“I’ll take another vodka and cranberry, babe,” Luke, the overzealous dickhead in first class, requested with a cursory raise of his empty glass as I stepped by his seat.
His condescending tone made a slight headache pulsate above my brow.
God, I’ll be glad when this flight is over…
Babe. If tossing out demeaning nicknames and demanding booze was this guy’s way of schmoozing women, he needed a reality check. Not to mention, how many drinks did he really need? We’d been in the air for ninety minutes, and already, this man had consumed no fewer than three drinks.
There was one certainty in this situation: any sign of slurred words or disruptive behavior, and I’d cut off his alcohol supply quicker than a doctor cuts an umbilical cord.
It was times like these, when dealing with assholes like Luke in 2B, that I started to question my decision to be a flight attendant. It’ll be so much fun, I’d naïvely thought. I’ll get to travel the world, meet new people, and have daily adventures.
I’d forgotten to take into account the whole serving other people thing. Or the times when things like puke occurred outside of the lavatory.
Honestly, I did love my new job, but I was only human. I had good days, as well as days when I had to deal with douchebags.
I nodded and plastered on my very best “I’ll get right on that” smile, but once I stepped into the first-class galley, I rolled my eyes and let Casey know his favorite passenger on the plane needed another drink.
“Babe would like another vodka cranberry.”
Lucky for me, my best guy friend was also my fellow flight attendant—who also happened to be very gay and extremely protective. He was my biggest buffer for asshole male passengers who came on too strong.
Case and I flew together on a weekly basis, and because he always had my back, I was more than thankful our flight schedules were generally in sync.
He snorted in response. “Considering we’re taking a detour to Atlanta because of the weather, Mr. First Class Dickhead can live without another drink.” Casey punctuated his statement by holding his middle finger up in the air, high and proud, but sadly, behind the safe constraints of the galley wall.
I’d say I wasn’t the only one tired of Babe’s bullshit.
“Although…” Casey cleared his throat and waggled his brows. “I haven’t minded looking at Babe’s seatmate every time I’ve dropped off his vodka and cranberry.”
“Seatmate?” I feigned confusion—as though I didn’t fucking remember who he’d meant.
I knew damn well who he was referring to—the tall drink of water in seat 2A.
Deep blue eyes, big and broad shoulders, a svelte, muscular frame, and full lips to boot, the mystery man in 2A was a looker, that was for fucking sure. Not to mention the perfectly mussed light brown hair that framed his face and the soft Southern drawl that accompanied his words. Those locks and that accent would make any woman’s mind wander toward thoughts of beds and sleep and sex.
I’d spent the majority of this flight sneaking glances in his direction, wondering, What does a guy like that look like underneath his clothes?
My brain screamed, Strong and big and thick in all of the right places.
Thankfully, since the freakishly long moment he’d met and held my eyes before takeoff, 2A had spent most of the flight with his eyes closed, head resting on the seat back, and his headphones covering his ears. Otherwise, he might’ve caught me mid-ogle.
Although, if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing he hadn’t realized that my gaze had taken notice of him or not. I felt torn between wanting him not to see me looking at him and wanting him to know I was looking at him.
Attraction is a weird phenomenon.
“Oh, don’t play coy with me,” Casey outright refuted with a hand to his hip. “I know you know who I’m talking about. Just two hours ago, you listened while I pledged my virginity to him and him alone if he would take me as his he-wife. He’s so freaking fine, I’m honestly curious if he is the sole reason Tropical Storm Rita decided to switch up her path.”
“Pretty sure, no matter how good-looking the man is, he doesn’t have the power to change weather patterns. And God will smite me if I don’t, again, laugh in your face at your inference that you’re still a virgin.”
“Aha!” He wiggled a knowing finger in my direction. “So, you do remember him, you little harlot!”
I just laughed it off and used my best tactic of defense before he started tossing out ideas of how to get 2A’s phone number. “Do you think we’ll be able to finish up inflight service?” I questioned and quickly busied myself with emptying out the coffee machine.
