Chapter Text
It didn’t happen often, that I was able to keep my seat on the same plane for all the legs of my journey. It was also a rarity that the flight attendants didn’t ask me to deplane during the layover, so that the plane could be cleaned between flights. Perhaps it was the fact that I was occupying a first class seat, by the window, and I’d kept my little bubble exceedingly clean, for once. Or perhaps it was the intense look on my face as I kept typing on my MacBook while the plane emptied and they worked. Don’t bother me, that expression probably said. I had thoughts in my head, entire plot lines to get out onto digital paper before they became too entangled to make sense. The dialogue, the pacing, the scene descriptions needed to be released and captured in some sort of order. In my mind, the words painted a picture, which had to be translated back into words again, in proper grammar and punctuation, and that part was always much too slow for my liking.
I didn’t even notice when people started filing on board to stow their belongings and take their seats for the next leg of the flight. I was in a row of three seats, and had tossed my jacket, a little leather notebook, and a bag of snacks on the empty middle seat prior to this stop. I was in the middle of writing a conversation between characters, their voices alternating in my head, when I heard the heavy whoosh of baggage slide into the compartment above my row. I glanced up briefly to see a tall, perfectly-built man in dark, tailored jeans and a white fitted t-shirt fold himself into the aisle seat. He wore a ball cap over his dark hair, slightly tinted glasses, and sported a very neatly-trimmed scruff of a full beard. I immediately sensed that he was extremely attractive, though I’d not had a clear look at his face yet. Men like him gave off a certain amount of testosterone that I could sense easily. It depended on what they did with it, how they interacted with people, that made me make up my mind whether to dwell inside that testosterone aura and soak it up, or to shut it down. Being hot was no excuse to be an asshole.
I continued writing. I didn’t want to lose the momentum of the conversation in my head. A minute or so later, a large man in a suit stopped next to the man in the aisle seat, his cell phone in his hand. I looked up and saw him look at the seat labels above our row, pondering. The attractive man in the aisle seat noticed and immediately began to rise, to let him in to occupy the middle seat. The other man stopped him, and they exchanged a few sentences. I started picking up my things from the middle seat, since it appeared that I wouldn’t have the luxury of space to spread out any longer. A bit surprised, I watched the attractive man begin to step closer. He reached down and picked up my little leather notebook, the last thing of mine on the seat, and held it as he settled himself next to me. The man in the suit took the aisle seat.
I was still engaged in translating the conversation of my literal characters in my head (I could never make the shift to reality quickly when I was writing), so instead of speaking to my neighbor, I breathed in his scent. It was a faint mixture of a few different scents — one, a masculine, woodsy cologne that was extremely familiar, and that I loved; a clean, linen-y edge that could have been fabric softener, or soap; coffee; and that damned testosterone. I had no idea if I’d made it obvious that I’d breathed him in. Sometimes I did that without realizing it, and sometimes it helped start conversations. Sometimes.
This time, he turned his face toward me but not fully, since plane seats made fully facing someone extremely intimate, and he casually held out my notebook to me with a small smile. “Thank you,” I murmured, gently taking it from him and placing it on my keyboard.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurry you,” he said softly, his accent unmistakably British. “The chap had the middle seat, but he asked me to switch. Guess he takes a lot of loo breaks during flights.” He’d drawn out the word “loo” as though he’d learned that Americans didn’t always pick up on the British slang word for “bathroom” unless he emphasized it.
I laughed a little. I had British friends and was well aware of some of the more common slang. “Loo breaks? I haven’t heard that since I hung out with my friends from Birmingham.”
He pulled his head back so he could look at me more fully without crowding me. He smiled brighter. “You been to Birmingham?”
I smiled back and shook my head. “No, I’ve never been to England. Never been to Europe. It’s on my bucket list, though. My grandparents were from Ireland, so I need to get there and visit relatives before they die. No, people from Birmingham came over to my work here for several years, so I got an English education from them.”
“Ahhh,” he replied. The conversation was done, for the moment, mostly because our seats were near the front of the plane, and the bustle of the last of the passengers boarding and the flight attendants doing their jobs interfered with gentle back-and-forth. The attendants were starting to take drink orders from the first class passengers. He pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and started scrolling and typing text messages.
I didn’t want to stare at him, but I’d realized with a jolt several minutes before that I’d recognized him. I knew a couple of famous people, and also knew that, even though they were mostly accustomed to interacting with the public, and fans, that they tended to cherish when regular people were just real with them, and treated them with the same gentle respect that you’d give any stranger. That was what I intended to do with him. I knew that it was going to be tough — he was a particular favorite of mine, and I was more than excited that he was actually sitting next to me. But the last thing I wanted to do was gush over him. So I busied myself with stowing away my snacks and shoving my jacket into the space between my seat and the cabin wall. I saved my work on my MacBook, closed it, zipped the leather case around it that made it look like an authentic medieval book, latched up my tray table, and slipped the case into the seat pocket in front of me. I took the little leather notebook, opened it on my knee, and began to write notes about what was going on right then. I had a special pen that I used that allowed me to write in micro-print, something I’d taught myself when I was bored in middle school.
