Page 114 of Writing Mr. Wrong

Hands clenched together, they waited their turn to the podium. Then they handed the attendant their tickets.

“Oh,” she said. “You don’t have seats.”

“What?” Gemma looked at her ticket and at the board overhead. “No, we have tickets for this flight.”

“But you don’t haveseats. We’re overbooked.”

“Hold on,” Mason said. “No one told me that when I booked.”

“See where there’s no assigned seat on your boarding pass?” The woman’s voice dripped with the faux patience of someone dealing with not-too-clever customers. “That means you don’thaveseats. We offered vouchers to try getting people to switch to later flights, and some took them, but you were the last two left. You’ve already been rebooked on the six p.m. flight.”

“I need to get back by—”

“Please step aside so I can help these other guests. If you’d like to look for alternate routes, speak to customer service.”

Gemma turned to him. “Ask around. See if someone recognizes you. Tell them you have a game and you’ll pay for their seat.”

He hesitated. “Isn’t that an asshole move?”

“Only if you hoped someone would give up their seat for free, so you could get home for a poker game.”

“No,” the gate attendant said, clearly listening in. “I do not care who you are, you are not getting on this flight. We don’t do that.”

“You just did,” Gemma said. “You tried to find volunteers to switch tickets. If we can find them—”

“That’s different.”

Gemma turned to the waiting passengers. “Sorry, folks, I know everyone really wants to get home—or wherever you’re going—and you can say no, obviously, but this is—”

“Mason Moretti,” a voice said, and they pulled apart and turned as an elderly woman walked over with her companion following behind. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing hockey tonight?”

Gemma gave the woman a rueful smile. “He is, but we’re stuck on standby and there aren’t any seats. He really needs to get back, and the universe seems to be conspiring against him. If anyone—anyone—could help, I swear we’ll pay double whatever the airline offered—”

“No one is giving up their ticket,” the attendant cut in, having left her post to advance on them.

“Hush now,” the woman said. “You’re coming between me and Growler box seats.”

“It is not permitted—”

“If you can switch seats,wecan switch seats,” Gemma said. “And it’ll just be him. I’ll stay behind to minimize disruption.”

Mason opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a look.

“Minimize disruption,” she repeated. Then, to the attendant: “If you have a problem, get your manager, but I suspect no one’s going to want the flight held up for that, so if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to get through this negotiation and get him on that plane.”

A few people clapped. Gemma looked up at him with the fierydetermination that had bewitched him thirty years ago, and when his knees wobbled, it wasn’t his bad one misbehaving. She looked at him that way, and he wanted to blurt,Marry me, Gemma.

I’m about three years from being a has-been hockey player, and I have no idea what’s in my future after that, but I know one thing I want there. You. Marry me.

These days, he felt like he was walking on shifting sand where it’d always been solid concrete. He could see what lurked on his horizon: the day when he wouldn’t be Mason Moretti anymore. Yes, fine, that’d still be his name, but being “Mason Moretti” was a whole different thing. He’d spent his life chasing a goal, and now it was slipping from his grasp and he wasn’t even forty yet. Half a lifetime to go and…

And fuck it. He’d figure it out. He’d hold on to this job until they ripped it from his fists, but when it went, he’d have a plan, and part of it stood right there in front of him. Because he hadn’t just been chasing one goal all his life. He’d been chasing two. Hockey and Gemma Stanton.

“Box seats,” the old woman said. “I’ll also want a photo op. And a team jersey—signed.”

“I can do that,” Mason said.

“All right then.” She held out her boarding pass to the attendant. “Switch us.”

---