Page 31 of Fly with Me

“I’ll help you set it up.” Olive stumbled on her suitcase.

“No, you’ve had an exhausting day.”

“I’m fine.” But fatigue was hitting Olive with the force of a Mack truck, and the few minutes of being stationary made her weary legs turn to jelly. She braced an arm on the king bed.

“You’re dead on your feet, Olive.” Stella pointed to the bed. “Lie down.” She spoke in that commanding pilot’s voice that gave Olive no choice but to obey.

Olive collapsed with every intention of getting up in a few minutes to undress. Brush her teeth. Floss. Seduce the gorgeous woman in her hotel room.

She heard the clicks and clacks of the sofa bed unfolding.

And then, like every other time she’d been vaguely horizontal in the last twenty-four hours, sleep swallowed her whole.

The room was bright when she woke. She was still on her stomach, her cheek drool-glued to the comforter. Her romper was twisted and creased. She popped up out of bed.

“Stella?”

The couch looked exactly like it did before. The bed was tucked back inside.

“Stella?” she said again, ears straining, hoping to hear sounds of her in the bathroom. In the shower? She stood and knocked on the bathroom door, but it pushed open. Empty.

She was gone.

Olive was alone in the suite.

An Allied Airlines Post-it note was stuck to her phone, which had been thoughtfully plugged into the charger beside the green wristband Stella had worn the night before.

She wrote in sweeping, elegant cursive script, like a character in an old period film.

Thank you so much for a wonderful night.

All the best, Stella

Chapter 14

Olive’s face dug into the desk in front of her hospital computer in the emergency room nurses’ station. She swept a few stray dog hairs off her black scrub pants. Gus hadn’t left her alone since she’d gotten back yesterday, demanding constant snuggles. She’d only made it out of bed long enough to walk him and eat some dry cereal before work.

Derek smacked the back of her head, gently reminding her they were having a conversation. “Then what happened?”

“I took some promotional photos for Disney with the man whose life I saved, who was wearing a Mickey Mouse costume—he was super nice, by the way, Frank Feldstein is his name—and then I drank around the world at Epcot, vomited into several shrubberies, and passed out next to the Frozen ride. A security guard had to tell me to leave at closing time.”

“Dignity. Always dignity.” Derek shook with silent laughter.

“Fuck you.” Olive poked his shoulder. “And then I threw Jake’s wristband into the water.”

“Why?”

“It felt right. Like scattering ashes or something.”

“But—”

Joni dropped into the seat beside her, putting her stethoscope around her neck. “What’d I miss?”

“The existential tragedy that is my adult romantic life.”

She smirked. “Darn. Can we rewind, please?”

“Nothing happened. She left. The couch smelled like lilacs and vanilla the rest of my trip.”

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