The attendant stopped at our aisle and asked us about drinks. The man at the end requested coffee. The Brit next to me put his finger to his lips, thinking, giving the attendant a look that said a minute, please. I asked for a bottled water. Brit looked at me, I suppose having decided that I was a friendly face, and mused, “Should I get a beer?”
I shrugged. “Sure! Get a beer!”
“But I don’t want to be the only one drinking.” He was genuinely concerned. I took a second to see if he would laugh at his own joke, but he didn’t, though he was smiling a little.
“Wellll…” I thought for a second more. “If you want a drinking partner…” I asked the attendant, “Do you have tequila?”
Brit broke into a laugh. It was delightful and silly. “Tequila??” he squeaked.
The attendant affirmed that they did, indeed, have tequila. “The good stuff?” I asked. “Like Patron, or Hornitos?”
She rattled off about three brands of top shelf tequila, two of which I recognized. So I asked for a shot of one of them. She looked pained, then explained that she’d have to give me the makings of a mixed drink along with the booze — that was the rules. It was fine, I liked a chaser after a shot, so I picked ginger ale. Brit was looking at me like he couldn’t believe what I’d just done. I looked back, smirked and asked, “What? Would you like one, too?”
He shook his head slowly, like it was a ridiculous idea. He ordered a Guinness, was told that they didn’t have it, swore under his breath, then ordered an American beer. She nodded and walked away.
Brit looked at me again, then looked away and shook his head again. I dropped my voice, and explained that due to food intolerances, tequila was the only alcohol that I could drink. Which was fine, because I really liked it… but only the really good stuff. So I didn’t have it often.
“I see,” he replied, in a gentle voice that made me decide, at that moment, that despite the cloud of testosterone around him, that I was more than happy to exist within it.
“You’re not fond of American beer, I take it,” I observed. “A little on the watery side?”
“It is,” he sighed. “Though the plus side is, I can drink more of it.”
“I’ll be happy to share my tequila with you, you know, to give the watery beer a little boost,” I offered, teasing.
He gave me a wide-eyed look, which I couldn’t decide was him feigning terror at the thought, or that after enough watery American beer it might actually be an option. I just smiled and shrugged.
The attendant brought all of our drinks, and we settled with our trays down in front of us. She’d brought me a glass of ginger ale with ice, and twisted off the cap from a small bottle of the top shelf tequila and handed the open bottle to me. I put them both on my tray. The bottle actually contained about two and a half shots, something I’d known from past experience.
Brit raised his glass of beer. “Cheers!” he toasted.
I touched his glass with my small open bottle. "Sláinte!"
He smiled, but didn’t say anything about my Irish toast. I knew that he knew what it meant. We both drank, him taking a mouthful of beer, me tipping the bottle up and swallowing about half of it. I put the bottle down and drank a few swallows of the chaser. He watched me do it, then smiled a little and shook his head again.
“You know,” I said, “I often get looks like that from people — especially men — when I drink tequila. I’ll do a shot, everyone will watch, and then they all go —” I stopped and made a shivering motion. “It’s like everyone has a story about their experience with tequila.”
“That’s because everyone has!” he laughed.
“Not me. I don’t even get a buzz off it.” He gave me a pointed look, and I relented. “Well, it’s been a while since I have, let’s just say that.”
At that moment, his phone buzzed. He looked at it. “Excuse me a moment,” he said cordially, and I nodded, Of course. I went back to writing in my notebook, this time on the tray instead of my knee.
Minutes passed, as the plane taxied to the runway and eventually lifted off into the bright sky. He busied himself on his phone, typing with both thumbs (something I’d never been able to teach myself), taking a sip of his drink every few minutes. It was a companionable silence, and it felt good that I was able to achieve that with a person of his standing in such a short period of time. Then again, it might all be due to his abilities to be comfortable around people in general, which I’d also heard was true about him. Either way, I was happy.
The captain came on and stated that electronics could be used again, so I pulled my MacBook out from the seat pocket and set it back up on the tray. I fumbled a little until I could arrange both my drink and the Book on the tray, unzipped the case, opened it, and booted back up. I didn’t need the Internet for what I was doing, so I flicked it off and worked offline. I reread what I’d written, consulted a portion of my notebook, and mentally started making the switch over to writing mode.
A minute or two later, I was typing, and everything else faded away. I could still feel Brit’s presence next to me (that testosterone cloud simply could NOT be totally ignored), but both of us had lives, and I was going to respect his privacy if it killed me.
I slipped into that mindset where I have no idea about the passage of time (I often joke that I suffer from lost time when I write), and a chunk of it goes by before I take a break to refocus my eyes out the window, to the horizon. Thinking of my writing, I sipped at my glass of ginger ale, and noticed that most of the ice had melted.
I heard a little huffing sound next to me, and looked over to see Brit sitting with his hands in his lap, absently looking at my laptop screen. I knew that the text was far too small for anyone but me in my position to read it, but it still made my stomach jump a little. No one wants anyone to read the middle of whatever it is they’re writing.
