#my flight was delayed 3 hours then i got stuck in the customs line for over an hour then it was an hour and a half drive from the airport

[out--of--ordinary]

There was a nolpat lookalike on my flight from hell back home tonight 😔 I've resigned to the fact that freakishly tall hippie cowboys are my type

[artificialqueens]

🎁 Lonely This Christmas (Bitney) for Cheetah - Lita

SECRET QUEEN 2022 by @artificiallita, for @opalescent-cheetah

A/N: When I got the list of tropes etc to possibly explore from Cheetah, one thing that really stuck out to me was the idea of exploring aromanticism or atypical relationship dynamics - and if anyone knows my writing, you know that I've never exactly written 'normal' Bitney (I can only apologise to all victims of the San Junipero AU lmao) so this was super super fun. Loosely inspired by V pointing out that I write Bianca in the Femme Fatale AU as somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, although she herself might not have found the words for it yet, I wanted to explore that a little more while also writing some silly festive fluff (a month late lmao.) 

Cheetah, I hope you enjoy this <3<3 Hope your holiday season was magical, and thank you for inspiring this fic since I had a ton of fun with it. Much love!!

(Full A/N restored! -V)

*****

“We’re sorry, the person you are trying to reach is unable to take your call. Please leave a voicemail after the-”

“Fuck…” Courtney ends the fourth attempted call, and drops her phone into her lap. Her head sinks into her hands. It’s the middle of the fucking night in Australia - of course her mum isn’t answering her phone, she’s probably asleep. So is Kim. So is…well, it’s more likely that Vanity is shitfaced and in the middle of a club with no service, but either way she’s unreachable. Stupid fucking New York and its stupid fucking shitty winters. 

It had been snowing heavily when she woke up that morning, and hadn’t stopped all day. She’d gotten the news via a Twitter notification in the cab to the airport - all flights bound for NYC were being diverted, and all scheduled to leave it had been grounded. She’d hoped for a miracle, but the odds of one occurring had dwindled into the single digits as she’d arrived in the airport to be told her flight was delayed by five hours. It had been outright cancelled twenty minutes ago. 

 She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her suitcase, staring down a never ending line of closing check-in desks - the departure boards above them, bright red CANCELLED labels next to every listed flight, feel like they’re mocking her. Adore was right, she’d left it too late. Court makes a mental note to listen to her roommate more often. Adore had fucked off home for the holidays a week ago, of course - blissfully unaware of the current mayhem in JFK Airport and probably stoned halfway to a coma with her mom. Lucky cunt. 

What kind of idiot waits until December 23rd to fly halfway across the world back home for Christmas? Well, her and by the looks of things a couple of hundred other idiots, pacing and yelling into cell phones and arguing with the poor arseholes at the customer service desk, as if they could do anything about the bloody weather. Courtney is trying to summon the willpower to brave the cold and shuffle out to the waiting line of taxis, where it looks like half the population of the city are lined up with pointlessly packed bags and weary faces and screaming kids. It’s already Christmas Eve in Sydney. 

Courtney feels her eyes welling up. Between work, and fighting to get the time off work to get home at all, and packing and shopping and everything else, the stress has been melting her head for weeks. And now this. Horrible, crushing defeat - falling at the last hurdle with no solution in sight. Maybe she could swim to Australia? It’s starting to get dark; the snow still falling down in sheets and wind blowing with such force it feels like it’s shaking the wall she’s leaning against. Fuck this for a laugh.  

“Hey stranger.”

A familiar abrasive voice. Followed up by a slightly-too-hard nudge with the toe of a sneaker. Courtney looks up, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. 

Bianca’s dark hair is spilling out of her ponytail, LV holdall slung over one shoulder as she stands in front of her in sweatpants and a parka. She looks a hell of a lot more zen than most other people waiting around; face unflinching and almost entirely unbothered.

“I don’t know what you’re waiting for, this shit isn’t going anywhere any time soon,” Bianca continues, gesturing to the window with her head. Courtney cracks half a smile. 

“I don’t know either,” Courtney shrugs. “If I leave, I have to accept that I’m fucked and I don’t want to do that yet.

“‘Fucked’ is a strong word,” Bianca says with a snort of a laugh. She offers Courtney a hand, pulling her up off of the floor. 

Bianca was the intimidating, take-no-shit head bartender of the club that Court worked as a shot girl in; it seemed like she’d made it her life’s mission to make everyone who came into contact with her think she was a total cunt. However, there was an element of trying too hard that Courtney had always plainly seen through - Bianca being a closet softie wasn’t anything close to a shock. She’d been the one that took the GM to task when he’d tried to refuse to give Court time off to go home over Christmas, and probably the only reason that Court wasn’t there right now, in a miniskirt and fishnets trying to upsell high-end tequila to groups of drunk Wall Street cunts on their office night out. 

She’d also been the subject of a long-unrequited crush that Courtney had been harbouring since she started working there two years ago. Not because she didn’t care, or because she didn’t like her. Court had woken up in her bed a few too many times for that to be the case. But Bea doesn’t shit where she eats. Like she’d said the last time she’d rebuffed Courtney’s suggestion to go for brunch the last time they’d gotten too drunk and woken up naked and spooning. 

It was confusing, and at times a little frustrating - but that didn’t change the little spark of happiness that Courtney had felt cracking through the misery when Bianca appeared, or the way that watching her eyes light up when she laughs makes Court melt. She’d let the silly crush be a silly crush if it meant she got to keep Bianca around. 

“So, what’s your plan exactly? Sit here and feel sorry for yourself until the snow melts?” 

“Something like that.” 

“Well, I’m going home like a normal person - I drove here, do you want a ride? 

Courtney nods a little hesitantly. 

“Actually,” Bianca says, noticing the uncertainty on Courtney’s face. “I could probably use the company, do you wanna come hang out at my place? Saves you sitting around feeling like shit by yourself.”

“Yeah,” Courtney says, a smile creeping onto her lips. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

******

“Hold on a fucking second,” Courtney lifts her head up from Bea’s lap. 

She’d gotten to Bianca’s apartment and originally sat at a respectful distance on the other side of the couch - they’d chatted idle shit for a while, bitching about work and people they knew and how much Christmas sucks as a holiday. All the stress and chaos and planning, and spending money you don’t really have on people you don’t really like. And then Courtney had cried a little about not making it home - actually, she’d had what most people would describe as a mental breakdown. She hadn’t seen her family since last bloody Christmas, missing god knows how many birthdays and milestones. She and Vanity had been planning their New Year night out for a month. She was homesick - a state she practically lived in, but that was so much worse now that she’d been touching distance from getting there and then couldn’t. Bianca had gotten a little closer, pulling into a hug and letting Court leave a wet patch of tears on her sweatshirt. 

Then they’d ordered takeout and opened a bottle of wine - finished that and then started on a second. Bianca’s studio apartment is warm and homey, and Bianca’s presence is warmer. And now they’re here. Bianca has a hand tangled in Courtney’s blonde hair, there’s Hallmark garbage playing on the TV, and Court wishes every night could be like this. Fuck, Courtney thinks she’s in love. 

Bianca has her other arm around Courtney’s shoulders, their legs tangled under a blanket as glow from the streetlights creep through the curtains. She’s never seen Bianca this soft; this tender. Her eyes are a little glassy, but she looks so content, and so fucking beautiful in the soft light. 

“What?” Bianca tilts her head. 

“You were at the fucking airport too - and you’ve not complained once about not getting home. I get that I'm being a drama queen about this, but that’s weird. 

“Because I don’t really care,” Bianca shrugs. “I’m missing the annual family argument and my grandma asking me a hundred weird judgy questions about why I don’t have a boyfriend yet - big fucking deal. I don’t have to deal with them, and the situation is out of my control so I don’t get in shit for not coming, it’s a win-win.”  

Courtney is stunned into silence for a second. 

“What? Some people have a shitty relationship with their family, this is news to you?” Bianca laughs, clearly noticing the look on Courtney’s face. 

“No - I just…I don’t know. I just never thought about it with you - you’ve got your shit together, you’re happy. Well, ish. Didn’t think you had all of this like…internal angst,” Courtney says, and then hiccups. She reaches for her glass. 

“It’s not angst - this isn’t ‘mommy and daddy don’t love me because I’m a queer’ shit - it’s just…I don’t know. It’s nothing. We’re not close - we never have been. And I’m happier on my own.” Bianca says, her shoulders hunching a little bit.  And then: “That new start fucking sucks, right? Magnolia or whatever her name is.”

“Hey, don’t change the subject! We were having a moment - you were being vulnerable! This is progress!” 

“Cunt,” Bianca protests with a chuckle. “What more do you fucking want from me? We’re not friends until I’ve told you the ins and outs of all of my inner turmoil? Because there’s not much there.” 

“I’m just saying, you’re a bit…I dunno, cold? You try to pretend that you’re all big and scary, but you’re not - and you keep pretending anyway."

“Your point?”  

“My point is I really fucking like you, and it’s like you-”

“Bitch, you think you’ve been subtle about that?” Bianca laughs. “I know. I know you really like me. And I’m sorry if I’ve given you the impression that I don’t…I don’t know, like you or value you as a friend and want you in my life. It’s not that - it’s just fucking complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Courtney sits up, her brow furrowing. “Because at this point, it feels more like being led on. You’re so nice to me, you make me so happy - and then you make me feel like a crazy person for thinking there’s something there and wanting more.”

Shit, Courtney feels more strongly about this than she’d realised. Bianca flinches. 

“Because I don’t like it when there’s more,” Bianca says with an exhausted sigh. “I’m terrible at relationships - I always have been." 

“But I don’t mind that, I’d-” “Trust me Court, you really, really would. I don’t talk to anyone that I’ve ever dated any more. It sucks, it makes me feel like shit - it probably makes them feel worse. I don't do it on purpose, but I don't think I feel the way that people are meant to feel about this kind of stuff. It's just hard and confusing and stressful - and then it ends, and I’m by myself again, so I might as well be by myself because I’m choosing to be. Not because I’m a shitty girlfriend.” 

She puts her head in her hands. Courtney feels a quiet pang of guilt - in the first instance because this is the closest thing to upset she’s ever seen Bianca, and equally because she’s thrown off the balance of what was a fucking amazing time. Bianca had made her forget about Christmas, or missing her fucking family - about any of the sadness she’d been carrying when she came in. She’d made everything feel better, and then Courtney screwed it up as a thank-you. 

She remembered a few of the exes. Raja and Katya and Dela - all completely unalike in every imaginable way. Courtney remembered being horribly jealous of them when they came into the bar, watching how happy they seemed to make Bianca from a distance and hating it. And she always remembered it going downhill; Bianca casually complaining about how they’d been fighting over nothing, or how whatever-her-name-was hadn’t spoken to her in days.  And Bianca had always mentioned that it ended completely off the cuff - completely unbothered. Or so she seemed. 

“Bea, I’m sorry…” 

Courtney frowns. “Bianca, I’m…” she pauses to think. A lot of what Bianca just said sounds a little familiar. “Do you think it’s possible that you might be aromantic?"

“The fuck does that mean?” Bianca furrows her brows.

“It’s like, kind of similar to asexuality-” “I know I’m not that,” Bianca says, accompanied by a little snort of a laugh. “I think you do too.”

“Yeah, I do,” Courtney can’t help but let a little exhale of a laugh escape. “But it’s a lack of romantic attraction. So instead of not being into sex, the idea of being with someone or needing a relationship to feel fulfilled doesn’t do anything for you.”

“So you’re telling me I’m some kind of fucking weirdo who doesn’t know how to love people?” Bianca says, accompanied by a confused, slightly embarrassed chuckle. 

“No, that’s not what I’m saying - because clearly you do. You care about people - you just don’t need to date them to prove that.” 

“Huh,” Bianca nods.

“Look, that’s something you need to figure out for yourself - but I don’t mind either way. I just thought this whole time that you didn’t want to go out with me because you didn’t like me.”

“Not even close,” Bianca looks at the floor, smiling. “This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you, or I don’t want you in my life. Actually, it means I want you in my life so badly that I don’t want to risk screwing that up by dating you - since I’ve never had a relationship that I haven’t screwed up.”

Courtney bites her lip. Secretly, she thinks she’s been imagining a future in which Bianca gets over herself and then they spend the rest of their lives together. And secretly, she’s always known that’s infantile and stupid and impossible. This feels final; but the sting of the rejection isn’t there like she thought it would be. Maybe because it’s not really a rejection. 

“Anyway, it’s not like I’ve not tried a hundred fucking times to help you get over it,”Bianca continues.

“How exactly?” Courtney laughs, perplexed.

“Valentina, Aja, Joslyn, Shea - any girl at work mentions anything about being into girls, and the first thing I do is throw them at you. I’ve been trying so fucking hard to set you up with literally anyone else for the last year. You didn’t just think you’re that irresistible to every single sapphic-leaning woman you’ve ever met?”

“Well, I don’t want to say yes, but…” 

“Fuck off,” Bianca laughs, Courtney tossing her hair. Then: “I’m sorry, Court.”

“You don’t need to be sorry either,” Courtney says, picking herself up a little and smiling. “I think I saw this coming. Or, some variation on this conversation happening at least. I’ll get over it.” 

“Look, compromise - we can go back to cuddling and watching sappy movies, and then after tonight, you move on and find someone to pine over that isn't me. And I'll still be there for you, as a friend. Okay?”

“Okay.” 

Courtney nestles herself in Bianca’s lap again. Bianca smiles softly, gently pressing a kiss to Courtney’s forehead. Courtney feels a flutter of butterflies in her stomach. She likes this  - even if she knows it won’t last. After tonight, they’d part ways again; back to an occasional lingering glance across the bar, or a hand hovering over a waist on a night out. But why should she wake up right now? 

******

“Bea- fuck, what time is it?”

Courtney says groggily, lifting her head off of the couch cushion. She’s still wearing the sweatpants and cropped Gerri Halliwell tee she’d put on yesterday morning. Bianca is standing in front of her, fully dressed with a Starbucks cup in each hand. She hands one to Court - almond latte, extra shot and chestnut praline syrup. The fact that Bea had remembered her coffee order makes her melt. 