Casey looked up from his new current task: refilling the drink cart with coveted boxes of orange juice. It was a true wonder of the modern world why airplanes urged cravings of sugared-up oranges in liquid form, but the proof was in the pudding, or should I say, the constant passenger requests for OJ.
“Doubtful, but we’ll try to make the best of it,” he answered with a little shrug of his shoulders. “Captain Billy should be making the final announcement to land in the next few minutes, and with the way the turbulence has been the whole way, I have a feeling he’ll demand we keep our asses in our jump seats.”
He had a point. We’d been fighting a bumpy ride ever since we’d reached altitude out of JFK. Word on the street was that a tropical storm from the Atlantic had taken an abrupt turn and fucked up our expected weather pattern. Hence the need for an early landing in Atlanta, which was only about an hour flight from our intended destination of Birmingham—one of those trips where you basically only had time to go up and come right back down.
“Oh no, honey,” Casey muttered, and I moved my eyes away from the coffee machine to look at him. I followed the path of his gaze until I realized he’d spotted a giant run in my panty hose.
“Son of a bitch.” I followed the nylon wreckage with my index finger. From the top of my kneecap to just slightly above my ankle, I had somehow ruined yet another pair of panty hose.
“Those hoes ain’t loyal,” Casey teased, and I couldn’t not laugh.
“I swear to God, how many pairs of panty hose do I need to bury before RoyalAir changes their uniform requirements?”
He grinned. “Like that’ll ever happen.”
“Don’t squash my dreams.”
“Honey, RoyalAir prides themselves on their uniforms,” he said with a wink. “And trust me, I didn’t sign on with them just because of the benefits and travel opportunities. They are literally the only airline with actual fashion taste.”
I put a free hand to my hip and pointed a box of coffee filters toward him. “When you have to wear panty hose underneath your perfectly fitted suit, then maybe your constant need to defend the dress code can be taken seriously. But until that day comes, I’m not hearing it.”
“Uh oh.” Casey chuckled. “Someone’s feisty…”
“Hell yeah, I’m feisty, Mr. ‘I get two days off in a row after this flight,’” I complained and put—more like tossed—all of the coffee supplies away into the overhead cabinet. “I’m the one who has to figure out how in the hell I’m going to sweet talk the RoyalAir agents in Atlanta to help me get to Birmingham by six in the morning or get me off that flight altogether.”
“Yeah. Okay. Sorry, honey.” He pinched his face together in a grimace. “You have every right to be pissy right now. I can’t deny the A-T-L is like the seventh circle of hell, and that’s on a good day. And don’t even get me started on the ladies in the staffing office there. Can you say divas?”
“Pissy?” I questioned with a quirk of my brow. “I thought you said I was feisty?”
“Out of everything I just said, that was all you heard?” he questioned with a quirk of his lips. “And yes, that’s exactly what I said. Pissy and feisty.” He blew me a kiss. “But I still love you all the same, honey.”
“Good evening, folks.” The overhead speakers crackled as Captain Billy greeted the plane. “Due to the continued occurrence of unexpected weather conditions and Tropical Storm Rita’s abrupt change in path, we will be landing in Atlanta in about ten minutes,” he announced. “Everyone, for your safety and the safety of the aircraft, please remain seated with your seat belts fastened in place.”
Tropical Storm Rita had moved over the southern states, hooking a hard right after making landfall in Texas, a lot quicker than originally predicted. The only safe choice was to take an early landing and let it pass, instead of staying in the air and getting stuck within the storm’s unpredictability.
Once the seat belt light dinged loud and clear, I stopped refilling the cart’s pretzel supplies and looked at Casey.
Immediately, he gave me his take on the current situation without uttering a single word. With a simple shrug of his shoulders, followed by pushing the cart into its final resting spot underneath the cabinet, he locked it into place. He might as well have just shouted toward the middle of the plane, “That’s a wrap, folks! No sodas or pretzels for you!”
