Standby

Published by

Wayward Ink Publishing

Unit 1, No. 8 Union Street

Tighes Hill NSW 2297

Australia

http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Standby Copyright ©2014 by Kim Fielding

Cover Art by: Lily Velden in collaboration with Jay's Cover Designs

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other enquiries, contact Wayward Ink Publishing at: Unit 1, No. 8 Union Street, Tighes Hill, NSW, 2297, Australia.

http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com

ISBN 978-1-925222-29-6

Published in Australia

First Edition

February 2015

“I'M SORRY, sir,” said the gate agent, who didn't look remotely sorry. “The flight is full. We have you on standby for the next flight.”

Tom struggled to keep his voice even. “I was on standby for
this
flight.”

“Yes. But it's full. We've put you on standby for the next one.”

“Which is when?”

She click-clacked at her computer for several moments. “Five thirty-five tomorrow morning.” Her face and voice were so expressionless that Tom seriously wondered if she might be a robot.

“Tomorrow?”

“I'm sorry, sir. We don't have many flights to Cedar Rapids.” This time she did show emotion—disdain, because he didn't live somewhere more exciting and better served by air traffic.

He was still keeping a leash on his temper. “Then book me on another airline.”

“That's against company policy.”

“Look, miss. I've already been here since noon.” He checked his watch. “That's almost eight hours. I don't want to spend the night.” Especially since he'd spent the previous night crammed into a coach seat, first waiting forever on the tarmac in San Francisco, then bumping through the air to Minneapolis. He was never booking a red-eye again.

“You missed your connecting flight, sir.”

She knew perfectly well that hadn't been his fault. The first flight was delayed due to an equipment problem—he really didn't want to know the details—and although he'd sprinted through the Minneapolis airport like an Olympic medalist once they'd landed, he'd still missed the flight home by ten minutes.

He wanted to cry. Since the direct approach hadn't worked with her, he tried sexy instead. He crooked his lips, tilted his head slightly, and gave her the eye. It was a look that used to work well for him in clubs and bars. “Please. I need to get home.”

“We have you on standby for the next flight,” she answered coldly. Either her gaydar had told her The Look was a ruse, or else he couldn't pull off sexy after twenty-four hours of air travel.

Pathetically trailing his wheeled carry-on, he trudged off in search of customer service. The desk near his gate was abandoned, which meant he had to wander all the way to the end of the concourse—where there was a line, of course. He took his place behind a young couple with a hyperactive toddler. An older couple stood behind him, arguing with each other in a foreign language. Russian, maybe.

When it was finally Tom's turn, he saw that the customer service rep was nearly the same model as the gate agent. Sure, this lady's carefully styled hair was brunette instead of blonde, but she had an identical facial expression that said
I will never give a fuck about you and your problems
. Her greeting was strictly utilitarian. “Yes?”

For probably the tenth time, he repeated his story: broken plane, late landing, missed flight, failed standby. She listened blankly before demanding his useless boarding pass and poked at her keyboard for at least three minutes. Her printer whirred and Tom's hopes rose. She returned his boarding pass, along with a another ticket-sized paper.

“What's this?” he asked, squinting at the tiny print.

“A meal voucher. You can use it anywhere in the airport.”

She had a stupid little scarf around her neck, and he staunchly resisted the urge to strangle her with it. “I don't want a meal voucher. I want a flight home.”

“We have you on standby for the five thirty-five flight, sir.”

It wasn't until he left the counter and took a more careful look at the voucher that he saw its value. $6.50. At airport prices, he could probably score a candy bar.

He sat down in a nearby chair to consider his nonhomicidal options. His credit card was already screaming in pain, and his bank account was empty. He couldn't afford to book a flight on another airline. He couldn't even afford to rent a car for the four-hour drive home. Besides, in his sleepless state, he probably wouldn't make it to the Iowa border before drifting off the road or into the path of an eighteen-wheeler. Even a hotel room was out of his budget.