“Six-thirty. Get up and get your shit together.” “Why?” Courtney asks, her voice dry as she rubs the sleep out of her eyes.

“Some of the snow cleared overnight - there’s a flight from LaGuardia to Toronto at ten am, you can get a connection to Sydney from there and be home by the 26th. I know it’s not perfect, but it’s something.” 

“Bianca, you didn’t have to…” 

“Yeah, but I did. Come on, let’s get you home to your family.”

Courtney stands up, pulling Bianca into a tight hug, her eyes moist. And then she stops, pulling back a little. 

“What about you?” 

Bianca gives a tight-lipped smile. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Breakable Heaven (pt. IV) - p.l. dubois

part I part II part III

Oh my gosh, I seriously can’t believe this little series has come to an end. I’m so so happy with how it’s turned out, and want to thank anyone who’s stuck with Laurel and Pierre-Luc throughout this month. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever done, and it’s yours to enjoy now. Please please let me know what you think of this part, what you think about the series - getting anon comments is amazing, my inbox is always open, and I LOVE reading tags. Reblog if you like what I’m putting out, it helps me know that!

Warning: Smut (It’s light, but it’s there, so no one under 18 please!)

Part IV (7.8k)

September 23 (thurs)

Laurel was running through the Toronto airport, her carry-on bag bouncing on the tile behind her as she frantically searched for her gate. Thank God Air Canada domestic flew from the international terminal; her layover was only an hour and ten minutes and even more time had been shaved off by a departure delay in Montréal. She had forgotten that flights from Toronto cleared U.S. Customs in Canada, and if she hadn’t been able to skip the line and slap her American passport on a kiosk reader she would have almost certainly missed her connection. 

No matter how many times Laurel had tried to insist on an economy ticket when she and Pierre were booking flights for her visits, he refused to cave. “They don’t include a checked bag in economy, but they do if you fly business,” he had said, shrugging, with a small smile on his face. “Baggage fees alone would make it pretty much a wash.” Laurel doubted that, and she doubted that she’d need a checked bag for a four-day trip, but her husband had made it clear that he wasn’t budging. 

So needless to say, she was more than a little bit out of breath as she finally arrived at Gate F66, which was conveniently almost as far away from her arrival gate as humanly possible while still being in the same terminal. She handed her boarding pass and passport to the gate agent, smiling apologetically as she hurried down the jetbridge. It was barely past noon, but there was nothing in the world Laurel wanted more than to sleep. Maintaining a full-time schedule at the hospital while also trying to organize a trip to Columbus that lasted more than two days meant she had to switch shifts. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue; that week, however, the only open slot was the 12-hour overnight shift on Wednesday. Which meant that she’d been awake for some twenty hours straight, but almost all of that had been on her feet at work, or walking from the parking lot to the check-in counter in Montréal, or running through the halls of Pearson Airport in Toronto. She took her seat, half-listened to the safety briefing, and passed out as soon as her head hit the headrest. 

Much to her chagrin, the flight itself was only just over an hour, and she was really only able to get in a generous nap before their descent into Ohio. Sitting in the second row, she exited the plane in record time, flicking her phone off of airplane mode and waiting for a text from Pierre-Luc. At least she didn’t have to go through TSA again. He wrote back in record time, letting her know he’d be in his car at the curb right outside the terminal. She waited at baggage claim, grabbing her forest green suitcase; the same one she had when she’d moved to Toronto for university, fresh-faced and 18 and so, so unaware of what the world had in store for her. If only she could see herself now. Laurel ran her thumb along the side handle for a moment, pulling at a loose thread, before hefting it onto the floor and turning towards the sliding exit doors. 

As promised, Pierre was waiting right outside the door, flashing her a bright smile and throwing the driver’s side door open as soon as he saw her. “Welcome to Columbus, babe!” he exclaimed, wrapping Laurel into a deep hug and kissing her on the cheek. 

She laughed as the trunk popped open, each of them grabbing a suitcase. “It’s a little bit funny, don’t you think? That I’ve lived in the Midwest for almost my whole life and the first time I go to Ohio it’s because I’m living in Canada?”

“Maybe just a little bit,” Pierre said, holding his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart. “I’m really happy you were able to come, though, Laurel. I got used to having you around.” His face was softer now, looking over at Laurel with an expression that wasn’t quite placable but seemed like it was somehow communicating so much in a single glance. 

“Me too,” Laurel replied. The ride to Pierre’s Columbus apartment took just over ten minutes, and Laurel was in the door, petting the dogs, before the clock struck 3:00. 

Pierre approached her from behind, his hands on her shoulders as he leaned around to kiss her on the cheek. “You want to take a nap?” he asked. “We’ve got that thing with the team at 7, and I know you’re probably running on fumes right now.” 

Laurel nodded, giving him a weary smile, dropping her bag on the floor of the master bedroom with an all-too-satisfying thump. “Nap sounds good.” 

---

The nap was good, so good, and Laurel woke up at half past 6 feeling like she’d just had the best sleep of her life. She yawned, rubbing her eyes, and looked around the room to see Pierre with his back towards her, buttoning up his shirt. He turned around, catching her eye, and grinned. “You like the view?” he asked, gesturing to his half-naked torso. 

Laurel rolled her eyes, pulling the sheets up to poorly conceal her embarrassment at being caught. “And if I do?”

She heard a loud laugh, peeking her head out from under. “I’d say my wife has every right to appreciate it.” He walked around the bed while fastening the last few buttons, holding his hand out for Laurel to take. “I let you sleep as long as I could, but we’re going to have to get going in fifteen minutes or so. I was told that ‘we’ve waited this long to meet her, the least you could do is get your damn wife to the party in time,’” he said, adding air quotes for emphasis. 

Laurel nodded, tossing back the covers and walking over to her suitcase, intending to rifle through the stacks of clothes to find something for the night’s festivities. Instead, she was greeted by an empty bag. She wheeled around to look at Pierre, who was sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at her suitcase. “I unpacked your stuff,” he said, nodding over towards the spare dresser. “It’s in there. I’m sorry if that seems weird and I won’t do it again if you feel like that was pushing your boundaries, but I know for me when I’m on roadies I like to unpack, even if it’s just one night. Makes it feel more like home.”

Laurel was too overcome with how sweet the gesture was, small as it may have been, to realize that that meant he had touched four days worth of bras and underwear. It shouldn’t have bothered him anyways, and if he hadn’t said anything about it, it clearly hadn’t. So instead, she pulled him into a warm hug, standing on her tiptoes to bury her face in the crook of his neck. “Thank you, P. One less thing I have to do.” 

“You do still have to actually get dressed, though,” he added, giving her sleepwear an appreciative once-over. “Unless you’re planning on wearing that.” 

She let out a giggle. “As much as I love wearing a massive Cloquet High Lumberjacks t-shirt and no pants, somehow I don’t think that’s the move,” she said, ambling over towards the dresser. She found the tops on the first try, pulling out a wine-colored wrap shirt and grabbing the same pair of light-wash jeans she had worn on the plane. Pierre moved to duck out of the room, presumably to give her privacy to change. Laurel made a split-second decision to call after him. “You don’t have to leave.” Pierre stopped in his tracks.

Laurel slipped the shirt on, tying it in the front, and fastened her jeans. Mascara on and booties zippered, and she was good to go. “So what is this thing, anyways?” she asked Pierre as they drove to Foligno’s house. 

Pierre tilted his head. “Little bit of this, little bit of that. Half the typical beginning-of-the-year preseason party, half the wedding reception we never had. They were very insistent on bringing gifts, so be prepared.”

“Will do,” she said, laughing. “And by they, you mean…”

“Some of the guys, but mostly the wives and girlfriends. Their parties are the stuff of legends, so you can imagine how excited everyone was when I told them we never had a proper reception.”

“But they don’t know why we didn’t have a proper party,” Laurel reminded him. 

“About that…” Pierre started, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. 

Laurel froze, her thumb hovering over her phone screen, halfway through composing a text to Kristen. “Pierre,” she swallowed, her voice deadly soft, “did you tell someone?”

---

It was the Saturday before, and the team had gone out to celebrate the end of the first week of training camp. Sunday was an off day, so Saturday night found all the over-21s — and anyone who could get a good enough fake — at a bar in the city. Pierre had just crossed the line into tipsy, and as his captain was about to find out, tipsy Pierre was an oversharer. It was common enough for families to be a topic of discussion on nights out or in the locker room; that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that, as the old adage goes, drunk words are sober thoughts. And, if he was being honest, Pierre was still harboring some guilt from having to hide the truth of his and Laurel’s marriage from everyone, Nick included. Pierre hated that he couldn’t tell Nick the truth. He was his captain and his friend, and he felt the least he owed to him was not to lie. 

“It’s just so weird being away from Laurel, away from Montréal, for this long,” Pierre sighed. 

“Sure,” Nick said sympathetically, “but you said you’d been friends for a few years, so you’ve had feelings for her for a while, no? It’s obviously not ideal, but you’ve been away from her for longer.” 

Pierre turned towards Nick, some of his beer — his fourth of the night — spilling out of the cup. “Can I tell you a secret?” 

Nick rolled his eyes, thinking he was going to be hearing some dumb high school confession, that he had asked out a senior girl when he was a freshman, or filled his QMJHL captain’s gloves with shaving cream or something. He didn’t expect what he heard next. 

“We got married so she could stay in the country, for her permanent residency. I never met her before June.” 

Nick sucked in a breath. “You’re not fucking with me, are you?” 

“Nope.” 

“You realize how much trouble you guys could get into if they figure out, right?” he asked. 

Pierre nodded, looking down at his clasped hands nervously. “We both do. But you’re not going to tell anyone, right?” 

“No, of course not,” Nick said. “I trust you, and I know you and Laurel were just doing what you thought was the best and most logical thing given the circumstances.” Pierre let out a somber nod. “But,” he continued, “I feel like this whole...situation just leaves open the opportunity for things to get really messy really quickly.” 

“Messy how?” Pierre asked. 

Nick shifted uncomfortably in his chair, looking at a spot just beyond Pierre’s head. He didn’t want to, not really, but it was his job as Pierre’s captain — more importantly as his friend  — to make him consider every angle. “Someone catching feelings, one of you falling for the other, or God forbid, someone else. There’s already so much at stake in a ‘normal’ marriage, but yours just has added complications.” Pierre felt a twinge in his heart. He didn’t want to admit it, he really didn’t want to admit it, but Nick was right. “Do you love her?” Nick asked softly. 

Pierre sunk back into his chair. “I don’t know. She means a lot to me, more than I ever thought she would, but I don’t know. Plus, I have no clue how she feels about me, and I wouldn’t want to say something like that only to have her pull away.” 

“Did you guys talk about that?” he asked. 

“About what?” Pierre responded. 

“About what would happen if one of you caught feelings. Because I’m assuming it was supposed to, is supposed to, be a strictly platonic thing.” 

Pierre shrugged. “Not really. We didn’t like make a pact or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. We really didn’t talk much about it at all,” he said, finishing his beer. “I mean, obviously we agreed that we wouldn’t be seeing anyone else, dating or hooking up or anything like that. It was just too risky. But no, we never really addressed how we’d deal with it if one of us ended up...falling for each other. I guess it was just supposed to be a ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it’ type of thing.” 

“And have you come to it?” Nick asked. 

“I don’t know.”

---

Pierre finished the story, hazarding a glance over to Laurel, who was wringing her hands as she looked out the windshield. “I’m not mad at you,” she said finally. “If Nick said he wouldn’t tell, I trust you when you say he won’t. One of us was bound to let it slip eventually.” 

He turned his eyes back towards the road, still feeling a pang of regret. She was almost being too good to him. “We’ll be okay,” he said, saying it just as much to himself as he did to her. 

Laurel gave him a small smile as they pulled into the Foligno’s house, parking on the stone-paved driveway. “We will be.”

Janelle opened the door practically the second after they knocked, greeting Pierre and Laurel with warm hugs. “Laurel, it’s so wonderful to finally meet you,” she said, squeezing her hand. “We know how hard it is to find the time off and make the trip down, and everyone’s excited to see you.” She led them through the entryway to the living room, where Laurel was passed around to some twenty-odd players and their partners, where she introduced herself over and over again as “Pierre’s wife, yes the nurse from Minnesota who none of you knew existed.” 

Dinner was a barbeque outside, Nick, Pierre, and some of the others manning the three grills as Laurel helped set up the drinks table. He held her hand under the table as they ate, his thumb gently rubbing across her thigh every so often in reassurance. “You good?” he murmured in his ear as Laurel sipped a beer, half-listening to some story Korpi was telling about a near-miss incident with a water ski back in Finland during the summer. 

Laurel nodded, squeezing his fingers. “I’m good.”

Plates were cleared, dishes were washed, and everyone was herded into Nick and Janelle’s enormous family room, where a small mountain of wrapped boxes and bags sat in the far corner. “I don’t know if you know this,” Janelle said conspiratorially as Laurel sat down, “but NHLers make more than a little money.” 

She laughed. “So I’ve been told.”

“Which means that, clueless though they may be, you’re going to be getting some very nice presents.” 

And very nice presents they were. A wine club membership, a set of dutch ovens from Seth — “It was my mom’s suggestion”  — Jones, an espresso machine from Boone, a set of matching, personalized dog bowls for Phil, Georgia, and Piper. Laurel honestly wasn’t sure how it was all going to fit in the car, let alone how she was going to manage to stay under the baggage limit on her way back to Canada, but the thought and kindness that went into each gift was what really made it special. 

“From me and the other girls,” Janelle said, passing Laurel a bag. 

“Oh, this is too much,” Laurel said. “You already got the knives and the mixer, I don’t need anything else.”

Cam’s wife, Natalie, shrugged. “Would it help if we made it, didn’t buy it?”

Laurel’s brow furrowed in confusion, her fingers moving to undo the ribbon that tied the handles together, taking out the tissue paper. “Oh!” she gasped quietly as she pulled out a denim jacket, a Blue Jackets logo ironed onto the back, Dubois embroidered where a name bar would be. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“You’re still a part of the family,” Natalie said, smiling. “Even if you’re not here all the time. We want you to feel as included as anyone else.”  

