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The moment her hands grasped the railing, she spun her head around to look at me. “I won! I’m the winner!” She exploded in another round of laughter. Grabbing her by the waist, I tugged her away from the stairs, keeping my arms around her as we both laughed.
“Not fair!” I told her. “You didn’t give me any warning.”
“You just have to be ready,” she said, spinning to look at me. She wrapped her arms around my neck, grinning at me as she looked into my eyes. “With me around, you just never know what’s gonna happen next.”
I couldn’t help but agree with that. Nodding, I said, “That’s so true. Life is better with you around, Georgia.” I couldn’t help but lean down and press my lips to hers. I didn’t care that there were several baggage handlers standing there, as well as Charlotte, the flight attendant. Georgia had made me forget all of my troubles, which was something I hadn’t been able to do for a long time, and I was thankful to have her here with me.
“Excuse me, Mr. Ramsey,” Charlotte called after a few moments. Reluctantly, I released Georgia’s lips and turned my attention to the flight attendant. She was smiling at us, clearly thinking our antics were cute. “We need to get moving if we’re going to beat the weather.”
“Right, right.” I remembered the entire reason we had to leave early. Georgia unwrapped her arms from my neck and took a step back. I took her hand in mine and pulled her over to the plane.
Once we were inside, it only took a few moments for the bags to be loaded. Then, Charlotte brought us our customary glasses of champagne, and the plane was ready to take off. It was smooth sailing climbing to the perfect altitude here in Hawaii, and I hoped that the pilots would be able to avoid all of the storms between us and Switzerland on the way. I trusted them fully, but I knew if it got a little bouncy, that might make it scary for Georgia who obviously wasn’t as used to traveling as I was.
After the plane leveled off, Georgia finished her glass of champagne and set it aside. I was still sipping on mine. I thought she might be a little nervous. “How long of a flight is it to Switzerland from here?” she asked me.
“About sixteen or seventeen hours depending upon the route we have to take to get around the storms,” I explained.
“Damn. And I thought the flight to Hawaii was long,” she mumbled, her eyes flittering back to the window. “What do you usually do on the plane for so long? Are you usually by yourself?”
“Sometimes Ryan comes with me,” I told her. “But a lot of times I’m alone. I have a bed in the back, so I try to sleep as much as I can. If I time it right, that works out. Also, I have a movie screen we can put down if you want to watch something. Sometimes I read or play a game.” I shrugged. “It’s not that different than being on an airliner except there aren’t other people to annoy the shit out of you.”
“That’s true. One time, I was on a long flight that had meal service. I was going across the country to my uncle’s funeral. Anyway, the woman in front of me put her seat down right as I was eating. My entire entrée spilled all over my lap.” She shook her head. It was clear that she was still upset by the rudeness of the other passenger. “Thank goodness we don’t have to worry about that.”
“Would you like for me to sit in front of you and put the seat down?” I offered.
She glared at me, and we both laughed before she shook her head at me. “That’s quite all right, thank you. I think I can do without that particular nuisance ever again in my life. I know you get how lucky you are to have your own jet, but I could certainly get used to this.” She looked around the space again, smiling. “This is the life, Mr. Ramsey.”
“I know it is,” I agreed with her. “I feel blessed all the time that I’m able to have such nice things, to go to beautiful places, and buy the people I care about whatever they like.”
“Gosh, you know, I never even thought about having something like this in my life. My parents were lower middle class. Sure, they provided for me, but it was just whatever I needed and the occasional nice thing, you know?” I nodded. I had grown up the same way. “And now, I work pretty hard to be able to pay my rent and get a few things I like from time to time, but I’ve never thought much about traveling because it’s so expensive.”
“Do you enjoy your job?” I asked. I realized I’d asked her a few questions about her work before, but we hadn’t had an actual conversation about it.
“I like aspects of it,” she said with a nod. “I love that I can manage my own time, work from home, and don’t have to worry about coworkers I might not get along with. I’ve never been a very social person.”
“Really?” I found that hard to believe because she was always so friendly and polite whenever we went out together, and she’d warmed up to me so quickly.
I could tell she was a bit embarrassed by my question as her cheeks pinked. “I mean, I like people. I just feel awkward a lot of the time, like I don’t quite fit in.”
“I never would’ve guessed,” I told her. “You always seem so comfortable with people to me.”
“I guess I’ve developed a lot of coping mechanisms,” she said with a sheepish shrug. “Anyway, I also like that I don’t have one boss I have to please. I have different clients, and some of them can get bossy, but once I finish a project for someone, if I don’t like them, I can just pass on anything else they offer me.”
“That makes perfect sense,” I told her. “Is this what you always wanted to do? Be a virtual assistant?”
She actually laughed this time, shaking her head. “No. I didn’t even know it was a thing when I went to college. No, my degree is in business, which comes in handy for managing my own business, as you can imagine.” I nodded. Of course, I knew a lot about that, even though my degree was not in business. I’d considered going back to school and getting a business degree several times because I wanted to better manage my operations, but so far, I’d chosen to surround myself with people who knew the aspects of business I hadn’t quite mastered, and that had been working fine. “But there’s not exactly a degree for personal assistants.”
All of that was fascinating to me. I studied her for a moment and asked, “What did you want to do with your degree? Originally.”
“I’m really not sure,” she admitted. “I couldn’t really envision myself working for a big corporation in an office somewhere. I figured my anxiety would get the best of me if I did that, but I thought business would be a good degree to have so I could figure out what I wanted to do. After college, I had a hard time finding a job that sounded interesting to me, so I started doing freelance work, and then my own business just sort of fell into place. As I said, I don’t make a lot of money, but I get by.”
“So you never had a dream job?” I asked, curious. Most people had something they wanted to do with their life at one point in time or another.
“Other than being a backup dancer for Taylor Swift?” she asked with a giggle. “No not really. I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a mom. I’m not sure if that counts. If I had to, I’d do just about anything to make ends meet once I have kids, though. I hear about single moms out there working three or four jobs, waitressing, bartending, whatever, just to support their kids, and I’d do that if I had to. Someday, if I have kids, I’ll do whatever it takes to support them. Hell, I’d be shoveling shit on the side of the road if I had to.”
Hearing her talk about doing whatever it took to provide for her potential future children pulled at my heartstrings. It made me think of the child I once thought I would need to provide for. Kaylee and I had spoken so many times about how we would make sure our babies had the best life possible. Now, I was fully capable of providing for a large family but had no children to provide for.
Georgia squeezed my hand. “Are you all right, Beau?”
