only twenty people saw you.”
“Nobody was recording it, right?”
“Nah. We were all lying on the floor.”