Laurel folded up the jacket carefully, tucking it back in the bag as Josh walked up to Pierre, holding out a small box, clearly wrapped by himself. “Well now I just feel silly.”

Pierre shook his head, smiling at his friend. “Don’t, Josh. I’m sure we’ll love it.” He thumbed open the folds on the wrapping paper, setting it aside before pulling off the top of the box. He fell silent. 

Laurel peeked over, trying to catch a glimpse of the box’s contents. “What is it, P?”

Instead of answering, Pierre just held the box upside-down. Condoms of all colors and sizes rained down onto the hardwood floor as Pierre stared at Josh, clearly trying very hard not to laugh. The side of his mouth twitched. “Interesting choice of gift, you don’t think?” he asked.

Josh shrugged helplessly, his cheeks red. “It’s practical?”

 November 28 (sun)

 Laurel caught every Blue Jackets game she could on the TV, even the ones in early November when Pierre was out for a few games with a mild concussion. She was his wife, but she was also a nurse, and made sure to get daily updates on his condition, restraining herself from FaceTiming him to help limit his amount of daily screen time. But he had been back for a few weeks, making second star of the night with a goal and an assist, so naturally he was pulled away for a few postgame interviews. 

Laurel watched the screen, trying not to get distracted by the sweat drenching his Underarmour. Reporters, the good ones at least, were usually considerate with steering clear of asking personal questions, but sometimes an injury, or the birth of a child, or, as luck would have it, a wedding, begged an answer. “So, Pierre, I think a lot of us were surprised to see you announce on Instagram that you had gotten married this summer. Congratulations, by the way,” the journalist from the Dispatch said. 

“Thanks,” Pierre replied, smiling. 

“And I hope I speak for everyone here when saying that we entirely respect you and your wife’s decision to keep things quiet and announce it in a much more subdued fashion than usual. Players often speak a lot about how integral support from family and friends is, and just how important it is to have that kind of a support system in place.” Pierre could see where the question was going. “Obviously you’ve got the boys down here, but it doesn’t look like your wife Laurel is based in Columbus like you are. Is there a reason for that, and do you think that’s affected your game?” 

Pierre sucked in a breath; it was a fair question, and a reasonable assumption to make, but that didn’t mean he liked answering it any more. But it was almost suspicious how quickly he had an answer. “Uh, yeah, it’s been interesting for us to have to navigate. You’re right, Laurel’s back in Montréal, she spends most of her time at our place in the city. She’s a nurse in the intensive care unit of CHU Saint-Justine, so she does pediatrics there. She loves what she does, and she’s so good at it, and it just wouldn’t be right of me to ever ask or expect her to leave on my account. I know we’ve got a great hospital at Nationwide Children’s, but she loves where she is. We both do. So yeah, it’s rough being away sometimes, but luckily she’s able to move shifts around and make it down twice a month or so when we’re not on the road. But we keep in contact daily, obviously, and I’m able to lean on the guys, especially the other married ones, on how to deal with the stress of being away for so long. But it’s rough. I miss my wife,” Pierre finished. 

Laurel clicked the remote, turning the TV off, her hand scratching behind Piper’s ears, and tried not to replay his words in her mind as she crawled into bed and fell asleep. 

 December 18 (sat)

 Laurel stumbled through the door of Pierre’s Columbus apartment, laughing breathlessly as she tried to lock the deadbolt. “You need some help there, L?” Pierre asked, raising one eyebrow. 

“I’m good,” Laurel said, taking two more tries before it would actually lock. The eggnog from the Christmas party was starting to take its toll; Pierre had agreed to be the pair’s designated driver for the night, so she had had maybe a glass too many. The night had genuinely been so much fun, Laurel had initially been worried at how well she might fit in with the group in a more casual situation. As much as she loved being able to hang out with the team and the other WAGs when she was in Ohio — and she did — she couldn’t help but be nervous that she didn’t have the same level of camaraderie that could help turn a night from good to great. Laurel couldn’t have been happier to be wrong. She was embraced from the moment she walked in the door, a glass of wine pushed into her hand and her Secret Santa gift deposited on the entryway table. 

Laurel used to always roll her eyes at the idea that “time flies when you’re having fun,” but that couldn’t have been more true for the party. It seemed like only minutes had passed, but suddenly it was almost midnight, and the couples with kids had to head home to relieve the babysitters, and Laurel and Pierre were headed home. 

“Let’s get some water in you, no?” Pierre murmured, walking to the kitchen and opening the cupboard. 

“Thanks,” Laurel said softly as she took the glass from him, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet under her on the couch. 

Pierre perched on the arm, absentmindedly playing with his watch. But while a tipsy Pierre was an oversharer, a tipsy Laurel was always emotional in one fashion or another. “How’d you like the party?”

“It was great,” Laurel said. “I’m not sure why Alexandre thought I’d be into a Blue Jackets scarf, but I guess it’s the thought that counts?” She pulled the offending object out of her bag, running her fingers through the fringe on the edge. “Seeing how amazing so many of those couples are, Janelle and Nick especially, it was awesome…” She trailed off. “But it was hard.”

His brow furrowed. Why would it be hard? “How so?”

“I always thought that, when I got married, it would be once and that was it.” She screwed her eyes shut. “And that’s not to mean I’m not grateful for what you’ve done, it’s so incredible and goes so far beyond just plain kindness. I just thought it would be a forever thing.”

Pierre’s heart dropped. Of course she’d feel like that. If marriage was something she wanted to take that seriously, how could she not feel like she was cheapening its meaning by treating it as nothing more than an arrangement of convenience? It wasn’t even like he felt any differently; hockey was obviously still his first priority most of the time, but he’d always seen himself as someone who wanted to settle down and have a family one day. He guessed that he just hadn’t let himself think about it. “Laurel,” he said quietly, reaching out to her. But she wasn’t done. 

“It’s just,” Laurel sighed, one hand tugging on her hair, tears threatening to escape her eyes, “knowing this is all temporary. Knowing that in a couple of y-years, when I g-get my citizenship and we get d-divorced, this is all going to end,” she said, hiccuping through her words. “I won’t be able to come to your Christmas parties and fly down for games and sit up in the WAG box with my friends and that jacket and a jersey with your name on it. I won’t be able to do any of that any more because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t ever real, and that fucking kills me inside, P.” Laurel sat on the corner of the couch, a spot as precarious as the words tumbling out of her mouth. 

“Why?” Pierre asked, even though if he was honest, he’d stake his career on the belief that he already knew the answer. “Why would it hurt so bad?” His voice was so quiet that if Laurel hadn’t been sitting two feet away, she wouldn’t have heard. 

“Because I’m fucking in love with you,” she whispered. “And that’s the single most terrifying sentence I’ve ever said in my life.” Even though Pierre somehow knew that’s what she was going to say all along, it didn’t stop her words from stealing the breath out of his lungs. Laurel looked up at him through her tears, her eyes beginning to redden. “Say something, please, P.”

Pierre knelt in front of her, his thumb resting gently on her cheek, wiping away her tears. “God, Laur, how could I not be in love with you?” She blinked rapidly at him, trying to process the words that were coming out of his mouth. “I wasn’t lying when I said you were one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. You’re so caring, not just for me, but for everyone in your life. You’d give a stranger the shirt off of your back. You’re probably the smartest person I know, way smarter than me.” A giggle escaped Laurel’s mouth. “The dedication you show to everything in your life is amazing. At your job, you treat every patient like they were your own sibling or your own child. You make the trip down to Columbus once a month, twice a month. That’s not easy, all the flight time and having to leave Piper and switching shifts around so we can see each other. You’re gorgeous, not just on the outside — though you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen — but the light in your eyes when you talk about a new book you read, or how happy you look when you let me taste a new recipe you’re trying, or how passionate you get when you see something wrong and know there’s something you need to do to change it. So what if we’re doing things a little backwards? First comes marriage, then comes love.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I fell in love with you awhile ago. I think it just took me a second to realize it.”

 January 26 (wed)

 Laurel thought the distance and space between them would be easier now that she knew how he felt, now that they both knew how they felt. She couldn’t have been more wrong. So the All-Star break, and the Blue Jackets’ bye week, couldn’t have come at a better time. Pierre had made plans for the break a few months earlier, but after everything that happened over Christmas, it didn’t seem right to ditch Laurel for a boy’s trip with Alexandre and Seth. So Hilton Head was traded in for Saint Lucia, and his teammates were traded in for his wife. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Laurel was using three of her paid vacation days and Pierre was able to make the schedule work just right to get five nights in the Carribean. “A belated honeymoon, if you will,” he had said, cracking a grin over FaceTime as they booked the flights. The flight from Columbus was much less straightforward than hers from Montréal, but by a chance airline scheduling his first layover was in Toronto. Laurel met him at the gate, hauling her own green suitcase behind her as he flung his arms around her, kissing her with everything he had in him. They may have missed the not-so-subtle fans taking pictures that later circulated around Twitter that may or may not have led to some grade A chirping in the team’s group chat. But Pierre didn’t care. He cared that for a few days, he could forget about the stress of hockey and trying to make a playoff run and all the rumors floating around and just be with his wife. And, Pierre thought as they walked through the airport door into the Carribean sun, there really wasn’t anything else he wanted. 

They hailed a taxi, the twenty minute drive to their resort rushing by in a blur of palm trees and seas so blue Laurel thought she could fall into them just by looking. Pierre jogged into the main office to check them in, coming back with their key cards before the taxi continued on its way, dropping them off in front of their villa. Laurel spun slowly as they got out of the car, smiling up at the sky as Pierre pressed a few bills into the taxi driver’s hand with a nod of thanks. “You okay there?” he asked with a grin. 

“It’s so warm,” Laurel said in wonderment. Even in January, the weather in Saint Lucia hovered in the mid-70s, a far cry from the twenties and teens of a Montréal winter. Laurel was no stranger to the cold — Cloquet had seen temperatures pushing thirty below when Laurel was in high school — but the idea that she could be somewhere and wear shorts while it was snowing in her hometown was a concept so novel she hadn’t quite grasped it yet. 

He nodded, looking at Laurel with a gaze so soft she thought her heart would maybe burst. “We’re in the Caribbean, L. It’s warm all the time.” 

She rolled her eyes, bending over to get her suitcase, but not before Pierre snatched it up himself, holding the key card between two fingers. “Are you going to just stand there, or do you want to check out our honeymoon suite?” Laurel’s words dripped with suggestiveness, her sandal-clad feet dragging their way up the path to the villa with tantalizing languor. 

“Coming.” 

Even after the six months of their marriage, and even after everything that happened over the holidays, they hadn’t had sex. They’d gotten close a few times, both on her trip in December and in ones since, but never managed to go all the way. First Laurel needed a new birth control prescription — the last thing she would do would be have sex without being extra safe about it — and then she was too tired after a night out, and another time Pierre had scored a hat trick and they had partied way too hard to even think about sex. So needless to say, it had been a while for Laurel since she’d gotten release by any hands other than her own, and even longer for Pierre. And it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t want to. Laurel was well aware that her husband was hot as fuck, and she’d be lying if some of her lonelier nights weren’t filled with thoughts of exactly what she wanted him to do to her. But it felt different than any of her other relationships. Obviously, it felt different, she hadn’t been married to Oliver or Ryan or Carter. And that didn’t mean she wasn’t invested in those, but just that the stakes were so much higher and she had fallen so much harder for Pierre than she ever thought imaginable. She didn’t want to have sex with him until she was sure. Sure that it was going somewhere, sure that it would last, sure that he loved her in the same way that made her heart ache every time he dropped her off at Columbus International Airport. 

---

By the time they had unpacked, eaten, and gotten a few rum punches in their system, it was well past 7 and the sun had long since set. Laurel peeked out the door onto their balcony, nodding at the private plunge pool. “We’ve got quite the setup here.”

She walked over to the dresser, grabbing a swimsuit out and crossing over to the bathroom, her hand hovering over the knob. “Just something to think about.” Pierre put his swim trunks on in record time. Laurel padded out of the bathroom, the top straps of her bikini dangling, the swell of her breasts peeking above the cups. “Do me up?” she asked. 

Pierre’s fingers brushed the baby hairs at the base of her neck as he tied the straps of her white-hot bikini. “Sure you don’t want to go out to the beach?” 

Their villa came with a stretch of beachfront, and it seemed like such a shame to let it go to waste. Laurel shook her head, a smile playing on the edge of her lips. “We’ve got a couple of days to enjoy the beach. I’d like to stay somewhere a little more...secluded.” She bit her lip as she opened the door to the balcony, dipping her toes in the pool and sighing at the warmth of the water. Laurel looked back at Pierre, one eyebrow raised. “You coming?” Pierre couldn’t follow fast enough. 

They stayed in the water for a while, lazily kissing and staring at the stars and sipping drinks that had lost their potency hours ago, but neither of them really cared much. Sometime during the night, Laurel had made her way onto Pierre’s lap, where she reached over to the balcony, lofting herself out of the pool and wrapping a scarf around her body. “Getting a little cold,” she said, bending down and giving him a soft kisss. She walked into the room, drying herself off; he followed. Laurel threw the towel over a chair in the corner of the room, walking over towards Pierre, stopping when their noses were almost touching.

Laurel’s wrap fell from her shoulders, pooling on the wood floor. Pierre’s hand skated up her arm to rest on her cheek. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. She stood on her tiptoes as her left hand tangled in his hair, her right pressed against the back of his neck. She whimpered into his mouth; it took everything in Pierre’s power to keep the blood from rushing south. The kiss got more frantic, tongue and teeth clashing against each other as he walked her back to the bed. The back of her knees bumped up against the edge. 

Pierre pulled away slightly, letting out a moan as he saw Laurel’s face. Her lips were puffy from kissing, her chest heaving with the force of her breath, and her wild hair had long since been taken out of its ponytail. In other words, Pierre was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Laurel, in that moment, was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “You sure you want to do this?” Pierre murmured. He wanted to. God, he wanted to. But he’d never do anything without making sure that she was absolutely comfortable. Laurel nodded, biting her lip. “I need to hear you say it, babe,” Pierre said, taking a step forward, their noses almost touching. 

