Jett

 

The captain tells us what happened over the speakers in the plane. He says a sudden snowstorm has hit Colorado and shut down all flights inbound and outbound for an undetermined amount of time. Keanna’s eyes go wide with fear and she sends a text to her mom.

I put my arm around her shoulders. “They’re fine, baby. They arrived yesterday before the storm hit.”

My parents had called me when they made it to the resort yesterday and said it was beautiful and amazing and they couldn’t wait until we got there. Even if it’s snowing its ass off there, our family is still safely indoors, so I’m not worried about them.

Keanna looks up at me with worry in her eyes. “What are we supposed to do?”

I shrug. “Hang out in Dallas, I guess. We’ll get the next flight out.”

Other passengers grumble and complain as we land at the Dallas airport. As annoying as the sudden change of plans is, I’m not too concerned about it. We’re still in Texas, and Texas is my home. It doesn’t exactly feel like we’re stranded here. We could rent a car and drive back home in a few hours if we wanted to.

Keanna and I take a seat in one of the terminals and check the flight status on the big board in the airport. All of the Colorado flights have been cancelled, and a news reporter talks about the sudden storm on the television that hangs from the ceiling. Many displaced passengers are crowded around it, watching the news.

Keanna’s parents call her and say they’re fine but there’s no skiing allowed right now in the snow storm. My mom texts me saying she’ll call me later but right now the baby is sleeping and she doesn’t want her to wake up.

“What should we do?” Keanna asks me after fifteen minutes of sitting here staring at all of the cancelled flights.

I shrug. “We can get a hotel, try again tomorrow?”

She nods slowly. “Christmas is in two days. We better get there on time.”

“We will,” I say, taking her cheek in my hand as I lean forward and kiss her.

We decide to stick around longer to make sure we can get a ticket for the next flight out of here as soon as they’re announced. Then we’ll go get a hotel, but not until we have our next flight secured.

Keanna and I wander the airport to kill time. There’s a gift shop with all things Texas. The Texas mugs and shirts and magnets all make me laugh, because who travels to Texas and wants a souvenir of it?

I grab Keanna’s hand and we wander around some more. When her carry-on bag gets too heavy to keep lugging around, I take it from her and sling it over my shoulder with my own bag.

“You don’t have to carry it,” she says, reaching for it back.

“I don’t mind.”

She rubs her shoulder where the straps of her bag had been digging in. “Thank you.”

We find an airport café that looks like the food might be halfway decent, and we eat some lunch.

“This place is awesome,” Keanna says as she stabs her fork into her salad. “Not the food, but the people.” She glances around at all of the people surrounding us in this airport. Most of them are busily heading to their terminal and some are killing time like we are because of the weather delays.

“So many different cultures here at once.”

“It is pretty cool,” I say. The couple next to us are speaking Japanese and a few tables down are some uptight guys wearing fancy suits sitting one table away from some hipster kids with English accents.

The airport is where people of all walks of life come to get somewhere else. Keanna and I eat lunch and people watch for a little while, but it gets boring after a couple of hours.

We head back to the terminal to check on the flights. Now the board is red all the way down, the word CANCELLED blinking on nearly every flight that goes out of here.

“The storm must be pretty bad,” Keanna says.

I approach a woman behind the ticket counter. “Any word on when we can get a flight to Colorado?” I ask. A few hours ago they’d said new flights will be updated soon, and we could probably leave tomorrow.

She shakes her head, a frown forming on her lips. “We’ve just been told there won’t be flights until after Christmas.”

“What?” Keanna says. Her grip on my hand gets tighter.

The woman frowns again. “I’m so sorry. The airline will fully reimburse you for your tickets.”

“I don’t want a refund,” Keanna says. “I want to get to my family for Christmas!”

“Me too!” some older woman says. She’s standing in line behind us. “This is bullshit!”

“Yes, it is,” Keanna says. She turns to me. “Let’s go. I’m just going to keep yelling and it’s not this lady’s fault that the weather fucked us over.”

The woman behind the counter looks relieved and I give her a small smile as we step out of the line. “Damn,” I say with a sigh. “This is no good.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Keanna says, throwing her hands in the air. Her eyes pool with tears. “Our families are gone. My present for you is there, and I don’t have my clothes.”

I slide my hands down her arms. “It’ll be okay, baby. They’re safe and we’re safe. We’ll just do Christmas when they get back.”

She shakes her head, her jaw tight. “This sucks. Christmas is ruined.”

“Baby, it’ll be okay. We’ll make the most out of it.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to be home on Christmas morning if I can’t see Elijah open his presents. That house will be too lonely.”

“Yeah,” I say, realizing I agree with her. Christmas is a time for family. I don’t want to spend the rest of the week alone without them. Plus, although my plan had been to just go home, the sign on the rental car kiosk reminds me that I’m not 25 years old yet so I can’t rent a car at my age. Getting a four hour Uber drive would be a nightmare.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, flashing Keanna what I hope is a confident smile.

She shrugs and slumps into a nearby chair. I walk a little ways away and call my mom. I tell her about the situation.

“The babies are too young to realize it’s Christmas,” Mom says. “We can just wait until we get back home and do it then.”

“Yeah, that will be fine, but Keanna is really upset.” I glance back at her. She’s staring at the floor. “I don’t know what to do since we’re only a few hours away from home but I can’t get there without a rental car.”

“Don’t go home,” Mom says. “This is supposed to be a fun holiday vacation. Stay in Dallas and give her just that.”

“A vacation in Dallas?” I ask, lifting an eyebrow. “There’s nothing fun to do here.”

She laughs. “It’s still better than being at home. Find a nice hotel and make it work. Honey, you need to make a Christmas happen in any way you can.”

I take a deep breath, realizing my mom is right. Just because we won’t be with family doesn’t mean we won’t have each other. “You’re right. I’ll do something special.”

“I have faith in you, Jett. You’re just like your father, and I know you’ll figure out the perfect Christmas for Keanna.”

I grin. “Thanks, Mom.”

Feeling more confident about things now, I head back to Keanna and drop into the seat next to her. She doesn’t say anything. I lean to the side acting like I’m relaxing, but it’s really so she can’t see my phone as I look up hotels in the area. First, I search for five star resorts, hoping to find something nice with a spa and a good restaurant. We could do a retreat together and try to forget about the world around us. That could be fun.

“What are you doing?” she asks after a while.

I shrug casually. “Just trying to find a cheap hotel that isn’t booked up. You know, just so we have a place to stay tonight and then we can head home tomorrow.”

She nods, totally believing my lie.

I keep up the internet search and then I see something unusual. Something I never would have considered for a situation like this. It’s a five star hotel, but it’s nothing like what I had imagined.

I scroll through the website, taking in how awesome it is. Then I search for the best room they have and book us a reservation to last until the last day of our original vacation.

I chew on my lip to keep from smiling, and so far, Keanna is just staring across the airport, totally oblivious that I’m about to rock her world.