“You’re kidding, right?” I asked my previous seatmate, Luke, as he slid into the line at customer service ahead of me. Me and the thirty people behind me had been patiently waiting our turn to try to reschedule our way to Birmingham after being diverted to Atlanta about half an hour ago.
The airport was pure chaos with a slew of Deep South flights that had been rerouted due to weather, and after a failed attempt to get anything accomplished at the gate counter and twenty brain-bleeding minutes spent on hold with the airline via the phone while I’d been waiting in line here, I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit from anyone—and certainly not from Luke.
Luke looked back over his shoulder, slipping one of his grins into place to try to charm me and the rest of the crowd, but we had leg cramps, dehydration, and severe frustration on our sides—we wouldn’t be swayed. “I’ve got an important business meeting to get to. I’m sure you understand.”
“No,” I said instantly. “I don’t.”
His grin turned condescending as he focused on my black track-style pants and the plain white T-shirt stretched over my chest. “Right. Well, trust me. This business is important—the kind of thing that can’t wait.”
I stepped out of my place in line, fully prepared to suffer the consequences of rejoining it at the rear, and made my way past the few people between myself and Luke.
I towered over him, and a dull roar of whispers picked up behind me.
“No,” I said quietly to Luke. “What can’t wait is the thirty-five people you cut who have business to attend, families to see, sick to care for, and babies to get to bed. So why don’t you and I take a walk to the back of the line where we belong and let them get their rightful turn.”
Luke’s grin slipped into a hard mask. “I see you’re intent on making a scene, but I’m hardly inconveniencing them. I’m just one person.”
“Holy shit, dude,” I heard one of the guys directly behind me whisper. “You’re right. It is him.”
Like a sixth sense, I could feel the phones being held up and switched on to record instantly. My publicist for sure wouldn’t like that I’d made a scene, but the idea of putting Luke in his place in front of millions of people didn’t bother me—I’d just have to make sure I made it worthwhile.
“One person, sure. One very self-entitled person.”
“I’m not sure what your problem is—”
“You really aren’t paying attention, then,” I interrupted him. He glared. “You and I,” I explained, “are gonna head on back to the back of the line and let these nice folks go before us. I’ll even sacrifice my own spot just to keep you company. Now, come on.”
“Do I need to call security?” he threatened, seemingly noticing my size for the first time but too self-righteous to back down.
“Oh, how I wish you would,” I told him sweetly, batting my eyelashes as I did.
He sneered and moved to step forward as the service desk employee called the next person up, but I caught him with a gentle hand to the shoulder and pulled him back. “Not so fast,” I told him, turning to usher the guys behind me forward with a jerk of my chin.
They looked at me in awe but made no move to scuttle by in the space I’d freed.
“Get your hands off me!” Luke yelled. I took my hand off of his shoulder in an effort not to push it. My publicist would whine about a scene, but he’d straight break my kneecaps over an arrest.
“Dude. Epic,” the guy whispered to his friend who still hadn’t moved, and then raised his voice to address me directly. “You’re Quinn Bailey, right?”
I nodded.
“Fucking hell! Quinn Bailey fighting for our spot in line! You’re, like, a football god. I’ve had you on my fantasy team for the last three years in a row.”
I glanced up to see that Luke, opportunist that he was, hadn’t used my fans gushing as a lesson in respect for others, but had instead bellied up to the counter to try to solve his own issues as quickly as possible while my attention was otherwise occupied.
I felt momentarily disappointed at my failure to protect these strangers’ honor, but the rest of the line didn’t give me long to think about it as a ripple quickly informed everyone as to who I was.
In no time, I had a group of fifteen people around me, all waiting with scraps of paper they’d dug out of their belongings and passing around a pen for me to use to sign.
“Don’t worry about that dude, Quinn,” one kid said. “Karma will make him her bitch soon.”
“Jeremy!” a woman I suspected was his mother snapped. “Language!”
He shrugged. “Sorry, Mom. But this is Quinn Bailey, and he just tried to give up his spot in line for us! He should be on a private plane or some sh—stuff.”
I laughed and smiled at the kid and then his mother. “Listen to your mama, Jeremy. Manners are important.” I cocked my head to Luke at the counter. “That guy never listened to his mama. Guaranteed.”
Jeremy laughed and jerked up his chin.
I signed a few more autographs, letting people move up to the counter as they passed me in line and only stepped away when my phone rang in my pocket.
“Hello?” I answered, leaning into one of the walls in a little hallway that jutted off to the side to try to get some privacy. The main terminal was jam-packed with bodies weaving in and out, trying to be polite to the people around them and cutting them off with no remorse at the same time. It was funny to watch from the sidelines.
“I called the airline, and there aren’t any flights with seats on them until Tuesday,” my assistant, Jillian, said in my ear without any pleasantries or greeting.
She’d been with me for the last three years, and she was more efficient than anyone else I knew. My world was hers to command, such was her badassery.
Her voice wasn’t happy now, though, obviously feeling a little bitter about working when I’d supposedly given her three days off.
“So, basically, unless I want to stay in Atlanta until it’s time to go home again, I’m fucked on the flight side.”
“Basically.”
“So, what are my other options?”
“Teleportation?” she replied testily.
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I’m sorry I called you. But I was on hold for fifteen minutes, and the line at customer service was hella long. Then I got into it with a guy from my flight—”
“Got into it? Jesus Christ, Quinn! Now Nathan is going to be calling me. This was supposed to be my chance to have sex with my boyfriend uninterrupted.”
“Oh God. Too much information, Jilly.”
“Deal with it.”
I collected my thoughts as I took her order to heart. Nathan, my publicist, was going to be calling her nonstop. And then, when he couldn’t reach me—because no way in fuck was I going to answer his calls—he’d be bothering her even more. Her ability to have some kinky orgy with her boyfriend would be grossly diminished, and if it were me getting my sex party interrupted, I’d be annoyed too.
“So, what are my options here? And don’t say goddamn teleportation again. If I had the ability, I would have done that from the start.”
“A rental car.”
“Perfect.” I smiled and shoved to standing at full height again. “I’ll head over there now.”
Jilly sighed in my ear. “Don’t bother. I already called, and they’re all gone.”
Denial ran strong through my veins. “All of them?”
“All.”
“Even the Mini Coopers?” No way every fucking rental car in this airport was accounted for. Right?
She scoffed. “As if you could fit in a Mini Cooper.”
“I—”
“And yes, they’re gone too.”
Goddammit.
“So…”
Planes, trains, automobiles, I recited in my head.
“What about a train?”
“Ding, ding, ding,” she cooed. “You got it, big guy. Midnight train bound for Birmingham. I got you a ticket. You just have to pick it up at the train station ticket office.”
“And you couldn’t have just told me that from the beginning?”
“Definitely not.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re fired.”
She laughed. Guffawed, really. “You wish. By the way, the train leaves in forty minutes. You’re going to want to move your ass. See you in seventy-two hours, Quinndolyn.”
Quinndolyn. She’d been talking to my brother.
“Jilly!” I snapped, but there was no one there. No one but dead air.