“I want you to ruin me.”

Pierre audibly groaned, capturing her lips in his before throwing her back on the bed, his hand moving to her back to undo the tie of her bikini top as his lips trailed down her neck. He threw the top off to one side, paying exactly zero attention to where it landed, as his hands slid up her waist to cup her breasts, his thumbs ghosting over her sensitive nipples. Laurel’s breath hitched in her throat. “You like that, baby?”

“Mhm,” Laurel whimpered, unable to form a complete sentence. 

He smirked, lowering his mouth to her chest, flicking his tongue over her right nipple as his hand pinched her left. The air was filled with breathless sighs from them both until Pierre’s hands left her breasts. Laurel whined in protest until she felt his fingers toying with her bikini bottoms, his head lifting just enough so that his eyes could meet hers. “This okay?”

It was all Laurel could do to choke out a single word. “Please.”

Pierre pulled them down her legs, kissing down, down to her hips, down to her inner thighs, down to everywhere except for where she needed him. “You need something, Laurel?” Pierre asked, his voice dripping with sex. 

Laurel groaned, not wanting to give in but also knowing that Pierre could stay where he was for hours if it meant teasing her. “Your mouth.” 

“As you wish.” And then his tongue was on her, and in her, and she couldn’t help but let out a moan. And Pierre was loving every second of it. He stayed down there for a while, long enough to finish her twice. 

Laurel pushed on his shoulder, trying to get him to turn on his back so she could return the favor. Pierre shook his head as he shucked his shorts off, pulling her head down to kiss her roughly. “I’m going to cum right here if I don’t get inside you in the next two minutes, babe.” He reached over to the nightstand, grabbing a condom. “Guess I’ll have to thank Josh for these when we get back home.”

She raised one eyebrow, clearly unamused. “If you do that, I can promise you I’ll never put your dick in my mouth. Not now, not ever.”

Pierre held his hands up in surrender, the foil packet shining between two fingers. “Alright, alright. I won’t.” He paused just before bringing the wrapper up to his teeth. “You want this?”

Laurel nodded frantically as he rolled the condom down his length. He looked so hard it was painful. “So bad.” He leaned down to kiss her, propped up on one arm as he pushed into her, hair falling into his face as he closed his eyes. He was too blissed out to be able to focus on anything other than how good she felt around him, how tight and warm and how well she fit, like Laurel Elizabeth Klerken was made for him and him alone. 

“More,” Laurel cried softly, and that was all it took for Pierre to grab one of her legs, throwing it around his hips as he increased his pace, head dropping to her neck as he nipped at her pulse points. It didn’t take long for Pierre to reach his high, Laurel right behind him. He pressed a sweet kiss to her forehead before getting up from the bed, going into the bathroom to tie off the condom and grab a washcloth. He cleaned up between her legs as Laurel lay there, trying to steady her breathing, absolutely spent from the night’s three orgasms. “Why didn’t we do that earlier?” Laurel murmured. 

Pierre laughed, throwing the cloth in the laundry basket and tilting down to press a kiss to the crown of her head. “I don’t know. But it was worth it.”

 February 20 (mon)

 Laurel had learned early on in her relationship with Pierre that she couldn’t put much stock into what was said on Twitter. Or Instagram, or any social media for that matter. So much was speculation: about draft picks, about trade rumors, about Pierre-Luc Dubois’ secret wife, that it just wasn’t useful or healthy for her so spend much time looking around. She still had her accounts, but Instagram was the only one she went on with any regularity nowadays. And she rarely checked her phone during the work day anyways; unless it was an unusually slow day  — which was never a good sign in the medical world — the only time she was even able to spare a glance was during her lunch break or when she’d run to the bathroom. So when her phone buzzed with a text from Pierre as she sat at the nurses’ station, her brow furrowed as she unlocked the screen. 

Are you free right now? I need to call you. 

Laurel bit her lip, nerves threatening to boil over. He knew her schedule, he knew she was at work. What could be so important that it couldn’t wait? Are you okay? Did something happen?

He typed a response as soon as her text showed as delivered.  I’m not hurt, it’s not bad, really, I just need to tell you something and I don’t want to have to do it over text. 

Laurel checked her watch. 11:18. It was early for a lunch break, but as long as she wasn’t needed, she could take her half hour any time between 11 and 1. She caught the eye of her charge nurse. “Claudette? I’m taking my lunch if that’s alright with you.” Claudette nodded, and Laurel quickly made her way to the locker room to grab her leftover pasta, texting Pierre on the way. Headed to the changing room now. Are you going to tell me what this is about?

Her phone rang a minute later, when she had just closed the door. She tapped the green button. “You’re going to have to tell me what’s going on here, P, because I’m kind of freaking out,” Laurel said, laughing nervously. “You don’t tell a girl what to expect, she starts assuming the worst.”

Pierre let out a heavy breath. She could imagine him running a hand through his hair on the other end. “I know, and I’m sorry if I worried you. I just needed to tell you before it breaks.”

“Before what breaks, Pierre?” Laurel’s anxiety was coming to a head. 

“I’m coming home.”

Laurel screwed her eyes shut, even more confused than she was before. “Yeah, Pierre, I know you’re playing here next week. Why would that be news?” 

“When’s the trade deadline, Laurel?”

“Last Monday in February, but I don’t see what that has…” She pulled the phone away from her ear, looking down at the screen, eyes locking on the date. “You got traded?” 

She could imagine him sitting down on the edge of his couch, one hand dangling off the side, Georgia trying to jump up and goad him into giving her a pet or two. “They’re breaking it right before the noon deadline, but you deserved to know before everyone else did. You needed to know.”

Laurel leaned up against her locker, hand over her mouth. “You’re coming to Montréal?” She had seen it mentioned offhand on a few Twitter accounts she followed the handful of times she had logged on in the past week, but nobody thought it would actually happen. Even the concept of trading him seemed so far-fetched with the type of season he was having in Columbus. He was sitting near 30 goals and 40 assists, with one of the best plus-minus scores on the team. It just didn’t make sense. 

“As of twenty minutes ago, I’m officially a Montréal Canadien,” Pierre answered. 

“Oh God,” Laurel said, sympathy lacing her voice. She couldn’t let herself be excited, wouldn’t let herself be excited, until she knew exactly how Pierre felt about it. He had just been uprooted from the team that drafted him, where he’d played for four seasons and made friends and where everyone saw him as the future of the franchise. 

Pierre let out a single laugh. “They let me know what the deal was, apparently Montréal really wanted me. First round pick next year, a second-year defenseman, some prospect from Laval.”

Laurel settled on the bench, tucking the phone under her chin. “Of course they really wanted you, P. You’re an incredible player, you’d be an asset to any team and you’re going to do great things in Montréal.” She paused. “But how are you feeling about the move? I know it’s not what you were expecting. Or what anyone was expecting, really.”

“It’s weird,” Pierre said after a moment. “Obviously yeah, I won’t lie, it’s a shock. But almost every player, even the really good ones, get traded at one point or another. Gretzky was traded to L.A.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Gretzky?” Laurel asked playfully. 

“No,” Pierre chuckled. “But just trying to remind myself that it was almost inevitable. I’m allowed to be sad about it — and I am, it’s going to fucking suck leaving the boys — but I’m not as torn up as I thought I’d be if this ever happened.” He felt more than a little bad about it, but his first thought when his agent called and broke the news wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t despair at having to leave the team he had been brought up in and the men he considered his brothers. It was relief. Relief that he could be closer to his family, relief that he’d be back with Laurel, relief that he was going home. “And hey,” he said, catching Laurel’s attention. “You know what?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “What?”

“I don’t even have to marry someone to move.”

---

Pierre’s flight got in late Tuesday night, just after Laurel’s shift at the hospital had ended. He had said he wouldn’t mind taking an Uber home so she didn’t have to rush over and stress about traffic, but Laurel didn’t care. She wanted to be at the airport to pick up her husband, even if it meant she’d still be in her scrubs doing it. 

She saw him exiting the sliding doors of the international terminal before she even turned the corner, practically slamming her car into park as soon as she hit the curb. Pierre dropped his bags when her car door opened, paying no attention to the thump of the suitcases as they hit the ground or the wandering eyes of passersby. Airports hadn’t always been his favorite place. They meant leaving the people he loved, going away from what was warm and familiar and safe. They usually meant uncertainty. But that had changed, Pierre thought, as his wife jumped into his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist as their lips met. Airports might just have become one of his favorite places. He pulled back from the kiss, their foreheads just barely touching. “Hi,” he said. 

Laurel smiled, the kind of smile that lit up rooms and made crying babies giggle and that Pierre was pretty sure was his favorite thing he’d ever seen in the world. “Welcome home.”

[wkemeup]

I’m With You (1/3)

series summary: When two strangers meet on a layover in the Charlotte Airport, they find that a lifetime can sit in the span of three days and it doesn’t take very long at all to fall in love. pairing: bucky x reader warnings: super soft!bucky, shenanigans, literally no legit warnings its a miracle, rare kas fluff a/n: the first part of this fic was inspired after I got stuck in Atlanta on a layover a few months back and my imagination ran wild lol 🌸series masterlist // series playlist 🌸

T H E   L A Y O V E R

Perhaps you should have known it was coming after the second time the flight got delayed. Nearing on two hours past your departure time and with a monsoon brewing past the windows outside, it was a wonder anyone at the gate was still holding onto hope. That was, until the moment the young gate agents with cheeks burning bright red announced that your flight had been canceled.

In most circumstances, you wouldn’t have been relieved as you were in that moment, standing in a never-ending line extending out into the middle of the walkway with disgruntled, stranded passengers grumbling under their breath and arguing amongst one another.

Most circumstances didn’t involve you flying to Atlanta to attend the wedding of the last and only man to break your heart.

You stood behind a rather tall man in a dark navy business suit, carrying a leather briefcase and tapping his toe incessantly as the single gate agent attempted to address the needs of the completely booked flight currently waiting in line. The man in the suit was barking orders at what seemed to be a poor intern on the other end of the phone as he nudged an elderly woman ahead of him to take a step forward the very second the line moved up.

With a roll of your eyes, you took a sip from the burning hot coffee you’d purchased shortly after the second delay, despite the fact that it had been nearing 11:00pm at the time. You seemed to be the only one who was mildly relieved by the cancelation and threat of spending an overnight stay in the Charlotte airport, though that didn’t surprise you much. Still, you didn’t much mind the possibility that you would have a genuine, no-fault-of-your-own, entirely-mother-nature’s-curse, excuse to avoid your ex’s wedding.

Then, carrying gently between the aggravated conversations around you, the soft humming of someone standing behind you pulled you from your daze.

You didn’t dare turn around, but you listened intently, caught up in the low vibrations of his voice, not entirely in key, but charming, and sweet. It sat in sharp contrast to the chaos surrounding you to hear something so relaxed, at ease, amongst the panic and frustration.

The coffee was still hot on your lips and you winced as it passed on your tongue. The man ahead of you folded his arms over his chest, relentlessly making a show of looking up and around those ahead of him to prove he had better things to do, to show that he was impatient and clearly irritated by his situation as he was the only one with somewhere to be.

Those ahead of him weren’t much better; the lot of them all on the phone with representatives from the airlines and demanding their money back, demanding answers for next available flights, and blaming poor customer service for their troubles as if it was the gate agent’s fault that a monsoon had plundered its way through North Carolina.

“What a bunch of barbarians,” the voice behind you chuckled under his breath, the humming pausing for only a moment. His tone was like honey and you found yourself smiling, suppressing the subtle movement of your shoulders as you laughed quietly to yourself at his comment.  

“Bet the guy at the desk is going to lose his shit in about two minutes,” he said to himself, though you wondered briefly if he was talking to someone next to him or behind him, or maybe even you, though you didn’t dare to turn around. No one else responded to his commentary.

You glanced up ahead to who he seemed to be referring to, to find a middle-aged man in khaki slacks and a light blue polo, gripping a newspaper harshly in one hand and tapping his knuckles against the counter top with the other. His face was beet red, jaw clenching, and starring daggers into the poor gate agent.

It barely took longer than a few seconds before the man slammed his fist down onto the countertop, causing you to flinch in response. The honey-voiced man behind you chuckled under his breath, clearly amused by the aggressive reactions of those around him.

You found yourself wanting to turn over your shoulder, to steal a glance at the man with the sweetest sounding voice, even in off-key humming, who laughed in times of chaos and didn’t seem to be bothered at all to be standing in a seemingly never-ending line nearing midnight in the middle of Charlotte Douglas International.

In your brief moment of distraction, you didn’t notice the man in the suit take a sharp step back in reflex to the person at the front of the line waving their hands about, setting off a chain reaction of passengers flinching away from the scene. His elbow slammed down into the lid of your coffee and it slipped from your fingers with a gasp.

The cup fell to the floor in the kind of slow motion you see in the movies, like maybe if you reached out in time you could have grabbed it mid-air, but instead the cardboard cup slammed to the tile and the coffee spewed from the top as the lid broke away, dousing the pant legs of the man in the suit ahead of you. He yelped, jumping away from you and shoving you back with a harsh thrust.

Unsteady on your feet from the shock of it, you fell back into person behind you, into the man with the honey voice and the amusing observations. He caught you before you hit the ground with his arms hooked under yours, smelling of something like warmth and comfort and flannel and fireplaces, before you even caught sight of his face.

Blue eyed. The damned near bluest eyes you’d ever seen in your life and they were gentle, kind, like they were painted with care with several shades from the Mediterranean Sea and a cloudless sky and the petals of an iris. Bristles of scruff on his cheeks and dark brown hair brushed up in sweeps away from his eyes. He smiled softly at you, reassuringly, as he helped you back to your feet.

“You alright?” he asked softly and you nodded, just about lost in the smooth tone of his voice, up until the moment suit-man let out an aggravated howl.

“Look what you’ve done!” the man shouted, grabbing at the backs of his pant legs in disgust and sending darting glares at you.

