“So… history, art, Italian, French, maybe even German? And now you hand out hot towels in the sky.” I gave him a look. “Hey, those towels are a luxury experience.”
He smirked. “So, why the flight attendant thing?”
“Because I didn’t want a desk job. Because I love airports. I like seeing the world and leaving before it gets too complicated.” I paused. “And maybe because doing something completely different than what was expected felt… liberating.” He didn’t press, but I could tell he understood. “What about you?” I asked. “You said your last vacation was your honeymoon.” Henodded. “Yeah. I got married pretty young. Didn’t last long.”
“May I ask, what happened?” His tone didn’t shift. He didn’t dodge the question or make it dramatic. He just… said it.
“She cheated,” he said simply. “With someone I used to consider a friend. We were already falling apart, but that was the final straw.”
My fingers paused around the stem of my glass. “I’m sorry, that’s awful.” He shrugged. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I don’t regret it, I learned a lot. But I wouldn’t do it again.”
“So what do you do now?”
“Now I date when I want to. I keep it simple.” Emotionless, yes, but not cold. Just factual, and a bit too honest. It was like he’d practiced holding truth without weighting him down. Not a lot of people could do that. I didn’t know whether to admire him for it or feel sorry.
“And you?” he asked, tilting his head slightly. “What does your love life look like?”
I smirked. “You are a very curious man.”
“I’m thirty-eight. It’s allowed.”
“It’s messy,” I admitted. “Fun, sometimes. Nonexistent, other times. I mean, being in a different city every few days doesn’t exactly scream emotional availability.”
“That’s one way to avoid drama.”
“I don’tavoiddrama. I just like to pick the kind Ican walk away from when it gets too much to handle.” He chuckled. “That’s fair.”
There was a pause, not long enough to feel awkward, but long enough to make me hyperaware of how close we are.
His hand brushes his glass, mine brushes mine. The air between us felt warmer now. Then the bartender appeared in front of us with a perfect, untimely smile. “Need anything else?” she asked, her eyes trained directly on him. Theo looked up. “We’re good for now, thanks.”
She gave him a slow, unnecessary smile before walking off, one last look over her shoulder. I tilted my head toward him. “She’s definitely interested.” He blinked. “What?”
“The bartender.” He glanced at me, then looked back down at his glass. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, you’re such a liar.” He smirked. “Would it matter if she were?”
“Not really,” I said, leaning in a little. “But, I was about to order dessert, and now I feel like I’m competing with someone who knows how to use a corkscrew.”
He laughed, the sound deep and low. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Good,” I said, clinking my glass lightly against his. “Because I don’t like to share bottles or attention.”
“But we’re sharing a second bottle…” Our eyes held just long enough for the mood to shift again. Now a bit lighter, maybe even a bit bolder, a little more dangerous. “To be fair, we’ve been sharing only this one. The other one was yours,” I added.
I flagged the bartender for dessert, crème brûlée for me, nothing for him, and we kept sipping the wine like we had nowhere else to be. I mean, I don't know about him, but I didn’t. Rose was with some flight attendants and the pilot, whom she swears she hates, so I was free.
The bar was quieter now. Most of the groups had moved toward the lounge or spilled onto the street. Our conversation had wandered, places we loved, flights gone wrong, the weird things people do when they think no one’s watching.
Then the bartender returned.
She placed the dessert in front of me, then slid a folded napkin toward Theo with a casual smirk. “I’m off the clock,” she said, tapping it with one red-painted nail. “In case you get bored later. My apartment is two blocks away.” Before she walked off, she looked at me, then back at him. “You can bring her too,” she said so casually that I nearly choked on the first bite of the brûlée.
Theo let out a short chuckle, picked up the napkin, and tucked it under his glass, saying thank you to her.
I gave him a look. “Are you this open to sleeping with strangers?”
He shrugged, calm as ever. “What? Who said I’m open to sleeping with her?”
