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Chapter Two
Silas
Present Day
Saturday
The woman’s phone crackled with the voice on the other end and she held it away from her face, pushing down the neck pillow clinging to her scrunched cheeks. In my opinion, using speakerphone in a crowded setting was tantamount to public indecency, only this drew more annoyed glances than walking through the terminal pantsless might. Her tie-dyed T-shirt read tequila made me do it, and she had the unmistakable look of someone who had been pushed a few inches past her threshold for patience. The voice from the other end of her call erupted again. “What the hell is taking so long?”
“I’m stuck in the damn airport and if one more airline employee son of a b—”
“Good afternoon,” I said with a smile, interrupting and pretending I hadn’t heard every word of her conversation from three feet away. “How can I help you?”
“You could get me out of this damn airport, for starters.” She thrust her crumpled boarding pass over the counter, disdain and frustration rolling off her in waves.
I was mostly immune to that after working in customer service for the airline for a few years. “I’m sorry your travel plans have been interrupted,” I said, entering her information into the computer. Over her shoulder, Teagan shot me a wry grin from across the hall in the entrance of the candy store where she worked, and I ignored the impulse to shoot my best friend a sideways smile.
“You should be sorry,” she said with a harrumph. Her posture and the set of her jaw conveyed that it was my fault the storm had knocked out flights through New York. “I don’t know how the planes ever take off with this level of incompetence in the—”
“I’ll get you rerouted to Boston,” I interjected with a practiced but firm positivity. While I reassured her, I pulled the packet of individually wrapped candy from under the counter. “Would you like a chocolate truffle while you wait? They’re from the shop across the way and they’re quite good. The ingredients are listed there.”
You would have thought I offered her a cigarette or Henry Cavill’s phone number from the way her expression softened immediately. “Well, thank you,” she said popping the candy in her mouth. Teagan knew I only pulled out the basket for certain customers, and in my peripheral vision, she chuckled.
“We know the delay is an inconvenience and appreciate your patience. I can get you into Boston by nine tonight, with a connection through Chicago. Is there anything else I can do for you?” She shook her head, chewing on the candy, and I returned her nod as I handed her the new documents. “Have a nice day.”
Still chewing, she nodded, gave me a wave, and walked off, as the person on the phone interrupted the silence with “Are you still there?”
“I don’t know why you give them candy,” James said. He hadn’t been on the job long and I didn’t think he’d make it; maybe I just didn’t want him to. He flirted with Teagan a lot and he wasn’t a bad guy, but it still bugged me. “Does it make them less angry or something?”
Teagan waved and walked back to the counter of the shop, tugging on the pink apron she despised, but Julianna, the shop’s owner, insisted all staff wear it. The first thing I ever learned about Teagan was that she hated pink. She’d told me during that first video chat when we were freshmen in college seven years earlier. I hadn’t even wanted to attend the conference, but my adviser convinced me, saying it would help me broaden my horizons. Joke was on her—I met Teagan, who quickly became one of the only stars in my sky. James was still staring at me expectantly, and I tucked the bowl back under the counter. “Nah. It stops them from talking.”
James laughed, pressing his hand to his stomach. “Seriously?”
I shrugged. “That caramel is really thick.” I didn’t give them to everybody, and I happened to have a hookup with a discount at the candy place. It was worth it to cut off angry people’s rage mid-sentence, and though it usually stopped them from talking, it had the pleasant side effect of sometimes making an angry customer’s day a little brighter. “Usually works.”
James clapped me on the back, pulling my attention back from the shop. “You’re a genius, man. I’ll stop over there and pick up a couple before my next shift when we’re expecting weather delays. You think your girl would hook me up?”
Teagan was leaning over the counter handing a customer something, and the woman’s face lit up. It was their new raspberry and pistachio truffles. She insisted they were my favorites, so she’d bring them over to my apartment all the time, but she’d end up eating half of them. I didn’t really mind—she’d been suggesting new candy options to Julianna for years and this was the first one the older woman had decided to try. They were good. Teagan was back in school studying writing, but I told her she’d missed her calling as a candymaker.
“You know, your girl,” he said, nudging me with his elbow before stepping up to the counter as a family approached.
“Teagan.” I tapped at the screen, updating the information. “She’s just my friend, though. Not my girl.” I’d made sure that was the case years before, and my hackles rose at the idea of James and her together.
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze wandering back across the concourse. “She’s single, right?”
We’d been mobbed for more than an hour, and now it was quiet at the service counter. I almost wished neck-pillow woman would come back to complain about her flight to Chicago. “She’s single. She’s leaving the country in a few days, though.” A week from today.
“I remember her mentioning that.” James leaned toward me, his voice pitched low, lest our manager pop in out of nowhere and get on us about personal conversations behind the service counter. It wouldn’t happen. Our manager, as far as I could tell, had been taking only brief breaks from his napping schedule for the last decade.
“Yeah, she’s back in school to finish her degree and doing a semester abroad.” France, with long trips to Ireland, England, Spain, and Prague planned. She’d gone over the itinerary and her hopes for side trips at length for months, and there was a map hung in her apartment over the bed.
“Erin must be excited to get more of your time,” he said, returning to his own station. “I mean, that’s one cool girlfriend to be down with you spending so much time with another woman.”
Before I had to answer, Ada interrupted. “Afternoon, boys.” She strode toward us and we both returned her greeting. Ada left the operations office and took a walk through the terminal every day she worked, saying she needed to get out of her office and stretch her legs. “Silas, isn’t this your day off?”
“This guy can’t manage to leave work, ma’am. He picked up shifts from a coworker with a sick kid,” James said. I glanced over Ada’s shoulder at the candy shop. My coworker had needed someone to cover, but I’d also wanted to be where Teagan was as much as I could this week.
I shrugged. “What can I say, I can’t get enough of this guy.” I clapped James on the shoulder and earned a laugh from Ada. “What about you?”
Ada was probably in her mid-fifties, with a smoker’s voice and wide smile.
“Looking for my walking buddy,” she said, looking around. “I can usually find him lingering near that candy shop if he’s on a break.” She glanced behind her and I followed her gaze to Teagan. “Guess I’m on my own today. Later!” She waved and walked down the corridor. We didn’t see a lot of the central office staff, but Ada was a favorite of mine.
“She’s funny,” James said, returning to his work, and I hoped he’d drop the Erin and Teagan thing.
Luckily, a large group all in matching T-shirts that read milton family reunion approached the counter at once and I was saved from having to respond to James while we tried to get thirty people to Akron. Erin’s reactions to Teagan and vice versa had left me in too many awkward corners already; I didn’t need to seek them out when neither woman was around.
