Page 10 of Paper Hearts & Plot Twists

He smiled tremulously before going back to his own entertainment. Emily pulled the case off of her phone and re-attached it with the barf bag underneath. She settled the back behind the seat tray and grinned at her make-shift TV screen. She continued to watch her show, much happier with her current neck positioning.

A while later Emily realized one of her dreaded flying realities was coming to pass . . . she needed to use the bathroom. Trying to ignore it, she continued watching her show to distract herself, but before long that became impossible.

Emily unbuckled and stood, bumping against her precariously balanced phone, causing it to tumble to the floor and roll under the seat. She glanced underneath but couldn’t see where it had disappeared to.

“Bathroom?”

Emily nodded, lips pressed together in a thin line of annoyance.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said with a grin. “Go to the bathroom.”

“It’s fine. I’ll get it later,” Emily insisted, moving down the aisle toward the bathroom. The bathroom was worse than she anticipated: cramped, small, bumpy, and less than sanitary. Despite this, she remained there a bit longer than she needed to gather herself and take some deep breaths. She wasn’t in a hurry to get back to her seatmate, who she was sure regretted his seat assignment by now.

When she made it back to her seat, her phone was sitting there, face up, with the show paused. The blood drained from her face when she realized where the show was stopped. The very cute but very naked Damon Salvatore was in the middle of licking a line down the front of an equally naked Elena Gilbert.

Emily snatched her phone and exited the screen. She sat down, feeling like a strawberry turning from white to red. She opted to go to audible and listen to one of her books. No risqué scenes for others to witness that way.

She started where she left off in Enamored by J.S. Scott and glanced out the window at the white fluffy clouds. She let her mind wander with the story.

Emily’s seatmate was messing with his phone, perhaps switching songs. She frowned when her book stopped and pulled her phone up. The audiobook was still playing soundlessly and she was missing one of the spiciest scenes. The main character had just started touching on his beau. She pulled her headphones off her head and turned the volume up then realized she could hear the sound . . . coming from the seat beside her.

Emily nearly dropped her phone as she paused her book, halting the sound to his earbuds. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. Emily turned off the Bluetooth connection and slipped her phone and headphones back into her bag. There was no way she could handle a repeat of this scenario. Instead, she stared out the window in mortification.

When the plane was at its highest altitude, the flight attendants moved through the aisle with beverage service.

“Would you like something to drink?” The flight attendant was in front of her with the large steel cart.

“Coffee would be wonderful,” Emily said. She gladly accepted the steaming beverage and cupped it between her hands. She breathed in the refreshing smell and barely noticed as her seat companion accepted his own glass of Coke.

It wasn’t great coffee, but it felt like the best thing she ever tasted after the day she already had. Emily savored each sip as her tension melted away. With a sigh she reached forward to set her cup on the tray, and that tension returned tenfold.

“No!” Emily gasped as her coffee tumbled down, all over her sweater, lap, shoes, and most horrifying of all, onto her seatmate’s shoes and pants. Her wide, horrified eyes turned to him.

“I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine,” he said. He started to dab at his pants with his napkin. Emily pulled a couple crumbled napkins from her purse and offered them, but he shook his head, declining the offer. She was blushing from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.

Settling her shaking hands in her lap, she stared at the seat back in front of her, shivering as the hot coffee cooled against her skin. She clasped her hands together and squirmed, deciding that a boring flight was better than causing any more embarrassment.

Emily was so anxious to get off of the plane she barely registered the bumpy landing. As the line of passengers exiting reached her row, Emily stood with her purse in tow and headed down the aisle, sparing a quick smile for the flight attendant before she exited.

She yawned as she stumbled past security and toward baggage claim. Emily tapped her foot as she waited with the rest of her flight for her bag, pointedly avoiding looking at the people who’d shared a row with her.

“Finally,” she mumbled as her suitcase slipped down the ramp. She reached for the handle and tugged it off the platform. Wasting no time, she hurried toward the nearest bathroom and made her way into one of the empty stalls.

“Shoot,” Emily mumbled when she fell into the wall of the stall as she pulled her leggings up. She wrinkled her nose and glanced at the less than sanitary wall before she finished settling into her new outfit.

“I’ve got this. The hard part’s done,” she mumbled aloud. She shoved her coffee-stained clothing into the top pocket of her suitcase and took a deep breath to center herself.

Emily fumbled to unlatch the lock then hurried out of the bathroom into something reminiscent of a ghost town. A worker or two sleepily leaned against counters (most likely counting down the seconds until they went home), and a couple passengers slumped in seats, hoods shadowing their faces, but the hustle and bustle of the airport had vanished.

The click-clack of her boots seemed especially noisy in the quiet space. If Emily hadn’t just finished a ten-hour travel day due to a six-hour flight delay at the Portland airport, she might consider it peaceful. She made her way past the empty baggage claim toward the taxi stand. She wasn’t an airport regular, but she didn’t think it was supposed to be this empty.

To her right, about one hundred yards off was the shuttle to her hotel. Emily’s triumphant grin faded into horrified resignation when the vehicle started to move.

“Stop! Wait! Please!” Emily shouted. She tugged her suitcase and started to sprint in that direction, but it was a futile endeavor. Before she was ten yards down the walkway, the shuttle was out of sight.

“Just my luck.” Emily stomped back inside the building and went to the empty customer service desk.

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