Page 39 of Time to Bounce

Three hours later, and the motherfucker was still kicking my seat.

When I finally got tired of it and stood up to address the kid and his mother, asking him to stop, she laughed.

“Guess maybe you should’ve gone back to coach if you wanted me to make my kid stop.” She huffed, dismissing me.

I sat down, but not before I pressed the flight attendant button above my chair.

She arrived with a flourish, and she had a co-conspirator look in her eyes as she began speaking.

“Excuse me,” the flight attendant came to rest her hand on my shoulder. Her eyes flicked backward to the seat behind me—she was well aware of what the little shit had been doing for the last three hours. “I have a seat available behind them. There’s an elderly lady that said something about how hard it was to get to the bathroom from her seat.”

I stood up. “Done.”

Me and the elderly lady, who did indeed look like she was going to have trouble getting to the bathroom, switched.

She thanked me profusely, and I hoped that little motherfucking teenager didn’t kick that precious lady’s seat.

When I passed the little fucker, I smiled at him.

He looked chagrinned.

Like he knew what was about to happen and was rethinking his last three hours of stupidity.

Taking a seat in the chair behind him, I buckled my seatbelt.

Then I started kicking.

Kick.

Kick.

Then I’d stop. Give him a false sense of security.

Kick.

I spent the entirety of the eighteen-hour flight kicking him.

The flight attendant didn’t say a word when the asshole teen brought it to her attention.

Needless to say, when I got off the plane, and the teen’s bloodshot eyes caught mine, I couldn’t help the smile.

That smile stayed in place through the next few hours as I got off the plane and navigated my way to the pickup area.

Learning Japanese was a Godsend.

The moment I got off the plane, everyone started talking to me, welcoming me home, unaware that I’d been raised in America and not here.

I smiled, used my flawless Japanese and admitted that I wasn’t from here, and asked the nearest friendly woman for directions.

The woman was my barnacle for the next twenty minutes as she helped me get to where I needed to go, and we found a man holding a sign with my name written on it.

I smiled and waved, and the woman wished me the best for my stay in Japan for the next few weeks, then left me in the capable hands of my driver.

The driver took me to the hotel, and the entire time I watched the scenery of Okinawa pass in my window.

The hotel was amazing.

The room was amazing.

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