Destination weddings suck.

Everyone knows it. Nobody has a destination wedding and thinks that they’re doing everyone else a favor. Destination weddings are expensive, difficult, and a pain in the butt.

Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t exactly turn my back on Lauren. We’d known each other since high school and I promised her way back when in gym class that I’d be her maid of honor. Apparently, promises made in gym class are sacred, because I booked that ticket, bought that dress, and drove to the airport.

Hawaii was going to be beautiful, at least. I leaned back in my seat, taking a deep breath of stale airplane air. I hated flying, but I had no other choice. It wasn’t like I could drive a car across the ocean. Well, maybe a boat, but that would take forever.

I sighed, glancing down at the crappy gossip magazine I bought in the airport terminal to help tide me over on the long flight.

Things were going to be okay, I kept telling myself. This was going to be a beautiful wedding. So what if the plane ticket cost me like half my savings? Lauren was my best friend, and she’d do it for me. I was going to this wedding and I was going to be the best maid of honor imaginable, even if that was the last thing I really wanted to do.

I glanced up and watched the people filter onto the flight. I could feel the plane bounce as the bag guys tossed the luggage into the plane’s holding compartment. Families in Hawaiian shirts filtered on, looking pale and happy, ready for their vacation. I willed myself to feel that same way, trying to dispel any negativity lurking in the back of my mind.

As it turned out, being the weather girl for a local news station didn’t pay a whole lot. I could just barely afford my New York apartment, and every day was a struggle to figure out how I was going to find some novel combination of clothes to wear the next morning on screen.

I never imagined I’d end up as a weather girl. I went to UC Berkeley to study Earth Sciences, and thought I’d end up trying to save the world or something like that. Instead, my uncle got me a job working for the network, and eventually I ended up in front of the camera. Sure, I still did actual forecasting work behind the scenes, but it wasn’t exactly my dream job. I made the best of it, and even enjoyed it sometimes, but I did find myself thinking about other possibilities of what I could be doing with myself.

None of that mattered, though. I was a poor, struggling weather girl going to her best friend’s wedding. That was everything about me. I was boring and normal otherwise, maybe a little nerdy, maybe a little quiet.

The last of the passengers began to filter on. I watched as they walked past, one after the other, until I spotted him.

He nearly took my breath away. He was tall and strikingly handsome with a strong jawline, bright green eyes, tousled hair, and slight stubble along his cheeks. His body was muscular, and the guy clearly worked out. He had one a pair of perfectly-fitting jeans, a tight white T-shirt, and a camouflage backpack, the kind you saw soldiers carrying.

As he moved down the aisle, he caught my eye. I felt totally frozen as a slight grin spread across his face. He moved past me, and a chill ran down my spine.

I turned and watched him sit down a few seats back. He was the last person on, and so the flight attendants were moving down the aisle, making sure everything was okay.

I watched as one of the younger attendants, a pretty blonde girl, caught his eye. She leaned down and said something to him, and he said something back, making her laugh.

I watched the whole exchange, totally horrified. Was this guy serious? He was on the plane for maybe thirty seconds and he was already flirting with one of the flight attendants. I couldn’t hear what he was saying or what she was saying, but I could tell that she was interested based on the way she was leaning toward him and smiling.

What a cocky asshole. He didn’t even have the decency to wait until the plane had taken off before he started in on the attendants. I quickly looked away before he caught me staring, frowning at the seat in front of me.

Why did I care what that guy did? It wasn’t like we knew each other. He was just some sexy as hell stranger that smiled at me as he walked past. And maybe he wasn’t even hitting on her, maybe he was just asking her some nice, polite question.

Yeah, right. I saw the way he was looking at her, like he wanted to drag her into that tiny bathroom and strip her clothes off.

The crazy thing was, I wanted him to do that to me. I had this overwhelming urge to let that total stranger take me back into that tiny bathroom and strip my clothes off, make me sweat, make me come.

That wasn’t like me at all. I crossed my legs, being careful of the seat in front of me, and opened up my magazine.

It was going to be a long flight. I just had to forget about that handsome stranger.

Except as the plane took off, I kept picturing him back there, and wondering what it would feel like if I did something absolutely crazy.