Your lips parted to say something, but you were never good under pressure, not with so many wondering eyes looking over in your direction, whispering to one another, pointing and staring. Cheeks burning red and heating all the way down your neck, you felt a pang of embarrassment, of shame. You bent down quickly to retrieve the empty cup, stepping away from the pool of coffee on the floor.

“I’m-- I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t--”

“You didn’t mean to?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Do you have any idea how much this suit costs?! Probably more than a month of your salary, sweetheart!”

“Hey man, back off! It was clearly an accident,” blue-eyes interjected from behind you, carefully side stepping around you to put himself in the cross hairs. “It was your elbow that knocked it out of her hand in the first place.”

The man glared at blue-eyes, studying him up as if he was determining if carrying on this fight was worth it with a man at least a decade younger and a build twice his size. He seemed to only be eager to kick and yell and fight when it was at a target without much of a will for defense, someone like you. You clenched your jaw, hating how easily you fell into that trap.

“Goddamn millennials,” the man in the suit grumbled under his breath, narrowing his eyes on you one last time before he turned his attention back to the front of the line. You let out a heavy sigh, the relief pouring through you almost instantly. You gripped the empty cup in your hand until it bent and crumpled at the center.

“What an asshole,” blue-eyes grumbled next to you, offering you a soft kind of smile that still managed to crinkle up by his eyes. He glanced down at the cup folding under your tight grip. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you replied slowly, though you kept an extra foot of distance between you and the man in the suit, even as he took a step forward when the line moved. “Thanks for that, by the way. You didn’t have to say anything.”

“Sure, I did. Chivalry still exists, you know,” blue-eyes said, that charmingly smooth tone of his voice running almost in shivers up your spine.

“Not in my experience,” you muttered under your breath, uncertain if he could hear you, though he raised an eyebrow, his smile faltering somewhat. If he heard you, he didn’t say anything.

You waited for what felt like another hour before you made it to the front of the line. The gate agent looked exhausted and practically winced at you stepped up, as if he was preparing himself for another verbal attack, but you were soft spoken and patient with him, a kind of change he wasn’t expecting.

Blue-eyes was on your right, talking with the second agent who had rushed up to the counter to assist. You could feel him glance over at you every few moments as you complimented the agent on his organization and calmness under pressure, getting the young man to laugh nervously in response.

The gate agent smiled a bit as he handed you a tentative flight and instructed you to listen to the overhead monitors for any changes. You nodded as you took the new ticket and grabbed your bag, getting ready to go find a quiet place by yourself to mentally prepare for facing this weekend after the nightmare it was already starting out on.

Attending your ex’s wedding was already a worst case scenario on its own. Now you’d have to show up with less than a few hours night rest, if any at all. You were sure you’d hear comments circulating about the bags under your eyes and the exhaustion plated on your face they’d no doubt attribute to remorse for a relationship that was kinder in your memories than it was in real life.  

You started to make your way out to the walkway when you heard a voice call out behind you.

“Wait, hold up!”

You turned over your shoulder to find blue-eyes finishing up at the counter and swinging his bag over his shoulder, a new ticket in his right hand. He jogged a few paces to catch up with you as you stilled.

“Any chance you’ll let me replace that coffee?” he asked with a warm smiling brimming on his lips.

“What?” you gaped.

You glanced down at your faded leggings, worn sneakers, and flannel hanging loosely over your shoulders. You didn’t consider yourself the type that men approached for that sort of thing, especially men with eyes that blue and a voice like honey.

“I figure it’s going to be a long night and finding sleep in a place like this is almost impossible,” he chuckled nervously, scratching at the back of his neck, “so why not stock up on caffeine? I know a café in Terminal C with a halfway decent blend and its usually pretty empty.”

“Oh,” you muttered anxiously, cheeks heating red because a man that gorgeous couldn't possibly be serious. The suspicion was already creeping up through your stomach, screaming at you that he was like the rest of them, like he was exactly like your ex, that he would hurt you or that he was looking for repayment of some kind. You didn’t have much experience of anything else. “Well, I don’t-- I don’t know--”

“You can say no,” he offered quickly, though he winced as he said it. “Of course, you know you can say no. What I mean is, you can tell me to ‘eff off’ and I’ll leave you alone, but I just thought... I thought that guy was a jerk and he ruined a perfectly good full cup of coffee and if you wanted, I’m happy to get you a new one. I just—I figured that your night is already pretty shitty with the flights being grounded and then that sonuvabitch -- who didn’t even apologize -- yelled at you for no reason and--” he grimaced. “I’m rambling. Sorry.”

You watched him carefully, studied the way he fumbled over his words, his cheeks turning a soft shade of pink, even through the light scratches of his beard. It was almost endearing. You hadn’t seen a man blush like that before. There was a lingering kind of sadness behind the ocean blue of his eyes you couldn’t quite place and it drew you in unlike anything else.

“Terminal C, huh?” you asked, pulling the nerves from your voice the best you could and his smile lit up again instantly.

“Yeah, Terminal C. It’s a bit of a walk, as long as you don’t mind?” he said, lugging his bag over his shoulder and gesturing for you to follow him out into the hall.

“Don’t got much else to do,” you shrugged, surprised that you found yourself smiling as you strolled up next to him.

He had a comforting kind of ease to him and you wondered why he also seemed to be relieved by cancelations. You had your reasons and looking around at the frustrated looks on bystanders faces as you walked by, the arguments amongst family members, the children crying, you couldn’t help but question why blue-eyes didn’t seem to be bothered at all.

“My name’s Bucky, by the way,” he said as he stepped aside at the moving walkway, letting you pass by him to take the first step. He slid onto the walkway behind you with one step.

“Well, it’s nice to be meet you, Bucky,” you replied sincerely, leaning against the right side of the railing as the floor beneath you carried you slowly down the hallway. You had the time to be leisurely and let the walkway move for you.

In the brief moment of silence that followed, Bucky was smiling as he stared at the floor, stealing glances over at you like he was waiting for something. You were about to ask him what he was looking at until he asked, “do I get the pleasure of your name as well, or should we save that for later?”

You laughed, the nervousness offsetting the embarrassment of completely forgetting obvious social cues. Gripping at the edge of the railing, you watched as he stared out into the sea of people as you rode by, smiling softly at the kids who were curled up under their parents’ coats draped over them in blankets and laughing, almost impressed, at the teenagers who had started gathering in a circle, all huddled around their portable games.

Pushing out a kind of confidence you hadn’t known in years, you said, “you buy me that coffee you were talking about and maybe I’ll give you a name.”

Bucky grinned, turning back to face you, clearly amused by your answer. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Walking at a leisurely pace, it took a half hour before Bucky gestured for you to stop in front of a small café tucked into the corner next to one of the empty gates, lights barely illuminated with a single staff member hunched behind the counter on his cell phone. The tables were empty and it looked like no one had been there all day with the shelves of to-go items fully stocked.

“Welcome to the best coffee in the Charlotte Airport,” Bucky grinned, extending his arm out like he was showing off a new car. You narrowed your eyes on his, pursing you lips and he dropped his hand, chuckling lightly. “I never said it was particularly good, but it’s not terrible. Plus, we’ve got the place to ourselves if you allow me to stick around.”

“You want to?” you asked, cursing yourself for how timid you sounded. Another thing to blame your ex for. The ex whose wedding you’re supposed to be attending tomorrow. Goddamnit.

“Don’t got much else to do,” he shrugged, repeating your words from when he had asked you to come with him in the first place with a teasing kind of smile that made your stomach twist into knots.

You nudged him hard in the side, laughing, and he stumbled away a few paces, grinning wildly until it crinkled up by his eyes. You wondered if you’d ever seen a man more beautiful in your life, though you pushed the thought away quickly.

Bucky jogged up to the front counter, gathering the attention of the teenager on his phone as he slowly glanced up, slipping his phone into his pockets.

“What can I get you?” the kid asked, voice low and slow, like he’d just woken up from a nap.

“Anything fancy for you or keep it simple?” Bucky turned back, asking over his shoulder. You gave him your order and he smiled at it, ordering one of the same. The teenager didn’t seem to be amused by Bucky’s charming smile and huffed an exasperated sigh as he started to make the drinks.

“You sure you don’t mind?” you asked as Bucky handed over his card.

“It’s just a coffee, doll. I don’t mind at all,” he said, the pet name rolling off his tongue as if it didn’t mean much of anything. It left a burning, twisting ache in your stomach and a heat in your cheeks, forcing you to nervously tug and pull your hair behind your ear.

You wondered if it was a name he gave for any woman whose name he hadn’t yet learned; perhaps, the same way older men called waitresses ‘sweetheart’ or the way the man in the suit had so patronizingly taunted it at you earlier, though there wasn’t even a hint of a condescending tone in Bucky’s voice. It was genuine. He was genuine.

You thanked him and followed him to the small table tucked in the corner of the café, away from the hall though with enough of a vantage point to watch for stranded passengers as they walked by. Terminal C seemed to be pretty empty so there wasn’t much chance for that, though he told you he liked to take every opportunity to people watch as he could. There was just something so fascinating about how strangers acted when they weren’t putting on a show, when they were at ease, purely themselves.

You set your new ticket on the table, keeping a watchful eye of the flight number like the attendant had instructed you to in case any changes were made overhead. Bucky did the same and you noticed they put him on a separate flight. The ounce of disappointment didn’t slip your notice but you shoved it aside.

“The departure board’s got more red on it than green,” Bucky said as he settled into his chair, “might be time to seek food and shelter and buckle in for a long night.”

“You sure you’re in Charlotte Douglas and not the Hunger Games?” you laughed, adjusting your bag next to your feet.

“You’ve never endured an overnight in Charlotte, have you?” he countered teasingly.

You shook your head and he let out a heavy sigh, though a smile brimmed on his cheeks, almost like he was excited.

“The hotel’s already booked up by now and as soon as these people realize they’re not getting a flight out of here until tomorrow morning, hell is gonna break lose,” he informed you, carefully watching a family of five as they passed by hand in hand out in the walkway. The father had an anxious kind of look on his face every time he glanced at the youngest of the children as if he was expecting for the boy to realize at any second he wasn’t going to be in his bed tonight with his favorite stuffed animals. He was a ticking time bomb.

“We’ve got about an hour left before the food joints start shutting down and then after that, nothing until six-thirty sharp,” Bucky continued, “Plus, you figure you need to secure an outlet or two and a decent place to sleep, if you’re able to do that sort of thing in a place like this.”

“Good lord,” you exhaled, crossing your arms over your chest as you smirked at him, “guess you better get started.”

“Oh, I am,” he replied casually with a shrug. “Step one is securing alliances.”

You narrowed your eyes on him, scouring his face for signs that he was mocking you and searching behind him for a hoard of his buddies hanging over his shoulder snickering to themselves as their friend messed with the sad girl alone at the airport, you came up completely empty.

“You’re actually serious?” you gaped.

He nodded. “Of course. I’ve already got the caffeine and the ally. We’ll need to secure some snacks next. When you’re ready, of course. Though, we do have a time restraint here so don’t be too long with your coffee.”

“Well, for one, I can take this on the go,” you joked, lifting up your coffee with a teasing grin.

“See how well that went last time though? Can’t risk running into any other asshole businessmen in expensive suits worth a month of your salary, sweetheart!” Bucky mimed eccentrically, trying to mock the voice of the man in the suit but failing halfway through in a fit of laughter.

“Okay, fine,” you conceded, removing the lid to your cup and letting the steam loose. You sighed at the fresh smell of coffee as it filled your lungs and warmth spread through you before you could even take a sip. “So, we stay here for a bit and finish our drinks. Then we’ll find snacks. Then what?”

Bucky shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee before he spoke again. The content sigh that followed sent shivers up your spine. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, doll. It’s a process.”

“Naturally,” you agreed with a smile on your lips so wide it ached in your cheeks.

Bucky sighed, leaning back into his chair, glancing out into the walkway and studying those who passed by. He was so content, so unbothered by the cancellation, as he casually sipped his coffee, stealing glances over in your direction every so often, you couldn’t help the curiosity as it built up.

“So, you were going to Atlanta, too?” you asked before you took another sip of the steaming coffee.

“Trying to. It’s been, uh, it’s been a while since I’ve gone down there,” he replied, though his smile faltered a bit before he could catch it. You narrowed your eyes on him, surprised by his reaction, though you didn’t push it at all. He cleared his throat, pushing it back out though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How's the coffee?”

“Wonderful now that it’s not covering the back of a furious businessman’s suit,” you responded, taking another sip. Bucky chuckled under his breath and you found yourself missing the soft glimmer behind his eyes. It returned when you asked him about the last time he’d been stranded in Charlotte, as he clearly had experience with it.

He spent the next half hour telling you every ridiculous story you couldn’t have made up if you tried about the bizarre things he’d witnessed at three in the morning walking around the terminals and what kinds of trouble he got in back in his younger days with the airport security for doing cartwheels down the halls.

“Cartwheels?” you laughed, struggling to keep your breath as your eyes watered. “You can’t be serious…”

Bucky was beaming as he nodded, all blue eyes and pink lips and chocolate colored hair raking through his fingers. He pointed over your shoulder to an open space by the escalator.

“I crashed into the railing right over there,” he nodded, then gesturing to his hip bone, “it landed me a bruise for a few months right on my side.”

“How old were you?” you asked, struggling to contain your laughter enough to take another sip of your coffee that was already room temperature.

Bucky scratched the back of his neck, cheeks red, and so incredibly adorable it was simply unfair. “Twenty-one.”

“Of course, you were.” You shook your head, watching as he hid behind his coffee cup as he took a big gulp, evading your eyes and glancing over to the open space like he was caught up in memories.

“So, what about you?” he asked as he set his coffee down again. “You ever been stranded here?”

“Fortunately not,” you shrugged, finishing off your drink with a content sigh. You glanced over at the clock, wondering how so much time had passed without even realizing it. It had been ages since you’d felt that way around someone.

