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I get the feeling Max has plenty to say but is keeping his cool for my benefit.
“Uhhh. Yeah, there might be a problem,” she says matter of fact, picking up on the fact Max isn’t not playing along with her Malibu Barbie act. He’s ignored her fluttering eyes and the fake chest she’s jutted out for his benefit and now she’s wounded.
Apart from that she doesn’t look like she knows which end of the plane points which way.
“There was a change of plans, I’m taking Mr. Canning place.”
“It’s not that,” Barbie snaps, rolling her eyes and looking like she needs a bag to breathe into as she looks me up and down again. “It’s a matter of seating.”
Max looks around the empty airplane. There’s like two other passengers on board.
“Seating…” he growls and I see his body start to tense up under his clothes but he thinks better of it, turning to me instead and giving a friendly shrug while her royal highness sighs and trots off to make a phone call.
“You okay?” Max asks, suddenly looking more tired than ever until he sees me pull a small smile.
“I’m okay, it happens a lot… slightly oversized girl meets perfect womankind,” I tell him softly, noticing my voice catch at the end.
“Hey!” Max says, putting our bags on the nearest seat and taking me by the elbows.
“Where’d that come from? I don’t recall Charlene Canning being so easily put off, especially by that,” he says, jerking his head back a little.
I look past him and notice the stewardess twirling the phone cord and rolling her eyes, which then narrow once she sees me again.
I thought I’d escaped this sort of thing, paying to go places where people get paid to act nice. I guess I was wrong.
People are always the same in the end. Shallow and all about good looks versus whatever it is I look like.
“She liked you fine until she saw me,” I tell Max, huffing and suddenly feeling like I want to go home, not believing anyone could be interested in me if a stewardess can’t even hold back from judging me.
Tiredness, emotional overload and just being fed up with people like that makes me want to…
Don’t cry. You are not gonna cry over this.
I feel my lower lip tremble, but then Max’s thumb and forefinger hold my head up, his dark eyes blazing with intensity as he looks into mine.
“I don’t want her to like me, Charlene… I want you to…” he starts to say, and I feel him drawing close again. Like that night of my graduation party. His warmth pulling me in closer as I shiver, my lips parting slightly.
“Uh… Mr. Bower? Miss Canning? I’m really sorry for the mix-up. I’ll take you to your seats.”
Max’s eyes narrow, then widen as he smiles. I don’t want this moment to end, but he promises me it doesn’t have to. “To be continued,” he growls softly, smiling and letting his hand linger on my chin as my hand traces his arm through his sleeve.
He turns away and I’m surprised to see a much more cheerful, professional lady who I might add is a normal size and is more than apologetic about our reception on the plane.
“I’m Hillary,” she announces, deliberately putting herself between us and Malibu Barbie gone wrong. “There was a change in the ticketing which somebody wasn’t aware of,” she says quietly, rolling her eyes, “but we’re on top of it now, you’ll both be in first class. Right this way.”
I want to poke my tongue out, or worse to the other stewardess, but she slips behind the class curtain partition with a violent swish as she draws it closed, leaving her behind forever.
Settling us into our seats, Hillary’s only remark on the empty plane is a sign of things to come, I hope.
“Just happens some days, planes is almost empty. Must be your lucky day,” she chimes and sensing how tired we are she gives us plenty of space before we take off.
Max smiles across at me and I breathe easy. His eyes telling me he hasn’t forgotten his ‘to be continued’ comment.
And it hits me.
This is real.
I’m on a plane with Max, who almost kissed me for the second time in a year and now we’re going on a cruise alone… together… and he’s said ‘to be continued.’
I thought it had all gone south, super awkward. But now the biggest issue is these first class seats are so big, more like booths, that Max and I are further apart than I’d like, but he’s got his eyes on me the whole time and mine on him.
That is, until we take off. Despite myself I fall asleep almost instantly.
It’s five and a half hours to Honolulu and the whole time I dream I’m kissing Max, and he’s kissing me back. The plane touching down jolts me awake, and I see Max still watching me, smiling to himself as I wipe a line of drool from my mouth knowing I probably snored too.