“Well, I guess we now get to experience the joys of walking the aisles and dealing with the unhappy and disgruntled…” I mused, and a laugh bubbled up from his lips.
“Buckle your seat belt, honey. This customer service is going to get bumpy.”
While Casey finished locking up the overhead cabinets in the galley, I started my walk-thrus.
Surreptitiously, as I passed the first few rows of first class, my eyes strayed, moving across the rows and seats until they reached the spot where lucky number 2A was located. From my viewpoint, I could see the way his hand rested on his thigh, his long fingers tapping out the beat to whatever music filled his ears. I had the urge to backtrack my steps just so I could see his face and take inventory of his handsome features—his strong jaw, full lips, and warm blue eyes.
Somehow, my brain had already memorized his most striking features like this was someone I would see more than once in my life.
Before my feet could move an inch, a passenger cockblocked me from engaging in another ten-second ogle session.
“Miss,” a middle-aged woman called my attention from the last row in first class. “I am supposed to be in Birmingham by tomorrow morning. I have an important work meeting. I need you to make sure I have a flight available immediately.”
Oh, man. It was already starting.
I walked the ten steps it took to get to her row, the bottoms of my heels crinkling against the carpet of the aisle, and stopped right beside her seat. “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience.” I erred on the side of apology first. “But the weather conditions are no longer safe for us to be in the air. You’ll just have to be patient until we get to Atlanta, and a gate agent will be able to assist you with rescheduling your flight.”
“Do we really need to take this detour?” she questioned, and I watched as her hands adjusted and fiddled with the fanny pack strapped across her waist. “I think everyone on the plane can handle a little bit of turbulence in order to get to our planned destination.”
I wanted to let her know her idea of a little bit of turbulence didn’t actually account for hurricane-force winds and unpredictable storm paths, but I bit my tongue. “I understand your frustration, but I can assure you this is not a matter of convenience, but safety. Our top priority will always be the safety of our passengers.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed at the same time. “Oh, don’t give me that bullshit safety spiel. This early landing is going to fuck up my whole schedule. I’ll be lucky if I can find a flight to Birmingham by tomorrow night.”
I’d only been a flight attendant for about six months, but I’d flown the majority of my flights with Captain Billy. He had nearly thirty years of flying under his belt, so it went without saying that he didn’t just make an early landing for the hell of it. If he was landing us in Atlanta, it was because we needed to fucking land in Atlanta.
I looked at the woman, her blond hair resting high on top of her head in a severe, ballerina-style bun, her hazel eyes squinting in disdain, her fanny pack constricting her abdomen, and I put her in her place—via mental telepathy.
Listen up, Fanny Pack. I have no desire to fall thirty thousand feet from the air in a metal deathtrap just because you need to be somewhere, thank you very much. We’ll be landing in Atlanta, so just keep your mouth shut and your ass in your seat and deal with it.
Once I’d gotten that off my chest, and she still continued to stare at me like her eyes had the power to physically stab me, I proceeded to give her the sugary-sweet, RoyalAir “customer is always right” bullshit answer, but out loud this time. “Again, I’m very sorry this happened, but let me assure you this isn’t by choice or a matter of convenience. It’s for everyone’s safety. Air traffic control has requested that all planes within two hundred miles of our current location land as soon as possible to ensure the safety of everyone in the air.”
She blinked. Once. Twice. And then stared. She was still visibly pissed, and her hands vibrated with irritation as she readjusted herself in her seat and started rummaging through her fanny pack.
Instantly, I noted she no longer had her seat belt on.
God, could this lady just do as she was told?
We weren’t trying to be assholes here. We were trying to, you know, make sure no one died in the case of an emergency.
“I’m also going to have to ask you to take your fanny pack off and buckle your seat belt,” I instructed with a saccharine smile. “For your safety, of course.”
“This is my fanny pack.” She huffed out a breath, and her bangs billowed above her forehead from the forced air. “I’m not taking it off. I never take it off. Ever.”