“Hi,” I greeted him. I saw that he’d finished his beer. “That must have been good. You drank it pretty fast.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’ve drunk faster.” He looked at me. “I was ready for another. How about you?”
I looked at my little bottle. I still had half of it left. I picked it up and wiggled it at him. “Thanks, I’m good.”
“How about a fresh chaser?” He raised his arm to get the attendant’s attention. She came over, and he ordered a second beer. He looked at me expectantly. I thought about my watered-down ginger ale, and decided, sure, why not? I nodded, and he ordered another for me. He sat back. My heart was lifting in my chest. I loved how this experience was going.
“Thank you,” I told him. I decided to jump, just a little. I extended my hand. “My name is Susan.”
He took my hand. His was warm and his grip firm. “Tom.”
I smiled. It was him. “I’m glad to meet you, Tom. Thank you for making me drink tequila in the middle of the day. It takes a special person to do that.”
He gave me a huge smile, ducking his head and blushing a little. “I’m glad to oblige,” he replied, “though I have to say, it didn’t take all that much to tempt you.”
“My father always taught me to never let anyone drink alone. It’s the socially responsible thing to do. Otherwise, it’s… bad juju.”
“Really?” He said it like a statement more than a question.
“Yes. No bueno. Not good.”
He laughed.
The attendant returned with his beer and my chaser. I handed over the diluted one in exchange. Repeating our earlier ceremony, he lifted his glass, and I touched it with my little half-filled bottle.
"Sláinte!"
I grinned at the fact that we both said it together. He took a healthy mouthful of beer, while I tipped my head back and drained what was left in my bottle. I smacked my lips, on purpose, and he shifted his eyes away, smirking, reinforcing my previous observation about people not wanting to remember their own experiences with tequila.
“That was better,” I observed, as I sipped at my chaser. “You hardly flinched that time.”
He chuffed as he took another sip. On the way down, he gestured toward my laptop with an outstretched finger from the hand that held his glass. “I’m sorry if I’m keeping you from working.”
I waved it all away. “No, no, it’s fine. I needed a break anyway.” I closed the laptop and placed my notebook on top of it. “You know, I’ve been flying, on and off, since I was 15. And have you noticed? How very quiet it is on this plane?”
He stopped, and listened. There was a faint sound of a young child talking to a parent from somewhere near the back of the plane, but other than that and the ever-present whine of the engines and the hiss of cabin air vents, there was no noise. He leaned forward a little, and turned his head to one side, then the other. He looked back at me. I raised my eyebrows at him. “Nothing, right? No conversation. You and I are the only people talking to one another.”
He did it again, a mini version of before, of listening. “You’re right,” he observed. “I’d never noticed it before.”
“That’s because as soon as everyone gets on board, they plug in,” I said. “They get out the electronics and pop in the earbuds, and Viola! No interaction. When I started flying, I flew with my parents once. After that, I flew on my own. There was nothing to do, except read something. They showed movies in first class only. So what did people do? Talk to the people next to them. It was a skill most people had to learn, if they weren’t going to be bored to death, especially on cross-country or international flights. I can remember flights where the sheer amount of conversation going on was so much, it was hard to hear what the person next to you was saying. Now, though….” I looked around over the back of my seat, emphasizing the silence. I settled back into my seat. “I miss the experience of getting to know people.”
I noticed that he self-consciously started to put his phone back into his pocket. I reached out a hand. “No, no, I didn’t mean anything like that. Times are different now, I understand that. I’m just as guilty, getting sucked into my own electronic world.” I gestured at my laptop. “It was just an observation, a comment about the changing times. I do lament, though, the endless opportunities for connection being lost these days. It seemed to me that curiosity about different ideas and people could be more easily sated by talking directly to them. Like you and me, now.”
He nodded, intrigued, I thought. “That’s astute of you,” he replied. “You’re more intelligent and introspective than most. And you’re very easy to talk to.”
I blushed a little. “Thank you. I get told that quite a bit. I just like people. They don’t scare me. Well, most don’t.” I gestured at him. “I can say all the same things about you. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you like people? Do they scare you?”
He pursed his lips, thinking. “Those… are some very… interesting questions.”
I put my hands up. “I’m sorry if I’m asking stuff that you don’t feel comfortable answering. I’m a chatter. Don’t feel obligated, please.”
“No, no, not at all!” He shifted forward in his seat, adjusting his weight a bit, then sat back again. “I guess… I know that I definitely like people. I find them interesting — their stories interesting. Everyone has their own story, right?”
“Yes, I agree.”
“Do they scare me?” He paused to take a sip of his beer, thinking. “Maybe. A little, I think. It’s not something I tend to think about.”
“Because... you tend to believe the best in people, right? Like, you get back what you give?”
He looked at me quickly, as though I’d hit the nail on the head. He hummed, in agreement, I supposed. Then, he dipped his head, and tilted toward me, just a little. He looked up at me from under the brim of his cap, over the top of his glasses. I got the split-second impression that he was setting me up to be charmed by his aura of testosterone. It was working.
“So,” he said softly, “what is it that you do? For a living?”