“Sounds like you're in need of some Charlotte layover tradition then, doll,” Bucky grinned, something mischievous brewing in his head as he chugged back the rest of his lukewarm coffee and tossed the cup into the nearest trash with a full layup stance. He did the same with yours. “Come with me.”

He extended his hand to you as he stood, long lifelines extending along his palm and you noticed a sliver of marred scarring peeking out behind the sleeve of his over-shirt. You narrowed your eyes on it, curious, but he pushed down the fabric nervously.

“Please, doll. I promise it’ll be fun,” he urged, not letting his hand drop away even as you eyed him reluctantly.

“How do you know my idea of fun? You still don’t know my name,” you teased, having already decided to take up his offer the moment he extended his hand but it was so incredibly endearing to watch his nerves on display.

“Oh, I know, but I’m confident you’ll tell me soon enough,” he said, grinning wildly as you slipped your hand into his regardless. Firm and rough, with callouses on his hands like he’d spent years in service and labor jobs, but gentle like he was holding something precious as he helped you stand. An enigma.

The teenager behind the counter had been watching you with an irritable look on his face and you nudged Bucky’s side as he picked up both of your bags in his free hand. Bucky followed your gaze and then took a quick glance at the clock before he started to laugh, pulling you towards the hall.

“Think we overstayed our welcome here,” he grimaced, nodding to his watch that read it was past midnight. “Coffee shop was supposed to close ten minutes ago.”

“Oh no,” you pouted, turning back to the cashier with an apologetic smile as you called, “sorry about that!” over your shoulder.

Bucky led you to the center of the hall. Around you were a few stranded passengers from flights heading out west, all looking like they’ve been kicked and dragged through the mud. Meanwhile, Bucky was smiling like he just won the lottery. You didn’t realize his hand was still gripped in yours until he dropped your bags beside him with a heavy thud and he let go.

He took in a deep breath, sending a wink in your direction as he took a single step away from you and pushed his hands out into the sky, swing his momentum around in an acrobatic swing that was admittingly quite awful, with bent legs and wobbling landing, but... a cartwheel.

Holy shit, he was serious.

A few random passengers lying on the floor had propped up to look in his direction before turning over to ignore him. Bucky wiped his hands on his pants as he grimaced at the dirt he’d collected. He nodded at a woman in high heels as she walked past giving him a strange look of both disgust and attraction. She might have been eyeing him before he went and did that ridiculous cartwheel, but a man that handsome had some allowances for odd behavior, didn’t he? She seemed to think so, but Bucky paid her no mind as he turned back to you.

“Your turn.”

“Absolutely not,” you scoffed, laughing nervously as you took a step back.

“Absolutely, yes,” Bucky retorted, grabbing your hands and tugging you to the spot where he was just standing. “This is tradition, doll. You can’t mess with a tradition.”

“Do you realize how insane you sound?” you accused, though you were smiling so wide it started to hurt in your cheeks. His hands were still on yours and his lifted them above your head, nudging your feet with his shoes to get you in starting position.

“You’ve done a cartwheel before, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” you shot back, “back when I was fifteen, Bucky!”

He grinned, stepping back and letting go of your hands. “Then you’ll be perfect. Just like riding a bike.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s the same thing,” you mumbled, blushing as a middle-aged couple walked by and rolled their eyes at the two of you. Bucky must have noticed.

“Don’t worry about them, doll,” Bucky said quietly, arms folded over his chest as he planted his feet, waiting patiently. He smiled softly at you, the overly confident and borderline cartoonish character falling away for a moment and you found yourself lost in shades of blue you could have drowned in if he’d let you.

Shit. You shook your head, tearing your eyes away from his. Stop thinking like that.

Do the damn cartwheel.

Bucky rubbed his hands together in anticipation and you closed your eyes. One deep breath in, you held it in your lungs as you propelled yourself onto your hands, touching the ground with the full of your weight for only a second before you were on your feet again.

Guess it was like riding a bike.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Bucky shouted, drawing the attention of the very irritated passengers attempting to sleep in the corner of the hall. It was still midnight, after all. But in the mist of his energy and the way he was smiling at you and rushing towards you to high-five your hands now covered in a thin layer of dirt, you couldn’t bring it in yourself to care about the wondering eyes of the stranded observers.

“We better get those snacks before the shop closes,” he said, turning to you with a massive smile.

How was it possible to so easily get lost in the eyes of a stranger you hardly knew? Blue and grey waves sharper and softer than that of the ocean. Pink in his lips that drew you in and you didn’t realize you were staring until he grabbed your hand, tugging you along.

You started to laugh as he dragged you down the hall, not letting go of your hand as he led you down to a corner store with walls lined with snacks. He grinned like a kid in a candy store and gestured for you to walk in like it was a five-star restaurant. The fact that he waved at the cashier who returned his greeting in a familiar smile didn’t slip your notice.

“Do you know him?” you asked, following Bucky further into the store to the back wall lined with snacks, in past the magazines and novelty t-shirts.

“Charlie and I go way back,” he nodded, strolling carefully through the aisles, hands clasped behind his back as he contemplated his choices and he glanced back up at you, smiling that sweet smile that made your stomach twist. Though he paused as he said, “I used to get trapped here overnight a lot growing up.”

He lost his smile a bit as he spoke and it surprised you, unsure of what kind of memory he was thinking back to that could possibly take even a sliver of his smile away from him. You grabbed a bag of your favorite chips from the wall and tossed it over at him. They hit him straight in the chest and he caught them before they fell, the smile returning quickly as he looked over at you with a feigned look of offense.

He grabbed a few bags off the wall after careful selection and raised them up for your approval. You nodded at every choice, except for the bag of jerky he’d held up teasingly. Once he’d gathered enough to fill his arms, a solid mix of salty chips and sweet chocolates and candies, he made his way up to the cashier.

Charlie’s name tag was long faded and he looked like he had been working here for decades. He took his time scanning through Bucky’s items, though he raised an eyebrow at the bag of Skittles and Bucky nodded, a silent conversation between the two before Charlie slipped the candy into the bag.

True to his word, Bucky pushed aside the cash from your hand as you tried to pay and he handed Charlie his card. You grunted, doing that little dance most couples do on a first date when the bill comes, though you started to blush as soon as the thought made its way into your head.

This wasn’t a date. This was... well, you didn’t know what this was, but it was certainly anything but a date.

An acid trip, maybe? An elaborate dream? One of those cheesy Hallmark movies where an angel or a ghost from your past teaches you how to open up and love again?

Probably.

But definitely not a date. He didn’t even know your name.

By the time Bucky gathered the bags of snacks and you followed him out to the main walkway, stranded passengers had begun lining up at every fast-food join within sight, lines carrying far down into the hallway and grumbled groans as managers came out to inform the crowds they were running out of food.

“What did I tell you?” Bucky grinned, nudging your shoulder and you shook your head, trying to suppress your laughter. “Chaos starts once these tourists realize they’re trapped. Someone’s going to start trying to buy food off of people before they take their first bite. Just you wait.”

He was something from a dream, you were sure of it.

“Okay, fearless leader. What’s next?”

He chuckled at that and your stomach flipped a little, though you did your best to ignore it.

“Outlets and shelter,” he replied matter-of-factly, like he’d done this dozens of times before, as he studied the hallway to the left and right, determining which was the better way to go. He chewed on his lip, clearly caught in thought before he straightened his back and turned to you with a grin. “I’ve got a place in mind. You trust me?”

“I don’t know you and you still don’t know my name,” you responded teasingly, though somehow, you knew the answer was yes.

“Sometimes trust is something you learn over time and sometimes it’s a gut instinct,” he shrugged, offering you his hand. “What’s your gut telling you, doll?”

“That you might be an insane person... or an abirritation,” you laughed, though you grabbed onto his hand and let him lead you out into the hallway, “but clearly, I’m okay with that.”

“That’s all I need,” Bucky beamed, tugging on your hand to get you to walk faster until you were practically jogging.

Lugging your suitcase behind you as Bucky held a firm grip onto the bags of snacks in on hand and you in the other, he led you far away from the crowds of people, past the moving walkways and the food courts, past the gates with attendants behind the counter, until the lights were dimmer and you passed by nearly five gates that were completely empty.

He let go of your hand and gestured to the gate marked A29 with a familiar smile on his face, though it seemed a little sad with a crease forming in his brow and a slight tremble of his hand clenching by his side.

“How did you know this place would be deserted?” you asked in awe as you tossed your bag onto one of the dozens of open chairs, spinning yourself around freely like you were in the meadows on a warm summer day and not currently trapped in an airport with a monsoon outside and stuffy air-conditioning blowing through the vents.

“Had a hunch,” he replied, though when you rolled your eyes playfully at him, he chuckled, conceding, “I saw this terminal had most of its flights out before the storm broke. Figured it would be pretty untouched for the rest of the night.”

“You’ve been out here before,” you observed, catching the way he stared longingly over at a corner by the desk like he was watching an old memory play out in front of him. Though he wore his smile again, it was softer now, sadder. He seemed caught up in his imagination and you took a careful step forward, tapping on his shoulder and smiling enough for the both of you. “Come on. I’ve got first dibs on the Doritos.”

“So,” Bucky started, “you never said why you were going to Atlanta.”

“Neither did you, smart guy. Why would I give that information away to a complete stranger?” you teased, following Bucky as he led you to the series of outlets against the wall. You slid down the window, leaning against it as rain pummeled against the glass from the other side.

Bucky shrugged, smiling encouragingly as he sat down next to you and pulled his phone charger from his bag. “You don’t have to tell me anything, doll, but I noticed the way you smiled when the gate agent announced our flight was cancelled when everyone else was groaning and crying. You were smiling. Just curious, is all.”

You narrowed your eyes at that, watching him silently as he plugged his phone in and the face of a young girl illuminated on the screen. She was smiling, almost mid-laugh, and Bucky was off in the background of the image, racing towards her, perhaps a few years younger judging by the haircut. She looked a little like him.

You wondered then if she had anything to do with why he had lost some of his energy as he came up on this gate, falling into a memory he recognized. He was complex man; you’d give him that.

“I was... um... going to a wedding,” you confessed slowly and Bucky smirked, pleased to get something out of you.

“You sound unsure about that,” he pointed out, ripping open a bag of chips and plopping four into his mouth.

You shrugged, “yeah, well, even if I make it in time tomorrow, I still don’t know if I’ll go.”

“Why’s that? Seems like a long way to travel if you’re not gonna--”

“The groom is my ex.”

“Oh shit,” Bucky coughed on the chips that were about halfway down his throat. He leaned over, heaving into a napkin and you rubbed at his back instinctively, careful circles over the soft fabric of his t-shirt as his whole body shook with each cough. You pulled away with a blush as he smiled at you once the fit subsided. He sat back again the wall, brushing his wrist over his lips as he stole another look over at you. “You’re joking.”

“Afraid not,” you shrugged, pressing your lips into a thin line.

You were embarrassed to even say it aloud, to have to first explain to all of your friends why you agreed to go even as they begged you not to, to have to pack your bag and tell your mother why you won’t be home for Sunday dinner, to have to say it even to this man who was practically a stranger who’s approval and kindness you suddenly found yourself craving. Two years since the break-up and you still struggled to get past the man who broke your heart. Saying no to your ex, to Jack, wasn’t something you were used to and it came as old habit.

“This monsoon might have just saved you from a weekend in hell,” Bucky exhaled, turning to face you with a smile that lightened the anxiety in your chest. He offered you the bag of chips and you took them gratefully.

“You’re probably right,” you said, tossing a few chips into your mouth, though you knew the universe would find a way to get you to that wedding, whether or not you were ready for it.

“You on good terms with the guy, at least?” Bucky asked and you shook your head, clenching your jaw.

He frowned, though he didn’t press you any further as he must have noticed your cheeks flush, shame seeping in you. Bucky let out a tired exhale, leaning back against the window and slumping further to the floor.

He cared, that much you could tell. He was bothered by the fact that you were going to this wedding, alone, and that even with all that you didn’t even have a good post-breakup relationship with the guy. You wondered how it was possible for someone to learn to care so fast and what your night would have been like if he hadn’t been standing directly behind you in that line, if the monsoon never rolled in and this handsome, incredibly endearing stranger never stormed into your life.

Would you have gone to that wedding, watched the man you once thought was the love of your life devote himself to a woman after he broke your heart over his inability to commit? Would you have cried through the ceremony and drank yourself into obligation because he’d hurt you so bad you hadn’t been able to even date since he left you?

Would you have boarded that flight without a second thought to the stranger with the blue eyes and the infectious smile?

“What about you?” you asked carefully, taking another bite of the chips before handing it to him.

“What? You trying to do a something-personal-for-something-personal kind of thing?” Bucky laughed, though there was a nervous edge to his voice.

“Only if you want,” you offered, smiling gently at him and giving him the out if he wanted it. It hadn’t been very long since he avoided the question the first time when you had been sitting over coffee in the empty café.

He took in a heavy breath, though it was shaken. You narrowed your eyes, watching him carefully as he sat up, straightening his back and brushing his hair back from his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m, supposed to uh, I’m supposed to see...” he sighed, scratching at the back of his neck, his voice falling low suddenly. His lips pursed into a frown and the light faded from the blue of his eyes. Something was clearly bothering him and he couldn’t seem to even string the words together.

“I haven’t seen her since I... and my ma says that I’ve been...” he groaned, clenching his jaw and running his hand over his lips. He wasn’t making much sense, that much was clear to the both of you. His eyes fell to the floor and he was only a whisper of the man who stood laughing at the hoard of passengers at your gate.

He was layered, dimensional; both the man with confidence unlike you’d ever seen and the shy, nervous guy with a heart bigger than most men you knew.

Your stomach hurt just watching him struggle to answer your question.

“Y/n,” you blurted out, catching his attention and he raised an eyebrow. You let out a steady breath. “My name. It’s Y/n. Something personal for something personal, right?”

Bucky nodded, repeating your name back to you and a soft smile came over his lips. It sounded like velvet and honey and all kinds of wonderful coming from his voice. He relaxed a bit, the tension slipping from his shoulders. “It’s a nice name. Y/n. Suits you.”

