Charge
a feeling of electricity so strong it surges forward;
or responsibility
As Annie's plane descended into Miami late Thursday afternoon, she gazed at the sights out of the small rectangular window. The water below glistened like diamonds despite the late-afternoon sun disappearing in the western sky.
She no longer wanted to fall out of the shape and escape. Not now, anyway.
Relaxed and leaning against her seat, Annie felt like a feather drifting from the clouds. The time spent with Tabitha had been just what she’d needed. Tab had been the pill. The medicine.
Fuck those pills, Tab had said.
Annie gave addiction and despair a righteous middle finger as she looked below at the topography. Little bugs going to work, school — living, breathing, significant.
She had to be a significant bug. Had to be. There had to be a reason. A purpose. If she could only focus. Keep it. Harness it. Stop the daydreaming.
Maybe the buckets of grieving she’d done in the city were good. In hindsight, anyway. Difficult, puffy-eyed, nothing/something grieving but good — necessary.
* * *
Annie made her way through the gate and into the crowded terminal with her suitcase trailing behind her, her flip-flops smacking the ground, and her pretty floral backpack strapped to her spine.
Her stomach growled. It gurgled louder than the people talking and walking. More than the children fussing and crying. So, she decided to grab a quick sandwich before making her way downstairs for a cab.
Finding a table for two, she sat and took a couple bites of roast beef and provolone while wriggling her cell phone from her pocket. She deleted and read emails, then she sent off a text to Tab.
Annie: Back in the Sunshine State. Missing you already, T.
Crinkling her napkin in her fist, she continued to eat, but it wasn’t long before she was interrupted.
"Annie Baxter, please meet your party at baggage claim," a man said over the loudspeaker, startling her.
What the...? Annie looked left, then right. She probably blushed … yeah, she did. Blushing as she chewed while thinking she must’ve heard the announcement wrong. Perhaps they’d said Annie Saxon or Annie Braxton.
But what if he’s here?
Damn him.
Damn him.
Damn him.
Riling her up.
He had to have said Annie Braxton.
Eat.
She intensified the chewing. Studied the people. The travelers took her mind away from the announcement. They fascinated her. Shoes, socks, bags, kids on hips (some on leashes), purses, backpacks, people walking with phones inches from their faces.
Where are they going?
What are they reading?
Who are they meeting?
Are they married?
Divorced?
Late for what, whom, where?
What made them tick? A pocket full of money, success in the form of a nine-to-five job, a new car, silence in the small spaces, loneliness disguised as moving on and turning the other cheek?
Before Annie knew it, she’d finished. Gathering her things, she went toward the escalator. She’d barely made it to the next floor when she heard the announcement again. The same as before. No Saxon. No Braxton. No mistaking it. The man, indeed, had said Annie Baxter.
She stepped off the moving staircase, wiped a palm on her jeans, expelled hot air, and searched the floor.
He's not here.
Please ... he's not.
Get a grip.
Still, each step she took pounded into the floor.
Swarms of people waited for their luggage, creating a tight space, cattle in a herd, not much room to move or breathe. And she needed to breathe. Desperately.
Like a skilled private detective, her eyes meandered over each person’s frame and face. She scoped out the area as best she could on her tippy toes, looking around at the competing cattle for any sign of Cal.
Chiseled face. Steel jaw. Dirty-blond head. A body made of control.
Off in the distance, away from the herd, Annie spotted a man holding a sign. He cradled the sides of the thick cardboard in front of his chest. His rotund belly stuck out below it. As she moved closer to the blurry figure, and then as she approached, she could finally make out the two words written in Sharpie:
Carl wiped his forehead with a handkerchief as he gazed off to Annie's right. Although she stood only a few feet away, people cut between them. As she closed the distance, Carl shoved the sweat-stained cloth into his pocket, looked up, and visibly deflated.
"Ms. Baxter..."
"Annie. Please, call me Annie." She smiled.
"Mr. Prescott sent me," Carl said with a genuine sweetness, looking cute in his black trousers and white shirt, a toothpick in his mouth.
"Oh, he did, did he?" Annie replied, smirking. "And just where did he tell you to take me?"
"I assumed you knew." Carl shifted his eyes. "I'm driving you directly to Mr. Prescott's, Ms. … uh, I mean Annie. Unless he was mistaken?"
"No, no.” She grinned. “There’s no mistake." A thread of laughter stitched through her words. "Please take me to Cal's." She stretched her arm out, indicating he lead the way.
What was Prescott up to? Yes, he’d wanted her return itinerary. And he’d received it. She’d texted Cal earlier, before her flight, and he had said not tonight. She’d agreed. No mistake, though. Did the chameleon with the carefully laid plans ever make a mistake?
Carl opened the back passenger door of the Tesla for Annie. The late afternoon sun had already managed to heat the car like a sauna. Inside, it may have been stifling, but it looked like a dream.
Oh my God.
A hundred bouquets of roses had exploded in the back seat. Petals everywhere. She couldn't see the floors or the seats. A variety of colors, and they all appeared to float as if they were in a giant Tesla tub of water.
Annie grinned as Carl closed the door.
He grinned too.
He’d probably bought the arrangement for Cal and done the romantic deed. Although, how romantic was shredding flowers? Well, hadn’t she done something similar, tearing petals off roses and drowning them in the sea? Was this retribution? Ha.
Slipping off her shoes, she squished her feet into the arrangements and pressed them between her fingers. She scooped them up the way a child would play in leaves. The silky sensation on her skin and the anticipation of being with Cal sent her into a sudden state of euphoria. Her heart beat faster as she sank into the roses, into the floaty warm bath, into the sauna and heat of the leather seats.
Annie rode the puffy little cloud of hot, hot serenity all the way to Cal's place, her pulse gaining momentum with each mile, her pussy awash with some sort of overfull need only Cal could sate.