Chapter 1
She hates airports.
Too many people. Too much noise. Nora considers herself decently social, but all this closeness is pushing it even for her. What’s worse is that after she’s done squishing into these tiny plastic chairs, she’ll have to squish into a tiny plane chair next to a total stranger.
She only hopes that her seat partner has an easier time flying than she does, and that he or she smells decent and enjoys a healthy amount of comfortable silence. The in-flight movie is calling her name, and she plans to watch it in peace while clutching her armrest in a death grip until they reach the Middle Of Nowhere, Alaska.
Spilling her entire life story to a random person isn’t on the agenda. Which she might be tempted to do, considering she’s an oversharer. That’s what Jack always used to say when he scolded her forbothering people.
Finn might have said differently after all this time, though. She hardly shared anything with him. Maybe she’s not that person anymore and life has succeeded in beating the desire to connect right out of her.
She isn’t quite surewho she isnow, but if she’s lucky, this trip might sort that out. It’s a little late to be going on a mission to find herself at thirty-two years old, but what better place than just outside the Arctic Circle with nothing but polar bears andher own thoughts to keep her company. Or, she’ll panic in the air until they land, watch her best friend get married, and then come home to an empty apartment and wallow over pizza, as per usual.
One of those outcomes is bound to happen. It could go either way.
Nora scans her ticket for the fourth time out of boredom, checking her gate number as if it’ll magically change.
She should have brought a book.
Should have gotten Starbucks from the cafe close enough that she can smell the beans.
Should have sat anywhere except where she is right now, sandwiched between two families with kids all bouncing and laughing. How dare they laugh? Don’t they know what that does to her? Don’t they know that every time she hears it, she thinks of another life, when the weight of the world wasn’t suffocating her?
The sound of children’s laughter gives her anxiety and she makes a mental note to discuss that with her therapist when she goes home. She’ll be given a dozen exercises and suggestions, all of which Nora will promptly ignore, but bringing it up feels like the bare minimum effort.
For now, she gets up and leaves the kids behind. Standing is better anyway. It gives her less time to think about the impending doom on the plane if she’s pacing the waiting area.
“Fuck.”
Her head snaps up at the mumbled curse coming from a man who narrowly missed spilling his coffee on an unsuspecting bystander.
That doesn’t stop him from colliding into Nora the moment he turns around. It all happens so fast, she hardly has time to react before the coffee explodes between them in a lukewarm mess.
They both freeze in shock before a litany of apologies starts fumbling out of his mouth as he tries to brush the coffee off her shirt. He isn’t attempting to accost her, but his hands are on her body anyway, and that’s not usually how she prefers to greet someone. He’s so flustered, he’s not thinking. She can tell because his mouth is still running and the tips of his ears are bright red.
Technically, there’s not much damage done. She’ll have to wear his….peppermint mocha, the whole fucking flight, but on a scale from zero to disaster, this barely ranks, so she steps backward, offering him a glare that has his roaming hands retreating into his own space again as he finally realizes what he’s doing and nearly flies away from her across the whole airport.
He connects with the ticket counter and goes even redder than before. “I didn’t mean to…wasn’t trying to…shit. I’m sorry. Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Dammit, that guy almost ran into me, then I ran into you. Lemme help you clean up? Do you know where the bathroom is? I can grab you some paper towels? Can I get you another coffee?”
“That was your coffee, not mine.” She raises a brow at his nervous offer.
“Right. Right, of course.”
“I’m gonna go somewhere else, before I get arrested. I really am sorry.”
She sighs, taking pity on him because his apologies seem sincere and he has kind eyes. It doesn’t hurt that he’s not difficult to look at. Nora may have passed the point of wanting anything to do with another man, but her eyeballs still work fine, even if her heart doesn’t, and this one is easy on them. If he had a weird vibe, she would have called for airport security by now. All in all, he seems harmless.
“I’m okay. It’s fine. Areyoualright? You hit that counter pretty hard just now.”
He shrugs, shouldering his carry-on. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Well, it’ll be another ten business days until we board. You have plenty of time to grab another cup.”
“Can I buy you one, too? It’s the least I can do since you’re wearing my first one.”
There’s as much flirt wrapped in that suggestion as there is hesitation. His lips manufacture a heart-stopping smile right before he stops looking directly at her, preferring to glance at that gaggle of kids as a distraction. He shifts on the balls of his feet with nervous energy, awaiting her decision. It’s a bit of a contradiction considering the rest of him appears professional in a way that scratches her brain just right. He is put together despite behaving like a mess. She can smell the new leather from his bag wafting up her nostrils in a pleasant scent, his shoes shine brighter than the spark in anyone’s eyes in this horrid place, and the watch on his wrist probably costs more than her car.
She isn’t often in the habit of cataloging men this way, but he makes it difficult to ignore, considering he’s trying hard to hide these details with a rumpled t-shirt and enough bed head to mimic a squirrel’s nest.
