In Flight (42 page)

“So you’ve been sleeping with her for years, and you were going on a date with her after I left tonight, and it didn’t mean anything?”

“I know it sounds bad, but it’s not like that.
 
I’ve known her since high school, and our families have ties that go far back.
 
Her brother Parker is a close friend of mine.
 
And she is only a friend to me.
 
I swear it.”

“But you obviously fuck your friends.”
 
My voice sounded dead, and I wished I could just shut up.
 

His eyes pleaded with me.
 
“Not anymore.
 
Anything I had with her means nothing.
 
It never did.”
 

“And you’ve only known me for a week.
 
What does that say about us?”
 

His jaw clenched.
 
“Please don’t do that.
 
It’s different.
 
We’re
different.”
 

I turned away from him, finally done with talking.
 
I just wanted him to leave.
 

“Please go.
 
I’ll talk to you on Monday.
 
And please don’t be on any of my flights.
 
If you are, I’ll go work in coach to get away from you.”
 
My voice was getting steadier by the moment.
 
I sincerely hoped that meant that all of my hysterics were finished.
 

He didn’t leave for a long time, but he didn’t speak either.
 
I heard the door open and close, then the latch being secured.
 

Stephan picked me up, carrying me to the bed.
 
He held me and cried.
 

I knew he was hurting, and all because of me.
 
His violent outburst would trouble him, as well as thinking he’d vetted James well, only to learn that I’d wound up hurt.
 
And my hurt would hurt him too.
 

We hugged each other, and I found that my crying was far from done.
 

Stephan and I were both surprisingly functional the next morning, which was odd, considering how little actual sleep we got.
 
Odd, but good.
 

We couldn’t miss work from a layover unless we were close to death’s door.
 
Missing the return flight home from a trip had cost many a flight attendant their job.
 
So we trudged down to the hotel lobby five minutes early, quiet, but in working mode.

Everyone had to ask Stephan why he’d never made it back to the bar the night before.
 
He had forgotten to even text anyone, which was unusual behavior for him.
 
He was normally considerate to a fault.
 

He made the excuse that he’d passed out on his bed, drunk and exhausted.
 
The excuse served, and the chat shifted away from the issue.
 

I wasn’t in the mood to talk, so I stayed silent and remote for all of the crew chatter, only coming to life when it was time to work.
 
The familiar routine helped, and I was grateful for a very busy morning, free of James.
 

I noticed the Agents were on the flight, one in first class, one in coach, as usual.

We had a full house.
 
Every seat on the plane was occupied.
 
So it was three hours into the flight before I asked the agent, James Cook, quietly, “Do you work for James Cavendish?”
 

He looked a little startled, but put his poker face back on almost instantly.
 
“I’m not at liberty to say, Ms. Karlsson.”
 

I just nodded.
 
I thought I had my answer.
 

Captain Damien surprised me by being oddly sensitive to my mood.
 
He dropped his usual flirtatiously friendly routine, and took the time to step into my galley briefly, touching my arm, his eyes serious and sad.
 

“I won’t ask what’s made you so sad, but I just want you to know that I’m your friend.
 
If you ever need anything, even if it’s just a sympathetic ear, please don’t hesitate to call me.
 
I actually do sympathetic very well, if you can believe it.”
 
He smiled gently as he finished speaking.
 
He was so earnest, and seemed so sincere, that I found myself oddly touched.

I smiled back.
 
“I can believe that, actually.
 
I’ll keep that in mind, Damien.
 
Thank you.”

My small contact with Melissa as she made a trip to the cockpit was the polar opposite of that.
 
She eyed my bare wrist with a catty smile.
 

“Trouble in paradise?” she asked.
 
She continued without waiting for an answer.
 
I never would have given her one, so it was just as well.
 
“You still have to wear a watch, you know.
 
You can get written up for going without.”

Stephan spoke, surprising us both.
 
He had approached without a sound.
 

“I doubt that would be as serious of a writeup as you ditching the other flight attendants in coach to go into the flight deck to sexually harass the pilots.
 
Again,” he finished blandly.
 

She gave him a look that was positively murderous, but didn’t say a word.
 
She stormed back to the main cabin.

Aside from his words to Melissa, Stephan was both quiet and affectionate that morning.
 
I got reassuring pats and hugs that actually did reassure me.
 

 
I might be stupid when it came to romantic relationships, but maybe it was fair, since I had Stephan.
 

Who needed more than that?
 
Who deserved more?
 
Not me.
 

We never got much downtime during full morning flights.
 
It was hours before we got a spare moment to relax and scarf down some food in the galley.
 
We ate our usual rejected greek yogurt, leaning against the beverage carts as we took quick bites, our shoulders touching.
 

“I’m going to research James online.
 
I should have from the start.
 
I guess I just wanted to get to know him as a person, and not his image.
 
But now I see that what I don’t know could hurt me,” I told Stephan quietly, after I had finished eating.
 

I had an old computer, and I used it when I needed to, but I wasn’t the type to spend much time online.
 
