Megan Hart - Flying

She doesn’t want to leave without saying goodbye—Daryl has been a fun flight. But it’s late and she’s tired and not in the mood for cuddling or, worse, conversation. The bathroom door opens just as she’s slipping into her shoes and straightening her stockings.

Daryl looks surprised. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I have an early plane.” She goes to him, offering a kiss because it seems like the thing to do.

Daryl kisses her but looks confused. “You don’t want to stay? Have another go-round in the morning?”

“It’s already morning.” Stella stifles a yawn. “And I’m really tired. This was great, though. I had a good time.”

“Not good enough, I guess.” Stepping back, Daryl frowns. “Should I even ask for your number?”

“I can give you my number, but that’s not what this is. Is it?” She gives him a small smile, trying hard not to sound annoyed, though by this point she’s ready to head out the door. “You’re not really going to call me, are you?”

This gives him pause. “I guess not. It’s just...everyone else always wants to exchange numbers.”

Stella laughs. “And how many times do you ever get in touch?”

“You never know. I might call you up, see if you want to be my Lady Luck again sometime when you’re out this way.” Daryl smiles, but Stella shakes her head.

“I don’t think I’ll be out this way again for a long time.”

“Oh. So it’s like that.”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s like that.”

She’s hurt his feelings. She didn’t mean to, but of course that won’t make him feel any better. Now this is becoming awkward.

“You won’t even give me your number? C’mon.” He flashes her a smile meant to be charming, but the desperation in it leaves her cold.

“I don’t give my phone number to strangers,” Stella says without apologizing.

Daryl scowls. “But you’ll fuck one.”

Stella doesn’t give that the dignity of an answer.

“Was it good for you?” he cries after her as the door shuts, and Stella understands that none of this was really about her, at all.

For a moment she considers grabbing the door before it can close all the way and telling him yes, the sex was good. Fine. She came, twice as a matter of fact. She considers, briefly, soothing his ego.

But then she remembers that none of this was really about him in the first place.

CHAPTER SIX

Mondays. Universally despised, always hectic. This morning Stella had already slept through her alarm, waking up instead to the thunder of Tristan’s feet up and down the stairs as he hollered back and forth with his buddy Steven, who’d come to give him a ride. Since Stella had already told Tristan she wasn’t sure she wanted him riding with Steven, even if the older boy had been driving for almost two years, this was not the best way to wake up.

“Dad lets me.”

Yeah, and then there was that. Too tired to argue with him, especially since he’d missed the bus, Stella waved Tristan into Steven’s car and watched them pull out of the driveway with her heart lodged firmly in her throat. She was sure Jeff did let Tristan ride with Steven or whoever else he wanted to, so long as it meant Jeff didn’t have to take him to school. Whatever made Jeff’s life easier. But Stella wasn’t going to dwell on that right now.

Halfway through her shower, the water ran cold. “Son of a bitch.”

She twisted the faucet handle, jiggling it, which sometimes worked. Not today. She finished rinsing her hair, shivering, entire body covered in goose pimples, and didn’t even bother to shave her legs.

There’d been a time when it was like asking Tristan to cut off his arms and legs in order to get him in the shower, and now he took forever. That was part of the reason why Stella had started setting her alarm for later, to give the aging hot water heater time to replenish the supply.

Downstairs, when she pulled open the dishwasher to get a clean coffee cup, she found another surprise. Nothing was clean. Muttering curses under her breath, Stella stabbed open the soap dispenser...only to discover it encrusted with half-dissolved soap. She checked the dishes. Wet. Just not clean.

“Dammit.” She went to the sink to run the hot water. Barely lukewarm, even twenty minutes after her shower. “Shit. Double shit.”

Already running late for work, she took the time to run downstairs to the basement to make sure that the water heater hadn’t exploded or something equally dire. Staring at it, wishing she knew what to look for, Stella knew better than to fiddle with any of the settings. She did notice the small light by the temperature gauge wasn’t lit, but maybe it never was. She couldn’t remember ever really looking at the hot water heater before.

No time to deal with it now. She had to get to work. And, adding to the joy that had begun her Monday, the trip that normally took forty minutes took an hour and a half because of an accident.

A car had hit and flipped over the guardrails along the deep, V-shaped gully that separated the east-and westbound sections of the rural highway. It had caught halfway down the steep embankment, the front end a crumpled horror. It had caught on fire. There’d been no way to see if anyone was stuck inside, though the ambulance and fire trucks had given her hope that even if there had been, there wasn’t anymore. Traffic had backed up for a couple miles, moving slow, rubbernecking. Stella had been stuck inching along the accident site for a good ten minutes before reaching the opposite side and being able to speed up.

Ten minutes wasn’t so long, but by the end of it, she’d been sweating. Her hands shaking. Her breath catching hard in her throat, like needles in her lungs. In the rearview mirror, her eyes were wide and dark, the pupils dilated to cover her irises.

At work, she sat in the parking lot for another five minutes longer than necessary in order to get herself under control. In the office, she went directly to the restroom so she could splash her face with cold water, which had her remembering the frigid shower from the morning.

Frustration, at least, was better than fear.

Despite the morning’s rough start, the day itself went smoothly. It almost always did. Sitting for hours in front of a computer, editing out zits and wrinkles, listening to music or audiobooks on her iPod... It certainly wasn’t the sort of job Stella had ever imagined herself doing, but it suited her. Her manager was nice and accommodating, and you couldn’t beat the hours. Four ten-hour days a week. Jeff had liked to snark at her for that... But again, Stella put that memory aside. It no longer mattered what Jeff thought and hadn’t for a long time.

Today’s queue of photos was the easiest she’d had for weeks. The customers were all dressed appropriately, nobody had any weird requests and the packages they wanted to order were all standard. Stella worked her way steadily through the jobs, one after another. She worked so efficiently that, despite arriving late, she finished her queue early, and rather than stay and fuck around waiting for more jobs to show up, she decided to leave early.

She called Tristan on her way home, but typically he didn’t answer. Nor to her text, which did annoy her, though it was possible he was out running, not just ignoring her. Benefit of the doubt, Stella told herself. Give him the benefit of the doubt. She called Jeff next, already wincing at the sound of his voice.

“What?” Jeff said.

She shouldn’t be offended—it was how he always answered the phone, for anyone but his boss. Even his mother had been subject to his lack of phone etiquette. Stella had never heard him answer a call from Cynthia, though. Maybe she got the princess treatment. God knew she did with everything else.