One week later
I was all packed and ready to
go. Six weeks in the Bahamas was exactly
what I needed, not to mention I would be stayin’ with five men. Woo, just the thought of it gave me a
chill! The phone rang and I picked up
the portable receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey! Are you ready? We need to be at the airport in an hour.”
“Yeah, I’m good. When are
you comin’?”
“I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, k?”
“Yeah, see ya then.”
“Bye.”
I hung up with Brian
and smoothed down my black pants and purple tank. I pulled the sunglasses from my head and put them on. Fun in the sun, here I come, I
thought. The doorbell rang twenty
minutes later, and Brian helped me haul my suitcases to the car. “Man, what did you put in these?” he asked
me, straining to lift them into the trunk.
I smiled and opened the passenger door, “My life.”
“You look nice, by the way,”
Brian told me when we pulled into the parking flat. I blushed a bit, never knowing how to take a compliment, and
flipped my hair behind my ears.
“Thanks.” He turned off the car
and turned to me. “Someone’s coming to
get our stuff so we can haul-ass through the airport. Remember, stay right beside me, and keep your head down a
little,” he said, sliding my sunglasses off my hair and onto my face. I smiled and raised my eyebrows. “Gotcha.”
Walking through Hartsfield
wasn’t a whole bunch of fun, especially not when two girls about 16 came up to
us. “Hey, you’re Brian!” the smaller redhead exclaimed. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “but right now we
gotta catch a flight.” The taller
brunette held out a piece of paper and a hotel pen. “Can you sign it real quick, please? I’m sorry if we bothered you, but we’re both big fans,” she asked
him nicely. He took the pen from her,
folded the paper in half, and signed both halves. “Now you both got it. We
gotta go, but it was nice meetin’ you,” he said with a grin. Through the whole process I’d not said a
word, and the redhead had been sizing me up the whole time. “Hi,” I said to her, and smiled, trying to
be nice. She raised an eyebrow and
glared. “How can you go out with
him? He just got separated from his
wife!” she growled. I shook my head
no. “No, we’re not dating. I’m going to be helping around camp, right?”
I said, turning to Brian for some help.
“Yeah. She’s just a
friend.” The redhead rolled her
eyes. “Sure she is. That’s why she’s a skanky-looking porn
star.” The brunette leapt in. “C’mon
Melody, shut up! Don’t be a bitch to
them!” she hissed dragging her friend away.
“You frickin’ whore! He’s still
fuckin’ married!” Melody shouted at us as she was dragged. I ducked my head on pulled on Brian’s
arm. “C’mon,” I said, and together we
rushed to our gate.
The flight was packed. Tourists, old couples, and screaming kids
could be heard from the coach area.
Us? First class, of course. We were served drinks before take-off. “To vacations,” I said, holding my little
glass of champagne up a bit.
“Vacations,” Brian echoed, and our glasses clicked. “Hey, that girl didn’t upset you too much,
did she?” he asked when the stewardess took up our empty glasses. “Well, other than the fact that she called
me a ‘skanky-looking porn star’, I’d say no,” I replied, and propped my pillow
up on the window. “Leigh filed for
divorce yesterday,” he said, closing his eyes.
In the few days we’d been together, I could tell that Brian considered
me a friend, and for that I was grateful.
“No, you didn’t say,” I told him, turning to face him. His eyes opened slowly, and he looked at
me. “She walked into the house at 4
yesterday morning, she just got in from LA.
So she finds me in the kitchen and she lays out the papers on the
table. I think I surprised myself more than
her because…” he trailed, his voice faltering.
“What?” I coaxed him, trying not to sound too nosy. “I signed the papers. I signed ‘em and I asked her to leave.” I just sat there looking at him, not knowing
what to do. No one I’d ever known had
been through a divorce, and this was all new to me. “So now… that’s it? I
mean… don’t you have to settle that in court?” I asked, genuinely curious. His eyes closed again and he sighed. “No, because it’s what they call an ‘amiable
divorce’. No one’s trying to clean the
other out, so we just signed a few legal papers, and we were through. So now she’s gone and I’m alone again,” he
said, squeezing his eyes together tightly.
I grabbed his right hand and closed it between both of mine. “At least you’ve still got friends, right?”
I said, hoping to pull him from his slump.
He put his other hand on mine and squeezed them. “Yeah, I do,” he whispered, then he leaned
his seat back and fell asleep quickly.
I watched him for a while, then followed his example and dozed off.
When I awoke it was pitch
black outside my window, and I felt something on my chest. It was Brian’s head. My cheeks immediately turned scarlet, and I
gently tried to move his head onto my shoulder. That didn’t work though, and he woke up, eyes opening into my
chest. “Whoa!” he jumped, pulling his
head up. “Geez, sorry. Oh, I got a little-” he motioned to me. When I didn’t get it, he took his little
blue blanket and wiped something off my chest.
I coughed a little from the contact, and my heart beat a bit
faster. God’s sake, he’s just wiping
drool off of you! Think about the
drool! I cried to myself. He stopped touching me, and I let out a
breath I’d been holding for a while.
“Sorry,” he said again, then sat upright, fixing his shirt. I looked out the window, trying to clear my
head of the thousand emotions swirling around inside. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing in about five minutes,
and the seatbelt sign has been turned on.
We’d like to ask you to please return from your seats and place your
tray tables in their upright and locked position. Thank you,” Came the captain’s voice. I breathed a breath of relief, and glanced
to my left. He was staring straight
ahead. “You ok?” I asked. He looked at me and smiled. “Yeah.”
When we landed, a car with our
stuff already packed up inside was waiting for us. “Nice little added bonus perk, “ smiled, loving the black
BMW. “Yeah, it gets us around,” he
joked. We climbed in and, just for fun,
peeled out of the airport driveway, much to the chagrin of the people around
us. We flew out onto the small highway
and I wondered for a minute if Brian knew where he was going. “Don’t worry, I know where we’re going!” he
said, laughing at my surprised face as he practically read my mind.