I couldn’t stop my face from scrunching up in confusion. Obviously, we’d missed this thing during takeoff. No way in hell Casey wouldn’t have blabbed about the Battle of the Abdominal Bulge.
Wow, Cat, I mused, impressed. Seems you did manage to maintain a little bit of high school history knowledge.
And what did she mean, she never took it off? Like, she showered with the fanny pack? Had sex with the fanny pack? Everything with that fucking fanny pack on?
“Listen, ma’am,” Casey chimed in as he started his overhead bin checks up the aisles. “Unless you want to be escorted off this plane by the air marshal for disruptive behavior when we land, you need to take that fanny pack off. We are not going to ask you again.”
Oh boy. And he called me the feisty one…
The woman blustered. And huffed again. Until she unclicked the fanny pack from her waist and properly buckled her seat belt just in time for Captain Billy to begin our final descent toward Atlanta.
Casey and I double-and triple-checked our passengers, the overhead bins, the lavatories, and the aisles. Once we ensured everything was as it should be, we strapped ourselves into our jump seats for landing.
“Sheesh. Fucking fanny packs,” I muttered toward him, and he laughed.
“Yeah, the shit you have to request to keep people safe on a plane,” he agreed with a grin. “Listen, sister, the instant we land, just move your ass. I’ll do the final check and make sure everything is clean as a whistle before I go.”
“You’re the best,” I whispered. Luckily for both of us, I was the only one who needed to make a return flight in the next twelve hours. Casey had two days off to get his schedule situated.
Casey blew me a kiss. “I know.”
The instant we landed, I did exactly as I was told.
Legally, I had to wait as the passengers filed out, but as soon as they were done, I abandoned my responsibilities and moved my ass.
I grabbed my black carry-on and walked as fast as my navy patent leather heels would take me. After a serious delay and then a goddamn detour from the original planned flight, I was in Atlanta, should’ve been in Birmingham, and I had no idea what my next steps were.
Only six months into the flight attendant game, and without my flight attendant bestie by my side, I was a newbie. A little fish in a big ole airport pond trying to find her way back to Birmingham. Not to mention, RoyalAir was currently severely short-staffed, so the odds of being taken off my Birmingham to NYC flight completely were probably slim to none.
As I took the tram from Terminal D to Terminal A, where RoyalAir’s hub was located, I silently prayed the flight manager on staff this evening could find a way to help me.
The airport was insanely busy for the hour of the day. Eleven at night was generally blessed with calm and quiet, but not tonight. Tonight, the usual hustle and bustle of airline employees and people rushing about to reach their terminal or their next connecting flight had been put on steroids because of all of the detours and weather delays.
I weaved in and out of the crowd, doing my best not to bump into anyone, and my heels click-clacked across the tile at a rapid pace.
The flight manager’s office, located on the opposite end of the terminal and tucked into a small, obscure and darkened corner of a hallway, looked like something out of a customer service horror film. The phones were ringing off the hook, and two out of the three agents were already talking to other flight attendants. Paperwork littered the floor to the back and side of the long desk and blood was smeared all over the walls.
Okay, there wasn’t any blood, but it felt like there could have been.
A rescheduling war had been fought here.
“Name,” a woman with a short, jet-black bob and the darkest, thickest eyebrows I’d ever seen—the only person not occupied—demanded as soon as she noticed me stepping through the door.
Oh, fantastic. This should go well since she’s obviously in such a great mood…
“Cat, uh, well, Catharine Wild,” I responded and slid my carry-on bag to a stop with a little help from the counter. The bang of wheels against wood made The Eyebrows draw together, and I winced. “Oops. Sorry,” I apologized. She glared. “Most people call me Cat, though.”
“Well, it looks like RoyalAir calls you Catharine.”
Sheesh. This woman. She’s a real sweetheart, huh?
I glanced at her name tag. Carol, it read.
Well, Carol, you can blow me, I thought. You’re not the only one who’s had a long night.
“I’m supposed to be in Birmingham for a nine a.m. flight,” I explained, and Carol raised one eyebrow high on her forehead.
