Colin

 

Settling into my first-class seat, I stared out the window and sighed. Christmas had been fantastic, and the memory of Abby’s body snuggled against mine was still etched in the confines of my memory. I could still remember the way she smiled at me with the firelight twinkling in the depths of her oak brown eyes. I could still feel the way her fingertips trailed up my arms, sending shivers down my spine as our lips locked in the light of the roaring flames.

She made Christmas worth it, but I was saddened when she didn’t take my job proposal.

I understood what she meant. She didn’t want anything to be a handout in her life. I had tried convincing her that I wasn’t giving her a handout, but she wasn’t having it. She was more than qualified for the position, and I listed all the reasons I would’ve hired her for the position anyway. She was intelligent and capable of sticking to her morals while still abiding by a company’s rules. She was someone who could admit to her mistakes and adequately correct them in a timely manner when asked. She was familiar with how the media worked, and she was even familiar with the man who was disrupting my media presence to begin with.

Abby was someone I would have hired as a publicist in a heartbeat.

But still, she wouldn’t have it. She was determined to be put in a position where she had the ability to work up the ladder. So, I offered her a different position. Instead of being my head publicist at the L.A. branch where I regularly worked, she could be a paid intern at the Minneapolis branch of my company.

That was a job she took willingly, but I wasn’t happy about it.

I wanted to work beside her and see her more often. I knew how just busy she would be in Minnesota, and how busy I already was in California. There wouldn’t be much back and forth with regard to seeing one another, so we simply allowed ourselves the freedom to see each other when we could.

But that time never came around and there was nothing either of us could do about it.

I’d flown into Minneapolis for another meeting. We were hitting many major walls with the multiple languages that appeared in the European marketplace. Back in California, I was establishing many connections with businesses both large and small, and I had instructed the whole of the Minneapolis branch to begin working on a European format of the website podcast platform. The whole of Europe was the second largest consumer of podcasts next to the United States, so I wanted that platform established before we worked on any others.

But getting translations up of the English-language podcasts was proving difficult.

Now, I was sitting on a plane ready to head to Kansas. There was a massive conference in Wichita, Kansas, and I was set to make multiple appearances and provide lectures. As I sat there staring out the window, it threw me back to the first time I’d ever met Abby. The woman with the long hair that slapped my face as I was trying to get off a grounded plane in the same city I was about to head back to for a conference.

It was all very nostalgic.

The memory of her pulled a smile across my face. I hated that I couldn’t see her while I was in Minneapolis, but that came with the territory. We were already two weeks behind on the podcast launch because of the multiple language barriers, and I still wasn’t sure we had all of them resolved. But I couldn’t miss the conference, so I would have to deal with the problems while I was on the road.

Then a ruckus rose up behind my head.

I turned around and saw a mass of brown hair and papers strewn all over the floor. There was a woman in her knees, trying to gather everything up and shove it back into her large tote bag. She was huffing and grunting, her hands clamoring for any piece of paper she could get her hands on. She was crunching them up and stuffing them into her bag, and it wasn’t until she whipped her hair around and met my stare that I smiled.

I was looking into the eyes of Abby herself.

“Fancy seeing you hear,” I said, grinning. “Need a hand?”

“Colin! Hey. Um—nope. I think I got it,” she said.

Even though she said she had it, she was creeping steadily closer to my feet. People behind her trying to board were becoming impatient, so I dipped down and started gathering the papers at my feet. I recognized the company logo at the top and shook my head, then picked up the rest of the papers at my feet.

Our fingertips brushed for just a moment and I felt that electric sensation tickle my wrist.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

I held the papers out to Abby as people started pushing by her to get to their seats.

“I—um—ouch. Watch it, please,” she said.

One guy came through and shoved her so hard she almost ended up in my lap.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, as I stood up.

“What?” the gruff man asked.

“You shoved this young woman a little too hard for my liking,” I said.

“Colin, it’s fine,” she said. “I’ve got the papers. I’m okay.”

But all I did was stare at the man before he huffed in frustration.

“Sorry,” the man said.

“It’s fine. A simple ‘excuse me’ would’ve sufficed,” Abby said. Then to me, “And to answer your question, I was asked by my boss to P.R. the conference.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “Hadley doesn’t give that job to just anyone.”

“So I’ve noticed. But, I’m moving on up, and I like it,” she said. “Now—I need to find my ticket.”

“Miss, we need you to get to your seat. The pilot is about to board and we’re almost ready to taxi.”

“I just need to find my ticket and see where I’m supposed to be. It’ll only take a second,” Abby said.

I watched her dig around in her bag as the stewardess sighed. Everyone seemed to be in such distress today and I hated that Abby was taking the brunt of it. But if she was affected by it, she was doing a very good job of hiding it.

Because it looked like she wasn’t affected by it at all.

“Ah, here it is. Okay—um—it just says Seat 7,” Abby said.

She looked up at the numbers along the baggage hold above our heads.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me,” she said, grinning.

“Do you want your bag in the hold or at your feet?” I asked.

“For right now, she just needs to sit,” the stewardess said.

“Looks like I’m holding it,” Abby murmured, as her eyes grew wide.

