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Shifting in her seat, she once again tried to ignore the fact that all that straight-up Vodka she’d downed hours before was making her bladder feel like Lake Michigan. In the middle of a flood.
Neither of them talked as the plane shimmied and shook its way through the storm and onto the runway. As they touched down, Tre came over the loudspeaker and said, “Hallelujah. The good news is we made it, but the bad news is we’re in Austin. Please see me if you need recommendations for bars on Sixth Street.”
He cleared his throat before continuing. “Once you deplane, there will be ticket agents on both sides of the jetway. You can talk to them about rescheduling your flight. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but here at American Airlines, we’re all about safety first. I’d like to leave you with a parting thought—for those of you who wish to ink a certain man’s name across your chests, I strongly urge you to screen your tattoo artist thoroughly. Dyslexia can turn you into a Hells Angle before you know it.”
Lyric laughed with the rest of the plane, even as she nervously tapped her feet. Austin. Okay, that was better than Houston. It was only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from here to San Angelo, barely longer than her layover and subsequent flight from DFW would have taken. She’d just rent a car and get on the road.
She shivered as thunder rumbled outside the plane—she was a lot more freaked out about the storm now that she was on the ground than she’d been in the air. Ever since she was sixteen and ran her car off the road and into a ditch while driving in a thunderstorm, she hadn’t liked driving in the rain. It wasn’t logical, because only twenty-four percent of car crashes happened during inclement weather, but the older she got, the more she realized how illogical the world really was.
Heavy rain pelted the airplane as they waited for the all clear, which seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time. Or maybe it was just her dire need to pee that made everything seem so much longer than usual. And hearing the rain slamming against the plane just made everything worse.
Tightening up her Kegels for all she was worth, she rocked back and forth and concentrated on not losing control of her bladder. It was harder than one might expect.
“It’s okay, Lyric. I promise, we’ll get you to San Angelo.”
Clearly he’d mistaken her imminent bladder burst for fear. Thunder cracked as the wind roared around them. She shifted again. Bathroom emergency first, and then she’d worry about the thunderstorm.
Heath looked down at her hand, which was gripping the armrest so tightly it was amazing the thing didn’t break off. “You don’t have to worry about driving in the storm. I’ll take you there myself.”
She studied him, surprise banishing her pee-related agony—for a moment at least. He was thoughtful. She hadn’t remembered him being thoughtful and wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Before she could analyze it, however, a bladder spasm akin to the first rumblings of Mount St. Helens before it blew its top rocked through her.
Shit. If Tre didn’t let her off this plane in the next two minutes she was going to spring a leak. A big one.
Tightening her muscles even further, she focused on one of her favorite songs, Beyoncé’s “Put a Ring on It.” Except her inner Beyoncé kept substituting the lyrics, When ya gotta go … really, really go … clamp your legs together for the real words. When she got to the chorus, it was If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it … If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it.
Her inner Beyoncé faded with the end of the chorus, and she struggled to focus on the bigger problem. Heath would drive her. She nodded. Yes. Finding logical, workable solutions to problems was her area of expertise. It was what she’d built her whole professional reputation on—staying calm in a crisis, working the problem, coming up with the solution. The fact that she’d lost it so completely over something as simple as a delayed plane worried her a little. Almost as much as the fact that Heath—a man who threw footballs and signed women’s breasts for a living—was the one who had figured things out for her.
It was her turn to take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “I can drive myself,” she said, though it came out sounding more like a question. That damn Beyoncé was breaking through. If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it … If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it. Lyric tried to cross her legs, but her left leg did little more than smack against her right, making the pressure worse.
“No, I’ll rent a car.” He massaged his injured knee. “We’ll go together.”
“You don’t have to do that—”
“Yes, I do.” His firm tone brooked no argument as the plane slid neatly into its slot at the gate. “I’ve been meaning to go out to my father’s ranch and make sure the house and barns are still standing anyway.”
She inched this way and then that, trying to find a position to lessen nature’s call. Nothing worked. And Beyoncé kept at it.
“Stop fidgeting. I’ll take care of everything.” Heath’s voice was so reassuring, she wanted to tell him the truth—that at the moment, Beyoncé Bladder outweighed paternal concern, but there was no delicate way to spill the beans.
She twisted again. If ya gotta go now …
Focus on Heath. To her knowledge, he hadn’t been back to San Angelo since he’d left for college. Not that she’d spent much time there either, but then, Fort Worth was a hell of a lot closer than Honolulu.
“Why would you do that?” Not that she didn’t like the chivalrous Heath, but she’d spent lots of years hating him. It was hard to justify that level of loathing in the face of this nice guy.
“Because you would do it for me.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Lyric locked her knees together and prayed the deplaning process was swift. She took another deep breath and tuned back into Heath. She couldn?
??t help going over how rude she’d been to him since she’d found him sitting next to her, and all the terrible thoughts she’d had about him through the years.
The fasten seat belt sign blinked off, and in one motion she unbuckled and shot out of the seat. Her dress protested the abrupt movement, and another chorus of the Beyoncé Bladder song hit so hard Lyric’s knees almost buckled. Determined to stay upright, and dry, she pressed her knees together and stood very still.
Heath stood up and nudged her gently into the aisle. “I am,” he said as he grabbed his overnight bag from the overhead compartment.
He placed a soft hand on the small of her back and began guiding her up the aisle. She was shocked at how comforting it felt. And even more at how he didn’t lift that hand once, even after they’d made it off the airplane and down the gangplank into the terminal. If she didn’t have to pee so badly, she wouldn’t mind staying just like that for as long as he was willing.
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