I didn’t really care about the news.
 
When I had spare time, I almost always preferred to paint or spend time with Stephan and our other friends.
 
I avoided Facebook and anything similar like the plague.
 
I was sure James probably had a Facebook page, though I’d never thought of it before.
 

I wondered dejectedly what his relationship status would say.
 
I shook the thought off.
 
A simple name search would probably tell me plenty.
 

Stephan nodded, sliding his finished food tray into the trash cart.
 
He held a hand out for mine, discarding it as well.
 

“That sounds like a good idea, considering.
 
I should have researched him better, but I didn’t.
 
I just trusted him.
 
I saw the way he looked at you, and I knew that he cared.
 
I thought it was enough.
 
And I didn’t want to interfere with the one guy you’ve ever been interested in.
 
Want me to be with you when you look?”
 

I shook my head.
 
“No, I’ll be fine.”
 

He straightened, moving close to rub my shoulders comfortingly.
 
“I’m sorry I got so violent last night.
 
I almost lost it.”

I patted his hand.
 
“Don’t, Stephan.
 
It was my fault, for bringing my mess to your doorstop.
 
You were just being protective.”
 

“James keeps texting me.
 
I had eight texts when I checked my phone before the flight.
 
He’s asking to speak to me.
 
Should I?
 
Or would you prefer that I not?”

I shrugged.
 
“It’s up to you.
 
Deal with him however you need to.”
 

“I do believe that he has strong feelings for you.
 
There’s no doubt in my mind that he cares about you.”
 

I held up a hand.
 
“I don’t want to talk about that.
 
It doesn’t matter to me what he
feels
if I can’t live with what he
does
.”
 

 
“He never threw a punch last night, never even tried, but
he’s
apologizing to
me
.”

I turned to meet his eyes, letting him see my resolve.
 
“Drop it.”

He leaned into me, kissing the top of my head.
 
“Of course, Buttercup.
 
I’ll drop it.”
   

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Mr. Celebrity

It seemed like it took an eternity to make it to my house.
 
And when I did, I passed out for an unprecedented six hour stretch.
 

I had turned my phone off first thing that morning, and I left it off.
 
I had told James that I would speak to him on monday, but that hadn’t kept him from calling and texting me, over and over again.
 

Just thinking about reading those texts made my stomach churn, so my phone had stayed off.
 

When I awoke, I ate some eggs and sat down at my computer with no small amount of dread.
 

My computer was an old, refurbished piece of junk, but it served it’s purpose.
 
I typed the name James Cavendish into the search engine with trembling fingers.
 

What came up was overwhelming, and filled with even more unpleasant surprises than I was prepared for.
 
I had been aware that he was a young but well-known billionaire.
 
I had expected some attention from the media in his direction, just from his looks and money alone.
 
But I couldn’t have anticipated what I found.
 

I was out of touch with current events, to say the least.
 
I didn’t watch the news, and you couldn’t pay me to watch some of the celebrity entertainment shows that were on television, and I certainly wasn’t interested in print tabloids.
 
I’d never understood the appeal of things like that.
 
I had just never been able to relate to anything about them.
 
They usually centered around spoiled rich people, and I just didn’t get the appeal.
 
That could perhaps excuse the fact that I was utterly clueless about the man I’d had a brief affair with.
 

I clicked on the images portion first.
 
It was mostly shots on red carpets.
 
He seemed to have endless pictures posing with countless women, though Jules was in a sickening majority of them.
 

He wore tux after tux, some fashion forward, some classic.
 
She wore gowns in every color, always looking beyond stunning.
 
The two of them together made a dauntingly beautiful pair.
 
He wore suits in other pictures, to what I assumed were less formal red carpet events.
 
I was shocked to see that I even recognized some of the other women he had dated.
 

I recognized a very famous actress.
 
I hadn’t realized she was so tiny until I saw her standing beside James’s tall figure.
 
She barely came to his chest.
 
I had liked a few of her films, but I felt an unreasonable rush of dislike for her when I saw that she had attended at least three events with him.
 

I recognized yet another woman, a voluptuous, dead behind the eyes reality star.
 
She was dark-haired and dark complexioned.
 
Her curves very nearly ran to fat, I decided cattily.
 
She was so short that they looked ridiculous side by side.
 

I felt sick when I saw him next to one woman who had the caption ‘fetish porn star’ right under the picture.
 

He always looked spectacularly handsome, regardless of who he had on his arm, but I was getting a bigger and drastically different view of him now.
 
And I didn’t like what I was seeing.
 

Farther down on the image page I saw a picture of him and Jules dressed down in jeans.
 
It was a rare sight, so I clicked on it.
 
I got a larger view, with a small gossip article.
 
They were holding hands in the picture.
 
The article said that she was rumored to be his longtime on-again off-again girlfriend.
 

I turned on my phone just long enough to send James the image.
 

Bianca:
 
You Liar.
 
I’ll speak to you on Monday because I said I would, but I’ve begun to do my research, and I’m quickly seeing that I don’t know anything about you.