She sat down next to me and it all seemed surreal. For almost two months, she’d been completely absent from my life. No phone calls or text messages. No meeting up or complaints about her work. She had dropped off the radar completely, almost as if she had never existed.

And now, here she was, only two months into the job, sitting beside me in first class, flying on the company dime to a conference.

There was a feeling inside of me that I could only recognized as pride.

“So, how many lectures are you slotted to give at the conference?” Abby asked.

“Five. Though I’ve cleared a couple of tentative times in my schedule for impromptu appearances. It all depends on how things go in Minneapolis.”

“What’s happening there?” she asked.

“You don’t know?”

“I know there have been some bumps in the road with regard to the podcasts, but you have to understand that I deal mostly with the media’s interpretation of everything. This hasn’t come across Hadley’s desk yet as an issue, so I haven’t put my time into learning about it.”

“Makes sense. The European marketplace has more language barriers to cater to. I think it’s very elitist to expect everyone to speak enough English to watch our podcasts. We got them translated into most every dialect in Asia, so why can’t we do the same with Europe, right? But, that’s proving to be more difficult than I’d originally anticipated.”

“There isn’t some closed captioning translation program you can use?” she asked.

“If we wanted to do sloppy work, sure. But part of what makes us good is that we do it right, and doing it right doesn’t always mean doing it easily.”

“I’m proud to be a part of the effort,” she said, grinning.

I was, too. I just wished she was closer to me while she was doing it.

“Hello everyone and welcome aboard Flight 2485 to Wichita, Kansas. This is your pilot speaking. Unfortunately, there is a rapidly-growing storm in the middle of our flight course. Heavy snow, winds, and ice are expected and the flight path is no longer safe. We will begin de-boarding where you can then head to our kiosk and book an alternate flight. We are sorry for the inconvenience, and we look forward to you flying with us again.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“I think it’s us,” Abby said, giggling.

“Ice?” I asked.

“I just think we shouldn’t be allowed to fly together any longer,” she said.

Abby’s eyes darted over to me before laughter erupted from between her lips. The sound was refreshing even though I was shocked to my core, and I found myself chuckling along with her. It was ironic, if you thought about it. Two months ago we were strangers in this same situation and I was pissed off that I even had to share a car with her.

And now, we were headed to the same place once again, and had no way to get there.

“Fancy a road trip?” she asked.

The laughter rolling between us slowly came to a halt but her eyes were still locked onto mine. Her question hung in the air, stoking the simmering tension that was already electric between us. She looked different somehow. Happier. Or possible thinner.

“Did you do something new with your hair?” I asked.

“Not if you consider getting it trimmed different,” she said.

There was something much more different with her, and I wanted to figure out what.

“I’m up for a road trip if you are,” I said.

“Come on. This time, I can actually pay for the car,” she said.

We grabbed our things and headed for the car rental kiosk instead of booking another flight. The line was short because people were still clamoring for airplane tickets, so we were able to get up to the desk quickly. The man behind the counter smiled at us and Abby started talking, but I soon jumped in and took over what was happening.

“We would like one of your luxury SUV’s that has four-wheel drive, please,” I said.

Abby looked up at me with a grin on her cheeks and I knew what she was thinking.

“Didn’t enjoy our accommodations last time?” she asked

“Just taking precautions,” I said.

But my spine shivered with the memory of the salacious activities we used to keep our bodies warm during that disgusting motel stay.

“I have an all-black fully-loaded 2016 Lexus LX that has four-wheel drive. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes, it is,” Abby said.

“But I will be paying for it,” I said.

“Colin. Let me get this for us,” she said.

“You can take care of the food and the gas for the trip. I’m getting the car and getting us there.”

I looked down at her determined stare and I could tell she was mulling over the proposition. The man behind the counter was darting his gaze between the two of us, but I wasn’t backing down from this fight. Without breaking our staring contest, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I grabbed a random card and slid it across the counter, still holding Abby’s gaze as she sighed in defeat.

“That’ll be just fine,” I said.

I filled out the paperwork and gave the man my proof of insurance. Abby stood there shaking her head, still giggling to herself at the scenario we’d found ourselves in. The man dropped the keys into my hand and I turned towards her, found that playful look in her eye and smiled.

“Ready?” I asked.

“At least I don’t have to beg this time,” she said.

“Nope. No begging required.”

“Thank you for getting the car again,” she said.

“You don’t ever have to thank me for something like that. You know this.”

Her eyes traveled along the profile of my face as we walked towards the car being pulled around for us.

I opened up the trunk and tossed my stuff in, then reached behind me to grab Abby’s bag and tossed it up against my bags. I closed the trunk with a bang and turned around to face the beautiful woman I’d have accompanying me again on a road trip, but there was a look of shock on her face.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

Her eyes darted from the trunk of the car back to me a few times before she shook her head. She had her wallet and her phone in her hand as she walked around to her side of the car. Shrugging it off, I climbed behind the wheel and cranked it back up with the set of keys I’d been given.

“Have you lost weight?” she asked.

Furrowing my brow, I turned my gaze towards her and found her staring at me again.

“Not that I know of. Why?” I asked.

“Nothing. There’s just—something different about you,” she said.

I nodded at the comment before I reached out and turned on the radio.

“Find whatever you want to listen to,” I said, mindlessly.

Then, without another word, we were off.