Page 11 of Shortcake
“You… you what?” My brain shorted out.
He shrugged.Shrugged. As if this was nothing. As if practical strangers packing and taking emotional control while the other was on the verge of a nervous breakdown was something everyone would have done.
“There was a $75 ticket to the White Plains airport. It seemed well worth it to be able to extend our date another hour and a half. And let’s be honest, what sort of lame datedoesn’tend with dessert?”
“You bought an airline ticket… so that you could take me out for ice cream… in anairport.”
He nodded and lifted my carry-on bag with an ease that a year at the gym wouldn’t even give me. “That’s right.”
“Are you… and I mean this in the kindest way possible…insane?!”
He laughed and had to bend down to me because I was so much shorter than him. Then, he softly brushed his mouth across mine. “I plead the fifth, Officer Cavitysearch.”
We spent the next hour and twenty minutes walking around the terminal, eating ice cream and making out like two honeymooners about to embark on some exotic trip together. No one looking at us would have guessed we didn’t even know each other’s names. Or that I’d just gotten the life changing news of my mom’s cancer diagnosis.
Finally, it was the last call for boarding for my flight and we both stood by the doorway as the handful of other stragglers made their way up to scan their tickets.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For this weekend. For tonight. It was…” Again, I was at a loss for words.
Instead of leaving me standing there, near tears, he took me in his arms. His tongue swept into my mouth and he kissed me like a man possessed.
Like a man in love.
Or maybe I was in love. I wasn’t sure.
Being with this man for two days, amidst a crisis made me feel safer and stronger than two years with Dante. That had to mean something. Ithadto.
Our kiss ended and through my tears, I knew I couldn’t let this man leave my life forever. I had to try. I’d done long distance before. I could do it again. I grabbed a spare luggage tag and pen from the desk beside us and scribbled my cell phone number.
Before I could change my mind, I pressed it into his palm and kissed him hard once more. “Call me,” I said.
He nodded, and even though he wasn’t crying, emotion tightened the lines on his face.
“Ma’am?” the flight attendant said, gently. “We’re going to close the doors…”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “I’m coming.”
I crossed the scanner and pressed my phone to it.
“What’s your name?” Brawny called out. “Please, tell me your name.”
I turned, catching one more glimpse of my handsome, burly hero. My brawny man.
“A—” Then, before I could finish telling him my name, they shut the jet bridge door on us.
And he never called me.
ChapterOne
Addy
Present Day
I was stuck in a limbo state between elation and pure, undiluted misery as the bachelor party sang the most horrible rendition ofI Touch Myselfat my bar this karaoke night.
On one hand…gross.
I mean, seriously. Could you possibly think of a worse song to sing drunkenly with your bro-friends? These guys were clearly from Boston. All sporting various versions and styles of Red Sox hats and ordering ‘cah bahms” like some sort of Matt Damon wannabees.
