Page 6 of Perfect Score

Chapter Two

Zoey

Running down the gangway after the gate agent let me board the plane, I see the open aircraft door and the flight attendant waiting for me.

Thank God!

I’m almost home free.

With all flights sold out for the next few days, I likely wouldn’t have been rebooked until after Christmas. Which means I would have missed my own sister’s wedding if I had waited for an open flight. Instead, I would have ended up heading back home to jump in my car and drive the twenty-one hours to San Diego from Seattle.

Driving over twenty hours after pulling an all-nighter trying to finish up the last proofs for the wedding I shot last weekend, isn’t ideal. Which is why I’m relieved and grateful that they are letting me board right now.

I exhale the breath I was holding as I near the entry into the plane.

Even though the gate agent scanned my ticket and let me pass, a small part of me wondered if the aircraft would still be here by the time I got to the end of the corridor.

“Welcome aboard,” the flight attendant says.

“Thank you!” I say, with as bright a smile as I can muster after the lengths it took to get here.

I know they didn’t have to wait for me, and I want to make sure she knows how grateful I am to be boarding this flight right now.

She smiles and nods as I take a step inside past the thick airplane door. I clutch my photography gear bag slung over one shoulder, while my purse hangs from the other, and I attempt to keep my camera lens from smacking against anything,

My camera equipment costs a small fortune and it’s also how I make a living.

I love being a wedding photographer. It’s rare that my choice of profession ever feels like work. Nagging mothers of the bride and sometimes groom are usually my kryptonite. Luckily, in my experience, I haven’t had to deal with many crazy mothers in my career. I can usually sniff them out during the initial meeting to prepare myself for defusing any situation on the wedding day.

It’s a handy skill that I’ve honed over the years.

Weddings come with a certain amount of stress and high emotions. This can be a toxic combo for an already high-strung family member in the wedding party, but it comes with the territory.

My favorite weddings to shoot are the ones when the groom sheds a tear as his bride walks down the aisle toward him. It feels like you’re witnessing the start of someone's true fairy tale, and this one didn’t disappoint. The groom at this last wedding bawled like a baby the second the doors opened, revealing his new bride in her crisp white wedding dress.

I’m always honored to capture it all with my camera lens. Honestly, I’d do it for free if rent wasn’t due every month.

But poor time management isn't what has me almost missing my flight to head to San Diego for my sister's wedding. It's because right as I was waiting for my rideshare to pick me up, my sister called me in tears. Her photographer went into early labor this morning and her assistant called to cancel my sister's booking three days before her wedding.

I was already out the door, loading into the car when I had to sprint back up to my apartment and grab all of my photography gear that I hadn't planned on taking.

The rideshare waited the extra twenty minutes, costing me an arm and a leg for the ride to the airport, but based on the time I showed up to the airport, I still had enough time.

Right up until TSA decided that my dismantled cameras, perfectly packed between soft padding in a hard case, looked like a potential threat to national security.

They unpacked and inspected every item, running everything through a high-powered X-ray machine multiple times before finally releasing me to re-pack and reorganize all of my things on my own.

I guess that was a small mercy.

If she had been responsible for repacking all of my things, I wouldn’t have made my flight, and I'd be standing in the terminal watching the aircraft take off without me through the large glass windows of the boarding area.

I knew I should have told my sister during the beginning stages of wedding planning to pick a different maid of honor and let me be the wedding photographer. Then my photography gear would have already been packed, and I wouldn't have been late this afternoon, but she wanted me standing next to her and her fiancé, David, on the biggest day of their lives. I wanted that, too. Though walking down the aisle as the maid of honor with my ex-fiancé, Liam, being the best man, had me anxious.

The same ex-fiancé who left me two weeks before our wedding, and the day after we paid the last deposit on our venue, for a woman he met in line at a coffee shop.

Liam being the best man shouldn’t have surprised me. He and David have been best friends since high school, playing together on the high school hockey team, and now, working together at the real estate firm that Liam's dad owns.

And though I hate to admit it, part of me still hopes that seeing me again after nearly a year apart will make him realize he made a mistake and want me back.

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