Looking more like black caterpillars than facial hair, those eyebrows of hers were distracting as hell. They had a power that rivaled the sun, and it took all of my willpower to not stare directly at them.
“Well…” She looked up from her screen and pinched her lips together in a firm line. “You’re not in Birmingham. You’re in Atlanta.”
Wow. Thanks. I hadn’t realized I was in a completely different city and state from where I was supposed to be. I mean, I had been on the flight that took the detour, but I just had no fucking clue what was going on.
I kept my sassy in check and bit my tongue. “I realize that.”
“I have no flights to Birmingham tonight,” she muttered and pursed her lips. “The next flight to Birmingham isn’t until noon tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t really help me,” I attempted to explain my dilemma…again. “I’m supposed to be on the nine a.m. Birmingham to JFK flight tomorrow.”
“That sounds like a problem.”
Ya think?
“Is there any way I can get off that flight, then?” I asked, too hopeful for my own good. This was why they had backup flight attendants stationed at various airports, for situations like this. Right? “I mean, I’m not sure how I’m going to get there in enough time…”
She shook her head, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her eyebrows. Good Lord, those things were an anomaly. Big, bushy, and yet, well-maintained somehow. They were distracting. And ironic. And, considering I was in a bit of a situation, I honestly had no idea why I was even analyzing Carol’s fucking eyebrows like there was a quiz on them later.
“They need you in Birmingham,” she stated firmly. “There is only one other flight attendant for your flight to JFK, and all of the backups are accounted for thanks to the shortage. You’re just going to have to find another way to get there.”
And how in the heck was I going to manage that? A goddamn hot air balloon?
I looked at Carol, and Carol looked at me.
And, after another twenty or so seconds passed, I realized Carol and her eyebrows weren’t going to offer up any solutions. I glanced at the mess of paper on the floor behind her and then back to her cold eyes. Any fuck she’d had to give, she’d given out a long time ago.
“So,” I started in an attempt to carefully pry a solution out of her, “if you were me, how would you get to Birmingham?”
She shrugged. “The train, probably.”
There’s a train? Like, a real one? Or is she just bullshitting me?
“So, I could take a train?” I asked to confirm. Her eyebrows weren’t pleased, turning down on the ends. “A train from Atlanta to Birmingham?”
“Yep. Amtrak.”
Amtrak. Remember that, Cat…
“Okay… Well… Do you happen to have any information for me?” I asked and rested my elbows on the counter. “You know, like, where is the train located? How do I get there?”
C’mon, Carol. Work with me here.
She sighed, long and exaggerated, and then sat there, wordless, for what felt like an eternity.
Whose will would break more quickly?
To my surprise, I won that round, and she eventually opened a drawer on the left side of her desk and started to rummage through its contents.
“How long have you been with RoyalAir?”
“Six months.”
“That explains it,” she muttered under her breath.
Wow. Another point for Carol, I guess.
I bit my tongue for the second time. I feared if I didn’t get out of Carol’s office in the next five minutes, I might bite the damn thing straight off.
“Here,” she said and slapped a white envelope onto the counter.
Done with our game and done with me, Carol didn’t provide any instructions after that. I silently prayed she hadn’t just shoved an old Chinese food menu into an envelope, lifted my elbows from the counter, and grabbed the handle of my carry-on.
Fingers and toes crossed, I strode out of the office, sat down on an empty bench, and opened up the white flap of paper on the back.
My eyes scanned the text, and relief filled my stomach, heavy and warm. Carol had actually given me information that could help me find my way to Birmingham before my nine a.m. flight.
Hallelujah, praise Jesus.
Unfortunately, when I got a load of the nightly Amtrak train schedule, the relief quickly dissipated.
Next train to Birmingham: 12:00 a.m.
I looked at my watch. 11:30 p.m.
Google was my bitch as I typed in the train station and plotted a foot route from my current location. Estimated time it would take for me to get to the train: twenty minutes.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered and hopped out of my seat at a dead sprint.