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Nadia: You’ll be doing that soon enough
Me: I’m working, remember? No lazy days on the beach for me.
Nadia: Bummer for you
I send her a thumbs-up emoji and she sends me one back. I’m totally jealous of her sitting on the beach right now. What I wouldn’t give to have my toes in the sand and listen to the surf crash against the shore. Maybe I could read one of the books I didn’t actually pack.
The train arrives and I follow Grayson onto it and stand near one of the poles so I can hold on when it takes off because this is a standing-only train. I keep my eyes on my phone as we make our way to the concourse, and Grayson’s looking at his. This is good; I’ll just keep looking at my phone during any downtime, talk only about work when we converse, and things won’t be awkward at all.
The only problem is things are already totally weird. It could just be me, but I swear I can feel it from Grayson too. Like he’s also avoiding it. Or maybe he wants to bring it up and is just waiting for the right time.
But I don’t want to talk about it. I want to pretend like it never happened. If he brings it up, my plan is to either ignore him or put fingers in my ears and yell“La la la la la.”Because I am nothing if not mature.
When we arrive at our concourse, I look up from my phone long enough to get off the train and take the two escalators up to the main area.
“I’m just going to grab some water,” I say to Grayson when we arrive at the center of the concourse, where all the restaurants and stores full of souvenirs are located. “Do you want anything?”
He’s looking at the big screens displaying all the gates and departure times, his brow furrowed as he studies it.
“Wait a second,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, drawing out the word, unsure why I need to wait around with him.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and looks at it, and then looks at the screen. Then he turns toward me.
“Our flight’s delayed,” he says.
“What?” I look at the screen, and sure enough, next to our flight, right next to the time, underStatus, it saysDelayedin orange lettering.
“I didn’t get a message from the app—did you?” he asks.
I grab my phone from the pocket of my joggers and wait for it to open after the facial recognition. I pull up the app and click on the flight, and there’s no notification.
“I didn’t get one either,” I tell him.
Grayson curses under his breath. It’s a bit shocking, to be honest. He rarely, if ever, cusses.
It’s shocking, although appropriate. We just found our first bug. And here I was hoping for a no-bug week. Maybe this will be the only one?
“I’ll call Vik,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the gate.”
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, AS WE begin our descent into Los Angeles, please ensure your seat back and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on items are stowed beneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead compartments. Thank you.”
We are nearly to LAX, after a delay of an hour in the terminal and then sitting on the tarmac for another one. As a result, we missed our connecting flight to Honolulu.
I spent the bulk of the waiting time and the flight using the app to try to get us rebooked on another flight, while Grayson worked with Vik on the bug over the plane’s Wi-Fi.
The good news is, I got us on another flight. The bad news is we’re both in middle seats, nowhere near each other. But that’s also good news because I don’t need five hours and forty-five minutes of awkward discussions with Grayson. I’ve been able to successfully avoid it so far because of issues with the app, and I’ll happily sit between strangers on any flight just so there’s no opportunity.
Can I keep this up forever? Probably not. Will I try anyway? Yes. Yes, I will.
The landing is smooth and soon we’re off the plane and walking toward our connecting flight. We barely have an hour until our next takeoff, so it’s off to the bathroom for me and then to grab a quick bite to bring on flight number two.
Hawaii, here we come.
Grayson
THE THICK, WARM, SWEET AIR of Honolulu is a welcome change from the jet fuel smell of the plane. I can feel the muscles in my legs loosening as I walk down the Jetway to the terminal, my computer bag in hand. I did my best not to move around too much in my middle seat, so as not to disturb the sleeping baby in his mom’s arms next to me—the same one that cried for the first hour of the flight. Or the older woman who sat on my other side, irritated by the space I was taking up in the middle seat. So I tried to sit without moving around too much, which proved to be quite challenging.