He didn't know a single person in Minneapolis. No. Scratch that. A few years earlier, he'd dated a guy with the spectacularly awful name of Kipper Persons. But Kip got some kind of insurance job in the Twin Cities, so they broke up and he moved away. But even assuming Kip still had the same phone number
and
would be willing to come to Tom's rescue, Tom's phone was dead. An hour ago, when he was running out of battery, he discovered he'd left the charger back at the hotel in San Francisco. At that point the flight to Cedar Rapids had been close to boarding, so he'd stuck close to the gate in hopes of getting a seat. But of course his hopes were dashed, and now all the airport shops were closed.

With a weary sigh, he heaved himself to his feet. He found a pay phone, figured out how to call directory assistance, and asked for Kipper's number. He wasn't surprised when the phone company came up blank. Hell, for all he knew, Kip had moved again.

That pretty much left Tom with no choice but to wait it out in the airport and hope he got on that early morning flight. Sobbing was optional.

He set out in search of somewhere to spend his voucher. He desperately needed coffee and almost lost it when every single restaurant seemed to be closed. Finally he found a Subway with the lights still on. He must have looked more psychotic than relieved, because the poor kid behind the counter treated him warily. But Tom wrangled the biggest coffee they had, and the cheapest sandwich. Thanks to the voucher, he was livin' large.

He found a comfy place to sit, and while he ate, he mentally composed scathing letters to airline executives.

But those activities could last only so long, and then—overtired to the point of restlessness—he wandered. He'd already noticed that airports have a rhythm, an ebb and flow of human beings that corresponds to the planes' comings and goings. A few gates would gradually fill with people until there was no place left to sit, the collective energy building and building until flights boarded and the chairs abruptly emptied. For a while, nobody would be left except a few stragglers and an employee or two.

As the hour grew later and there were fewer flights, everything slowed. Some folks wandered sluggishly as if they were sleepwalking or moving underwater, while others gave up altogether and slept on the floor with their suitcases and coats as pillows.

Tom walked.

At a little past two, he found himself in a small concourse that was completely deserted except for a woman emptying trash cans. He sank into a chair facing the huge windows. Lights shone on the nearby buildings, but the few jets he could see were dark and still. Nothing moved on the runway; the woman emptying the concourse trash was gone. It all triggered a creepy, post-apocalyptic feeling. He shivered.

The miserable journey home wouldn't have been quite so bad if he had any hope of getting the job in California. But although the phone interview had gone well enough for them to fly him to the coast, once he'd arrived it had been clear right away that he didn't fit in. Sure, Tom had a solid résumé, with several years' experience in marketing and plenty of creative campaigns to his credit. But he wasn't hip. He didn't have any facial piercings or interesting tattoos, his clothing was boring, and his hair was its natural mousy brown.

The people at the San Francisco firm clearly felt they'd taken a risk interviewing someone from a flyover state to begin with, and their disappointment when they met him was evident. Over lunch, he'd tried desperately—and pitifully—to claim at least
some
cool cred by making it crystal clear he was gay. “I've marched in my local Pride parade ten years in a row,” he'd boasted. But that only earned him a lecture from a VP about the privileges afforded to cisgender people.

He'd known then the job was a lost cause, but still he'd had to endure an afternoon of meaningless questions and rote answers. He'd been relieved when an intern finally dropped him off at the airport.

He stared at his reflection in the large windows for quite some time.

“Not much to see this time of night,” said a soft voice beside him.

Tom jumped. He hadn't noticed anyone sit down. Had he dozed off for a moment?

The man in the seat next to him was about his age—thirtyish—and very handsome. He wore faded blue jeans and a plain gray T-shirt that showed off his muscular pecs. He had a square jaw and dimpled chin like a superhero, a long thin nose, and amber eyes beneath heavy brows. His auburn hair curled slightly over his collar. He had a nice smile, soft and maybe a little sad.

“I like to watch the airplanes,” the man said, as if offering an explanation.

“Uh, okay.”

“Have you ever seen one speed down the runway? There's that instant when it leaves the ground, and instead of a big, clumsy hunk of metal it becomes something else. It's transformed into a thing of grace and beauty.”