The Trouble with Flying

The Trouble with Flying

By Rachel Morgan

Copyright © 2014 Rachel Morgan

Cover and interior design by Morgan Media

Summary:

Sarah doesn’t talk to strangers, but the cute guy sitting next to her on the plane might have to be the exception. Hours of random conversation later, Sarah thinks Aiden could be her happily ever after. The problem is, he’s gone now—and she has no idea how to find him.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.
The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges, the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks, products, and/or brands mentioned in this work of fiction.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information please contact the author.

Mobi ISBN  978-0-9922339-1-4

Epub ISBN  978-0-9922339-2-1

Print ISBN  978-0-9922339-3-8

For all the shy people.

I don’t make friends on aeroplanes. I know there are people who like to strike up a conversation with the complete stranger sitting next to them, but that’s not me. It’s not that I’m an unfriendly person. It’s more the fact that the conversation centre of my brain seems to seize up in the presence of strangers, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what to say. And even if the other person is happy to simply babble on while I pretend to be interested, I’d rather be doing something else. Like reading. Or watching a movie. Or trying to figure out how to stop crying.

Yes. Crying. Because if being shy and awkward isn’t enough, today I’m adding red eyes, tears, and suppressed sobs to the embarrassing mix.

I stare out the oval window at the patches of reflected light on the wet runway and silently ask God to leave the seat next to me empty. I can’t deal with a chatty neighbour right now. I’d rather watch the black sky and incessant rain until we reach cruising altitude. Then I’ll close my eyes and let sleep take the pain away.

Oh, STOP IT. It’s not like someone died.

I wiggle around a bit in my seat and sniff, trying to listen to my inner pep-talk voice.
Think of the good things
, I tell myself. I’m on my way home. I’m leaving behind the dreary, wet weather for a sunny, summer climate. That, at least, should make me happy. But thinking about home leads to thoughts of
who
I’m flying towards, and that only makes my stomach twist further.

I hear the sound of a bag being dumped onto the seat at the end of my row. There are only three seats between the window and the aisle—mine and two others—so there’s a fifty-fifty chance this person is about to plonk him or herself down right next to me.

I angle myself more towards the window and swipe my fingers beneath my eyes. I start the furious tear-banishing blinking.
Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying.
All I need now is for someone to see my blotchy, wet face and start asking me what’s wrong.

Someone settles into a seat. I don’t feel movement right beside me, though, so it must be the aisle seat. Fantastic. I send up a quick thank-you prayer and remind God that it would be spectacularly awesome if He could keep the seat next to me empty.

A tickle inside my left nostril alerts me to the fact that my nose is dribbling. I sniff, but it doesn’t help.
Crap, where are my tissues?
I lean forward and reach down by my feet for my handbag. Brown strands of hair fall in front of my face and block my vision, but if I can just get the zip open and feel past my purse to the tissues—

No. Too late. Now it’s trickling down my lip and I’m digging around in the bag and I can’t feel the stupid tissues and a drop of tear snot just landed on my hand and
yuck
! I haul the ridiculous handbag—I told Jules I didn’t need something so big—onto my lap with one hand while holding the back of my other hand to my nose. And there the tissues are. Right next to my purse. Practically mocking me. I rip one from the packet and jam it against my nose to stop the tear-snot flood.

And that’s when I catch a glimpse of the guy sitting in the aisle seat. A quick sideways glimpse, but enough to tell me he’s cute. Excellent cheekbones, a strong jawline, and perfectly messy dark brown hair. Terrific. My nose is dripping snot in front of a cute guy. Not that I should care that he’s cute, or that he’s a guy, because it’s not like I’m going to talk to him, and it’s not like I’m even available—am I? I don’t actually know. And thinking about
that
makes me want to cry all over again—but STILL. I don’t want to look blotchy and snotty in front of a cute guy.

I turn back to the window because I’m going to have to blow my nose now, and I
hate
doing that in front of other people. Such revolting noises. I take a deep breath and go for it, cringing at how loud it sounds. I grab another tissue and finish cleaning up my face, then find an empty side pocket on my handbag to stuff the wadded tissues into.
Gross.
I wish I’d stocked up on waterless hand sanitiser after I finished my last bottle.