But his voice was still low, aching, and it made your heart twist.

“Come on,” you urged, grabbing his hand and lugging him back up to his feet, determined to bring back the witty and charismatic man who threw you into this mess to begin with. You didn’t like seeing him upset.

“Thought you wanted to know--”

“Not now,” you replied casually and you could practically feel the weight lift off his shoulders as you dragged him over to the massive checkers set in the corner of the gateway set aside for restless travelers. “I’ve got a preposition for you.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I get to ask you a question every time I knock one of your pieces off the board,” you proposed, positioning yourself on the side of the board with red chips as big as your shoes, “and if you get one of mine, you get to ask me a question.”

“Do I have to answer?” Bucky teased, folding his arms over his chest and you could already see him coming back into himself.

“Only if you don’t want to be a total loser,” you shrugged kicking your piece out to make the first move. Bucky laughed and squatted down at the board, taking his time to determine his trajectory before he made his move.

It only took three turns before you knocked out one of his pieces.

“Truthfully now,” you started, eyeing him as he crossed his arms over his chest, “in all of your layovers, how many people have you dragged around this airport doing cartwheels and raiding convenience stores?”

A laugh burst from Bucky’s chest and you swore you’d never heard a more beautiful sound in your life, his whole body caught up in the moment. It had been a while since you’d seen someone laugh like that without trying to suppress it. He was unlike anyone you’d ever met, though, you supposed you knew that already.

Then he paused, folding his arms, studying you. “You want to know how many women, don’t you?”

“That’s not what I said,” you retorted, trying to hide your blush, though it was obvious as day.

“Only one before you in all my years,” he responded with a nod, “but she was a frequent flyer with me. Not what you think and certainly not the same.”

“That didn’t make a lot of sense, Bucky,” you accused with a grin, “you’re being cryptic.”

“Maybe you should ask a more specific question next time,” he countered with a sink.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” you grumbled as Bucky started to eye the board for his move.  

“So, you think I’m cute?”

You froze, heat flushing into your cheeks as you realized what you said. Glaring up at Bucky as he watched you amusingly. You rolled your eyes.

“Like you don’t already know,” you huffed, trying to push aside the embarrassment you felt through a playful smile.

“Still, it’s nice to hear,” Bucky grinned, nudging his piece to jump over yours and he discarded the red coin off to the side. “How long were you with this ex?”

Your breath hitched in your lungs and you cleared your throat, taking your time to meet his eye again. “You don’t mess around, do you?”

“Nope,” he replied, popping the ‘p’ on the purse of his lips.

“Three years,” you said quickly, before you could lose your nerve. “He was my college boyfriend. Had plans to move in together and talked about getting married ourselves before he decided he’d rather ‘explore his options’ once graduation came around. Hadn’t heard from him since. Until I got the invite to his wedding. Guess he found a better option.”

“Yikes,” Bucky winced, “what an asshole. Why did you even agree to go to his wedding?”

“Sorry, you already used up your question. Better wait for your next turn.” You winked at him, holding your pointer finger up as you maneuvered your way around the board to find your next move. It was a relief to cut him off. Your relationship with Jack wasn’t an easy one to talk about and you didn’t want him to think of you the way Jack often saw you; small and spineless. So, you pushed out a smile and pretended you were fine.

Bucky shook his head, armed folded over his chest enough to see the prominent outline of the muscles in his biceps, and he laughed at your response. It was a sweet kind of sound that made your chest fell warm, even with the anxiety in your stomach at the very thought of your ex. It was genuine for as often as he did it and it seemed to live permanently etched into his cheeks.

You went back and forth for a few turns, each picking off the other’s pieces on every round. He asked you about your family, about your favorite flavor of ice cream, about your movie preferences and your day job. You asked him about the scars lining his left arm, peeking out as he scratched at his wrist and he told you it was from an accident on the job, though he didn’t elaborate further. You asked about the college shirt he was wearing any why he dared to go to school in Georgia if he was really a New Yorker like he claimed, though he laughed it off and said it wasn’t his alma mater. You asked about his typical coffee order and hair routine and how he got it so fluffy and he laughed so hard, tears welled in his eyes.

It was almost a half hour of the simpler questions before Bucky knocked out another one of your pieces with satisfied hum and took a moment to think of his question. He watched you for a moment, studying you almost, and your stomach lurched a little. Not because he made you uncomfortable, but because you could see the carefulness behind his eyes, the soft smile on his face, and a man like that looking at you like you were something special was an unfamiliar feeling to say the least.

“You don’t really think this woman he’s marrying is ‘the better option,’ do you?”

You bit down so hard on your lip you drew blood. The sincerity of his question threw you and your heart must have skipped about a dozen beats before you could even blink. Bucky must have noticed your sudden distress and he clenched his jaw. A red heat formed in his cheeks you never would have expected.

“Maybe I should say I’m not trying to pry, but I clearly am,” he admitted with a tired laugh. “I’ve only known you for a few hours, Y/n, and I don’t know how anyone could think you’re anything but the best option. And if this guy was with you for years, it shouldn’t even be a question.”

“That’s... that’s really kind, Bucky, but you don’t know me,” you mumbled, unable to meet his eye and losing every ounce of confidence you had clung to around him. Jack had a way of doing that to you, even when he wasn’t around.

But Bucky was determined. He shook his head, crossing the board and grabbing a tender hold of your arms, urging you to look at him. His hands were warm against you, large, a little calloused and rough on the edges but so incredibly gentle.

“I know that you treated that poor gate agent with empathy and patience and got him to laugh after the hell storm of passengers who had just spent their time yellin’ at the guy. I know that you agreed to follow a borderline intrusive stranger through an airport at midnight at the promise of caffeine,” he said, smiling sweetly. “I know that you apologize to teenage employees for staying a few minutes past close without realizing it. I know that you can do a near perfect cartwheel and how you take your coffee.”

“Bucky, I--”

“I know that you’re funny and adventurous and kind. I know that you’re incredibly perceptive and you changed the subject when you caught onto how hard it was for me to tell you why I’m going to Atlanta,” Bucky said casually, sternly almost just to make you believe him, as if his words didn’t make your heart swell so much in your chest it hurt. “Your ex is an asshole, is all I’m saying. He never should have said something like that to you. You’re someone’s best option, you hear me? Don’t settle for some jerk who tells you you’re anything less.”

You swallowed nervously, getting caught in deep oceans of blue and grey as Bucky held onto you. There wasn’t a trace of anything but sincerity in his eyes and you wondered how it was possible he even existed. He rubbed gently at your arms, like he was trying to draw warmth, and the smile on his lips was enough to float butteries in your stomach.

“Thanks, Bucky,” you said softly, sincerely, and he nodded at you encouragingly.

He stepped back to his side of the board and you missed him standing so close to you, missing his hands on you, and you clenched your jaw, trying to push the feelings away.

“Since you didn’t technically answer my question, I’m asking another one,” he said lightly, grinning wildly and it brought back the smile to your face. “You’re from New York, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Queens. Live there now, too,” you replied, wondering how on earth he was able to deduce that and watching the way he smiled to himself, nodding. “Why?”

“Not your turn to ask questions, Y/n,” Bucky teased, though he seemed pleased with your answer. “Make your move, Queens.”

You laughed, already feeling light again and amazed by how easy it was for him to bring that back out in you. You nudged a piece with your foot and swerved it around of two of his. You kicked two black pieces off the board.

“That’s two questions,” you pointed out and he shrugged, challenging you.

Crossing your arms over your chest, you studied him for a moment. There were a million different questions you could ask. You thought about asking whether he’d been born and raised in the city like you, if he’d ever traveled abroad, what the military tag on his suitcase was for and if he ever served. You wondered if he was single, if this was a one night thing where you’d go your separate ways and never see one another again, if he was really as kind and as charming as he seemed because you still couldn’t believe he was real.

You were about to ask him something trivial because you were too afraid to get an answer that would break your heart when he cleared his throat.

“Or,” he started, nervously, “you could ask one big question?”

You narrowed your eyes, confused, and waiting for him to continue.

He sighed. “You could ask about my sister. If you want?”

You paused, watching the way he swayed in his stance, arms fold tightly across his chest like he was trying to hold himself together. She must be the girl in the picture on his phone, the reason why he started acting strange, upset, when he tried to tell you why he was going to Atlanta.

He nodded at you and you could tell he was ready, that he wanted to talk about it now, and you gestured to the wall adjacent to the game. He followed you silently, sliding down the wall to take a seat on the floor next to you. He folded his legs under him while you tucked your knees up to your chest, waiting patiently. You didn’t know the question to ask, but he let out a heavy sigh and started for you.

“Her name’s Rebecca. Bec. We used to travel alone a lot when we were kids to go see our dad,” Bucky said softly, scratching the back of his neck. “We had layovers here a lot and if the flight got cancelled, we’d just get stuck overnight. I mean, I was old enough to watch out for her okay so it wasn’t a big deal, but she used to get scared. So, I started making it a game. It happened more times than you would think and it managed to make her feel better, got her laughing. We used to spend all our money at that convenience shop on chips and candy and race in these halls and do cartwheels and blast music and play games over by that gate.”

You smiled as Bucky talked. He stared off across the gate to where your bags were, over where the memory he had been reliving earlier was, and avoided your eyes, but you knew this wasn’t the hard part of the story. You let him keep going without interruption.

“We got to know some of the people who worked here over the years, like Charlie,” he continued, though his voice dropped a little as he tried to clear his throat. He took in a heavy breath but he struggled to find his words again.

“That sounds really nice, Bucky,” you said encouragingly and he nodded.

“Yeah, she uh, she used to love it, but we don’t-- she doesn’t talk to me anymore,” he confessed, clenching at his jaw painfully and winging his hands in his lap.

You watched as he yanked and pulled on his fingers, a nervous habit you used to see in your father after he’d been in a near fatal car accident, a symptom of anxiety. Without giving yourself a second to back out, you reached into his lap and placed your hands over his until they stilled.

He froze, staring down at your hands and allowed you to pull his left from his right and carefully grasp it in your own hand, holding it tight and offering him a gentle smile. He exhaled, relieved, and squeezed your hand before he continued.

“I enlisted right out of high school,” Bucky said, pulling your hand to rest on his thigh as he ran his free hand over the back of your palm. “Bec was so pissed at me. Especially when they sent me overseas. But she still wrote, still answered my calls. Until I got hit by an IED and got my whole arm shredded.”

He pulled up part of his sleeve to reveal marred skin under the t-shirt he wore. It was faded, healed over the years, but still ridged, still mutilated by the blast. He sighed, pushing it back down like looking at it was even difficult for him. You squeezed his hand.

“I was home for a bit, just trying to heal,” he continued, “but once I was cleared by the doc’s, I wanted to go back. That was the last straw for my sister. She—she just couldn’t understand why I’d go back after that. She said she’d never speak to me again if I did and I tried to tell her that I had a duty, that I had friends who died in that blast and being over here was hell for me. It was back then. But she didn’t understand. She still doesn’t and she held true to her word. She hasn’t spoken to me since I went back, not since I came home either. I’m out now and I still can’t get her to return my calls. She just cut me off completely.”

“Oh, Bucky,” you sighed, heart breaking as he bit on his lip, clearly trying to suppress a lump in his throat.

“I’m supposed to be going to her college graduation,” he said tensely, sniffling a bit. “She doesn’t know, but Mom’s been on me to fix things for years. I just... I don’t know how and I’m fucking terrified that she’s going to take one look at me and tell me to leave or turn her back to me or, I don’t know, ignore me completely. She’s my little sister and I miss her but I don’t know how to make her understand. I’m not sorry for going back. It’s what I needed to do but, I hate that I lost her because of it.”

It was silent for a moment and you watched as the clock opposite you turned on three in the morning. Bucky’s breaths were uneven beside you as he tried to pull himself together. Each passing moment you spent with him, you only wanted to learn more, wanted to ease him through his pain, to make him smile and laugh.

But there was a truth he needed to hear.

“I’m not sure she’ll ever understand, Bucky,” you said slowly and Bucky clenched his jaw. It was clearly something he’d been thinking about, though he didn’t want to admit it. You sighed, rubbing at his hand in slow circles. “I don’t think anyone but someone who has lived through what you have could understand wanting to go back. She clearly loves you and she was probably terrified for you. Sometimes, when someone you love puts themselves back into the heart of danger like that, it's easier to shut down than deal with the possibility of losing them.”

Bucky nodded, taking in your words. You gave him the time he needed, letting him sit with the silence and the thoughts in his head until he was ready. You watched the gears turning, watched as he squeezed your hand in even intervals, and let out a steady breath.

“Sorry I’m such a bummer,” he said after a while, a tired laugh in his voice and he shook his head as you started to object. “I hate that I was relieved when our flight got canceled but I know I’ll have to find a way there regardless. I thought I’d spend tonight in this airport just sitting in my anxiety and thinking about all the ways I’ll disappoint her again, but then you spilled your coffee all over that pretentious asshole and you... you caught me by surprise, Y/n.”

He turned to you, his free hand snaking up to slide along your cheek, cupping the side of your face as his fingers danced in your hair. The way he was looking at you, with startling shades of blue and a sincerity you hadn’t known in a man in years, your stomach twisted and turned on itself in the best possible way. His eyes flickered down to your lips.

“It’s your turn,” you whispered, eyes drifting over to the game.

“Will you let me see you again?” he asked quietly without skipping a beat, not even bothering with the pieces on the board and you didn't mind, not as he was leaning closer to you, his breath against your skin.

His lips touched yours and it was sweet and short so impossibly brief because suddenly the overhead speakers let out a sharp, high-pitched chime as the transmitter turned on. You jumped at the shock of it and Bucky pulled away, the spell broken and the ghost of his lips aching on your own.

“Attention passengers flying from Charlotte to Atlanta on flight 937,” the voice called in muffled tone, “Please see an agent at Gate B9. Your flight is now scheduled to depart at 3:50am.”

You sunk against the wall and Bucky fiddled nervously with his hands.

“That’s your flight, isn’t it?” he asked, disappointed and you nodded. He sighed, hulling himself back up to his feet and offering you his hand. “We better get you over there in time, then.”

