Page 5 of My Holiday Hookup Road Trip

She looks over her shoulder at me, her eyes wet and sad. “Why?”

My mouth opens, but no answers come. It’s not like I can promise to make things better since I have no idea what set her off in the first place. And clearly my presence isn’t helping anyway.

She uses my silence to move further down the hallway, where she mashes her finger against the elevator button. I’m tempted to follow her, but my room key’s somewhere in the mess of my clothes, and I’m wrapped in a sheet with the condom still on my fucking dick. I’m in no condition to chase her down.

The elevator dings as it slides open, and she inhales hard before glancing my way again.

“Thanks.” She shoots me a little smile, and I see a ghost of the mischievous girl from the bar in it. “For what it’s worth, I still think you’re a great kisser.”

With that, she steps onto the elevator and disappears, leaving me with no last name, no phone number, no way to reach her other than to show back up at the bar, which is closed since we’re only a couple of hours away from sunup by now. I assume I could catch her outside the hotel waiting for her rideshare, but if she wanted to hear from me again, she wouldn’t have burst into tears and literally fled, would she?

“Shit.”

I mutter the word as I turn back to the room and let the door fall shut behind me. My heart’s still pounding from the sex followed by the adrenaline of my partner bursting into sobs. The whole situation’s so surreal that for a second, I almost wonder if I made it all up, like I wasn’t actually diverted from Boston and I didn’t actually end up at a magical little bar where I took home maybe the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. It all feels like a dream.

But no. There on the nondescript hotel room carpet is Birdy’s green bow headband.

I stoop to pick it up, twirling it between my fingers as I head to the bathroom to clean myself up, not sure I’ll get any sleep tonight at all.

THREE

Birdy

Ithought growing up in a bar prepared me for pandemonium, but it’s nothing compared to a regional airport facing down a string of blizzards four days before Christmas.

“Next!”

The voice cuts through my noise-blocking earbuds, and I pluck them out and step forward, relieved to separate myself from the packed, jostling crowd that’s been knocking me from side to side all morning. We’re all overheating in our coats, and we left polite behind the instant we stepped through the airport doors to discover that basically all of our flights have been canceled.

I step forward, limp with relief at finally making it to the front of the rental car line, and remove the sunglasses hiding my red, puffy eyes.

“Hi,” I tell the statuesque woman whose nametag says ROCHELLE. “I’m hoping to rent a car.”

Rochelle snorts. It’s quiet, but it carries an ocean of derision. “Unless you have a reservation, you’re out of luck. Every airport from here to Denver is shut down or about to, which means—sorry, hold on.” She snatches the phone in front of her from its cradle, snapping a terse, “Yes?”

I set down my bulky canvas bag next to my wheeled suitcase and shift my overstuffed weekender from my aching left shoulder to my less-sore right one. My gaze fixes on the garland of holly berries drooping from the counter, an attempt at holiday cheer that’s unwelcome in my current state.

As I wait for Rochelle, one cell phone conversation in particular rises above the sea of humanity amassing behind me.

“You’re kidding,” a frustrated voice snaps. “There’s not a single flight you can get me on? Not to anywhere in the Midwest? Like at all?” After a pause in which I’m grateful that he’s at least not having this conversation on speakerphone, the man groans. The sound is rich, throaty, and… distantly familiar?

I pray for the guy to end his loud conversation as I swipe at my sweaty forehead under my battered Red Sox cap. It’s zero degrees outside and nine hundred degrees inside. I may die in here.

The guy behind me gives another groan that pings something in the depths of my brain, then gives a clipped, “Thanks for trying, Jan.”

Rochelle’s also off the phone by now, and I open my mouth to offer her my thrifted Chanel bag, my stack of Kohl’s cash, and naming rights to my firstborn. Whatever she wants if she’ll just get me out of this boiling airport and in a car and on my way. But before I can start bartering, Rochelle’s eyes fix on something over my shoulder, and her frown dissolves into a bright smile. “Hello, captain. How can I help you?”

Captain?

The loud phone call man steps up next to me at the counter. I pointedly angle my body away from him, hoping the disapproving lines of my back send the silent message ofwait your turn, asshole.

It doesn’t work.

“Any chance you’ve got a rental car to spare?” he asks Rochelle. “You’re my only hope.”

I slide my eyes to the side far enough to see the edge of a dark suit sleeve with gold stripes on the arm, then snap them back when Rochelle shakes her head.

“As I was just telling this customer”—she half-heartedly gestures toward me, but I’m too exhausted from the past twenty-four hours to straighten up and look intimidating— “everybody’s scrambling, and we’re simply out of stock.”

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