I drop my handbag onto the floor and straighten. From the corner of my eye, I take a peek at the cute guy, half expecting to find him giving me a disgusted look. I needn’t have worried. He’s holding the two halves of the seatbelt in his hands and staring at them as if he’s never seen a contraption like it before. He pushes the two metal pieces together, and a satisfied half-smile appears on his face when the buckle remains fastened. Weird. Perhaps this guy is a little … slow. Hopefully that means he won’t be interested in chatting.

More passengers squeeze along the aisles; tired parents try to get overexcited children to sit down; businessmen remove their laptops before sliding their bags into the overhead storage compartments. I pull my book from the seat pocket in front of me. I put it there as soon as I found my seat earlier so I’d be ready to act as if I’m reading the moment someone sits down next to me. I open up to the last page I read and try to focus on the story—a sweet, predictable romance meant to distract me from my own messy love life—but the cute guy in the aisle seat keeps shifting around, and I can’t help wondering what’s wrong with him.

I take another peek. He certainly doesn’t look comfortable. Wiggling, tapping his fingers on the armrests, his knees bouncing up and down.

“It’s my first time,” he says, looking over at me before I can look away. “In a plane, I mean. Never flown anywhere before. So, yeah. A little nervous.”

“Your first time flying?” I repeat. I’ve just broken my own rule—don’t perpetuate conversation with strangers if you can help it—but I’m so surprised he’s never flown anywhere before that I guess the words just popped out.

“Yeah. Strange, I know. Twenty-three years on this planet and I’ve never left the ground. Well, there was that giant swing at Adrenalin Quarry—” his fingers drum the armrests repeatedly “—but I guess that doesn’t count since the swing itself was still attached to the ground. Certainly felt like flying, though, and flying isn’t something I’ve ever been keen on doing.”

He takes a deep breath while I try to figure out if I should tell him that flying in a plane doesn’t really feel like
actual flying
—not the way whooshing through the air on a high swing feels—or if I should make an excuse to get back to the safety of my book.

“I’m sorry, I don’t usually ramble on like this,” he continues. “Must be the nerves. I’m still not entirely convinced this giant metal contraption is going to stay up in the air.” He lets out a nervous laugh.

I need to pick up my book and put some headphones on before I say something monumentally stupid. Like last week on the Tube when the foreign guy sitting next to me asked, ‘Is that the new Stephen King?’ I showed him the bright pink cover of my book and said, ‘No, it’s a Melissa Carly novel. She’s a romance writer,’ and wondered where on earth he’d got the idea it might be by Stephen King. How was I supposed to know the guy was
actually
referring to a flier on the seat beside me advertising an album by some rock star named Stevie Keene?

So embarrassing.

Anyway, not only is First-Time-Flying Guy cute, but he has the kind of British accent that makes me feel all swoony. And swoony feelings only aid in sending my conversation skills into freeze mode. So I find it rather surprising when my mouth opens and coherent words come out of it: “There must have been a really good reason for you to get on this plane, then.”

“Family reunion,” he says. “I was forced.”

I smile in response. It would probably be polite of me to ask him something about his family reunion. Something like … like … Okay, conversation centre is shutting down. And it’s not like
he
asked
me
a question, so I don’t have to respond, do I? I can safely return to my book. I look down at my lap, then think of one thing I could say. One thing I
should
say, even though I don’t want to. I look over at him. “Um, since it’s your first time flying, do you want to sit by the window?”

“No!” he says a little too quickly. “I mean, no, thank you. I’m fine right here. I, um, don’t need to see how high we’ll be going.”

“Oh, it’s really not so bad. Once we get up there, we’ll be so high you can’t even see the ground properly.”

He blinks. He stares at me with gorgeous blue-green eyes that say,
You are so not helping.

“And, um, it’s night time anyway, so you won’t be able to see the ground at all. Just the lights.”

More staring.

Crap. I’m so bad at this.

With my face burning, I look down, pretending to be fascinated by a small hole in the fabric of my seat. I think I can pretty much guarantee First-Time-Flying Guy won’t be speaking to me again. I run my finger over the hole, then shake my head and turn back to my book. I find my place on the page and try to get back into the story. The main character has finally realised she’s in love with the guy she grew up next door to, but she’s convinced, of course, that he’ll only ever see her as a friend. She’s in the process of planning a makeover for herself in the hopes of getting him to notice her. I’m predicting it’ll somehow backfire.