You looked up at him for a moment and contemplated just skipping the flight to spend a few more hours with him. Was it insane? Naïve? Maybe. But he was unlike anyone else you’d ever met and you didn’t think you could stand this being the last time you saw him.

“Come on,” he smiled sweetly, though it didn’t reach his eyes, “I’ll walk you to your gate and everything, be a proper gentleman since you’d been so gracious tonight before I send you off--”

“Attention passengers flying from Charlotte to Atlanta on flight 1176,” the voice spoke again and Bucky froze, “please see an agent at Gate C2. Your new flight is now scheduled to depart at 3:30am.”

“Shit,” he cursed, glancing down at his watch to find it was already nearing 3:20. He clenched his jaw, looking down at you apologetically. “I... I have to go.”

You took his hand and he helped you back up to your feet, though he didn’t let go right away. He stared at you for a moment, longingly, like leaving right now was the last thing he wanted to do. It was the last thing you wanted, too.

You walked with him, hand in hand, to the side of the gateway with your bags. He stuffed the snacks into the plastic bag and handed them to you, though you tried to resist, but he shoved them into your backpack with a smile anyway.

“Take the skittles, at least,” you tried to persuade him, “you picked those out.”

“I can’t stand ‘em, actually,” he chuckled sadly, shaking his head. “I always got them for Bec. Guess I was a little stuck in routine.”

“So, take them with you,” you encouraged, kneeling down next to him and pulling the red bag from your luggage and placing it in his hands. He stared down at it for a moment, tensely. He didn’t meet your eye but you carefully rubbed at his shoulder until the tension drained. “Bring them for her. Call it a peace offering.”

Bucky smiled sadly, but he nodded, the appreciation clear in his eyes as he rose back to his feet and offered you his hand, which you took effortlessly.

“How did I manage to find you?” he asked so quietly so you almost didn’t hear it. He was watching you with a kind of bewilderment in his eye and your cheeks began to flush, until you noticed the clock affixed to the wall over his shoulder. Your heart sank.

“You should get going, Bucky. You’ll miss it,” you said, trying to mask the sadness in your voice though it did little use.

“Yeah,” he replied. He didn’t move.

The two of you stood there for a few moments, just staring at one another, wishing the night didn’t have to end. But you had a wedding to attend. And he had a graduation.

“Bucky,” you urged again, squeezing his hand.

He nodded, detangling your fingers with a new kind of determination. He reached into his bag and dug around for a pen and paper. Scribbling messy handwriting on the notepad, he ripped off a page and handed it to you.

“Take this, please,” he said, and you grasped the crumpled paper in your hand. A series of numbers listed on one side in thick black ink. “You don’t have to do anything with it if you don’t want, but I hope you do. I hope you call.”

You nodded, running your thumb along the dried ink before you met his eye again; blue unlike even the clearest morning sky.

“I have to run,” Bucky said sadly as he started to back away. “Thanks for putting up with me for a while.”

“Thanks for asking me to,” you called back, watching as he walked backwards as long as he could until he checked his watch again and grimaced at the time.

He wanted to say more, that much you could tell, but there wasn’t time. He gave you one last wave and turned on his heels, sprinting down the terminal and taking a sharp left. You watched until he disappeared from view and you were alone in the gateway, surrounded by his memories and a new one of your own.

The crumpled paper stayed firm in your grasp the entire walk to your newly assigned gate, your mind caught on Bucky with every step. Even as you boarded, as you sat in your seat and closed the window shade, leaning against the wall in an attempt to find rest, the paper never left the grip of your hand.

A crumpled paper with a number of a stranger. A friend. Maybe something more if you let yourself believe it.

It was exciting and terrifying and magical at once.

You slipped the paper into your pocket as the plane left the runway and lifted into the air, whirring sounds of the engines and cabin pressure lulling you to sleep.

You thought only of Bucky; of blue eyes and nervous laughs, of cartwheels and potato chips, of painful questions and reassurance unlike you’d had in years, of rosy cheeks and soft pink lips.

You weren’t sure you’d ever think of anyone else again.

--

How does it start? And when does it end? Only been here for a moment, but I know I want you But is it too soon? To know that I’m with you There’s nothing I can do [I’m With You - Vance Joy]

feedback is so so appreciated 💖(apologies if you got tagged twice - the whole post deleted itself for a hot second lol)

tags 🌸@sweetheartbarnes / @musiclover1263​ / @pies-wands-and-more​ / @buckygrantbarnes / @mywinterwolf​ / @breatheeagainnnn​ / @jewelofwinter​ / @panic-naran​ / @fairislesheets​ / @kaliforniacoastalteens​ / @captain-hammer-of-asgard​ / @daydreamsquad​ / @deanssweetheart​ / @maybesomedaytho​ / @montypythonsholysnail​ / @saharzek​ / @imsoft-barnes​ / @galaxkay​ / @vitamingrant​ / @alohafromhell1​ / @happyeyesandsunshine​ / @hillface89 / @searchingforbucky​ / @20coldhearts​ / @past-perfect-future-tense​ / @bucknasty-barnes​ / @clarysthing​ / @denimandcabernet​ / @ohthedevilsanus​ / @sarcasm-ing​ / @yknott81​

[marauder-exe]

AU list!

hi! These are a bunch of Au’s that i could write,and you could request! (reposting because it didnt work the first time)

General

Fake dating (My personal favourite)

Soulmates

Coffee shop

Modern Royalty

Rockstar

Running From The Police

Rebel Against The Goverment

High School

University

Law school

Delayed-Flights-And-Were-Stuck-In-The-Airport-And-Its-Like-2Am

Roommates

Road Trip

Arranged Marriage

Im-Arranged-To-Marry-Your-Brother-But-Were-In-Love

Amnesia

Tattoo-Artist-And-Coffee-Shop-Worker

Loved-Since-Childhood

Professor-Student (of age)

Met-On-Holiday

More detailed

21.You were singing/playing guitar/etc. in the park to protest the war and a policeman tried to dismiss you for 'disturbing the peace' but you argued that you were promoting peace and things got heated and next thing you know you're being arrested for assaulting an officer. You intrigue me, so I'm here to bail you out and maybe take you on a date?

22.the nice one who everybody loves with the grumpy and strict one that the students hate and the students wonder?????????how what the fuck

23.we just had a one-night stand but a massive storm hit so now we’re snowed in, hello awkward

24. i sit at the rental booth at our local ice rink and watch you teach children how to skate

25. alternatively, i watch kids teach you how to skate because you’re a terrible skater

26. i’m running late to an important interview/meeting and you accidentally spill your hot cocoa all over my outfit

27. you’re my hot ski instructor and i’m failing the bunny hill

28. i slip on some ice and you’re the stranger who catches me

29.  i gave my winter coat to a homeless person and come into your store to warm up

30. our friends rent a cabin to go skiing and we’re the only ones who stay inside

31. you’re the asshole of our group and we don’t get along, but then i find out you make soup for the local shelter

32.we’re waiting in line for the club when you complain that your roommate stole your gloves so let me warm your hands up with mine

33.my family invites you to join our holiday meal as an obvious setup and i’m so sorry

34.the power goes out in our apartment building, but i’m not prepared for this, and you come to check on me

35.i’m having a snowball fight with my friend in the park and i hit you instead

36.a storm is delaying our flight home and i’m afraid of thunder, please talk to me while we wait

37. we’re both in small claims court and i got into a huge fight with the person suing me but you stepped in to hold me back before security got there

38. i drove two hours to the closest video rental store that’s still operating and you were checking out the only copy of the movie i was after

39. i hit you with my car but luckily you’re okay, but we should still exchange information i guess

40. i was worried about buying something off of someone creepy from craigslist but oh no you’re hot

41. my friend talked me into playing a drunken game of spin the bottle even though we’re all adults and now we have to make out

42. we both decided to take a [yoga/fencing/cooking etc] class and we’re the only two assholes not taking it seriously and everyone else is giving us dirty looks but we keep grinning over at each other

43. my date just made a scene in public and got arrested and now i’m stranded in a city without a ride home

44. sharing a cab together

45. you’re trying to get me to sign a petition and i have no idea what you’re talking about

46. you’re drunk at this festival and dancing on the table and when you eventually fell i caught you

47. we both play this stupid game online and you keep beating me every single goddamn time so i called you out and you are pretty cute but can you not

48. im a bartender and you just came in here without shoes sat down and ordered a chocolate volcano and idk what the fuck that is and im scared to ask

49. we are neighbours and every night at 3:14 am you start yodeling for no fucking reason??? why???? is that you yodeling??? its been 2 months???

50.im a pizza delivery person and i just delivered a pizza to someone in the middle of a satanic ritual and they gave me their number???

51. i woke up this morning to find you sitting in my living room with a goat in a poncho??? who are you??? why is the goat wearing a poncho??? how did you get the goat in here i live on the 12th floor???

52. we work out at the same gym and you always look super legit but i know you sing hannah montana in the shower and you know i know

53. im a cashier and i saw you stuffing you pants full of potatoes and i would stop you but you already have 27 and i want to see how many you can fit

54. its 4 am and im drunk as fuck in a mcdonalds and you have been watching my trying to eat this burger for 30 minutes

55. i was playing beer pong with a coin and i accidentally threw it right into your eye at a party

56. i’m at the beach and some kids thought it was funny to bury me in the sand when i dozed off can you please dig me out

57. it’s unbearably hot and we’re both fighting over the last handheld electrical fan at the shop at the amusement park

58. hey i just met you, and this is crazy, but i get sunburned really easily so can you please help me put sunscreen on my back?

59. thunderstorm after a menacing heatwave and we’re both getting weird looks for dancing in the rain

60.i have no idea who you are but you just fainted right in front of me holy shit dude you need to drink more in this heat

61. we both chased after the leaving ice cream van like ten-year-olds and now we’re both out of breath and a bit embarrassed

62.i clearly reserved this deck chair by putting a towel on it why on earth are you lying on it who the fuck do you think you are

63. My friends bet I wouldn’t buy these three weird and questionable items and you’re my cashier.

64.Once a week I go visit the pet store just to stare at the cute kittens and puppies and you’re the nice employee who always lets me hold them and wait I think I’m going to cry hold on.

65.You’re the DJ of the University’s radio station and every time you give an opinion on a current event I have to call and argue with you because could you seriously be anymore wrong?

66.We both wait tables at the same restaurant and you’re always mad at me by the end of the night because I make more in tips

67.We have the same class and once a week you wear this graphic shirt I don’t understand and I really want to ask you about it.

68.We both work at the same craft store that literally has no customers so we have nothing to do and I’m always reading at the register but you always have to criticize my book choice what the hell?

69.I’m working the concession stand for this week’s home game and this is the fifth time you’ve come back for snacks wait are you flirting with me?

70. we’re at a bookstore and you and I seem to have similar taste in books have you read this one? How about this one?

71. you look like you need help and I’m a professional roller/ice skater but I don’t want you to feel bad about how much you suck but wow you suck

72. You ordered your food before me and they gave you a drink you didn’t want so you gave it to me

73. We’re sitting at adjacent computers in the library and I’m taking extra care not to look at your screen out of respect but what the fuck do you keep laughing at

74. as a joke I yelled out “happy birthday to someone!” in this store and you called back “thank you!” who are you

75. You heard me talking about a TV show in class the other day and now you’re passionately yelling at me about how good it is we’ve never actually spoken before

76. It’s 10:30 at night and I left my glasses at home so I can’t read any of these labels and you’re one of the only people in the grocery store and GODDAMMIT DO YOU HAVE ANY TOMATO SAUCE WITHOUT CHUNKS

77. We go to the same support group; I have social anxiety and you’re a kleptomaniac who sorta stole my heart

78. You thought you were alone at the bus stop so early in the morning so you started passionately singing Fall Out Boy but your Patrick Stump impression could use some work and I’m not really afraid to point that out

79. I’m an artist and you have a really nice face so would you mind if I drew you?

80. We’re rival up-and-coming singers and every time one of us releases a new single the other does a cover to try to make it better; we’re always trying to top each other and out-cute each other, but half our fans aggressively ship us; our agents use this to their advantage and decide we should do a duet because it’ll be popular; unfortunately now that we’re in the same studio and I’ve seen what you’re like I really wanna know what your lips feel like

81.PLEASE I REALLY CANNOT FIND MY CAT AND I KNOW IT’S THREE A.M. BUT NEIL CATRICK HARRIS AND I WOULD BOTH APPRECIATE THE HELP

82. We were both stood up for dates at the same nice restaurant so we decide to eat together and split the check but I dunno you’re pretty interesting aside from your distractingly enormous eyebrows

83. We met at a mutual friend’s cheesy masquerade party and we agree that the only good thing about this party is the masks so you can’t judge a book by its cover only now that we’ve been talking I want to see your face but I don’t know how to ask

84. You used to date my friend who absolutely hates your guts after a messy breakup and now you’re flirting with me and I really shouldn’t be so interested in you but I am

85.We pass each other every day while we’re biking on the same path so we’ve started smiling at each other and one day you’re stopped because you’re having an asthma attack so I offer you my extra water bottle and now we’re talking and now I’M the one who’s breathless

86.I lost my little sibling in IKEA and I need your help finding them

87.I'm a private detective hired to follow you, but you're endearingly boring and mostly I just like watching you and oops, I sort of find you adorable.

88. You've been sketching me for half an hour now, and just shuffled up to hand me the finished product and it's TERRIBLE but you just wanted an excuse to talk to me.

89.  I'm at an art exhibit and I just badmouthed the art, because I don't get it, okay? And it turns out you're the artist. I'm so sorry, maybe I could get you coffee and you could explain what it was supposed to be?

90. We're the only two people who turned up to an underground gig and it should be awkward, but the band is amazing and you asked me to dance and hey, there's nobody watching but us.

91.  You live in the apartment next to me. We're not supposed to have pets, but I KNOW you have a cat. I'll make you a deal, I won't tell, if you let me pet it.

92.  I punched you because I thought you were insulting my friend, but it turns out you know each other and it was an inside joke and I'm so sorry, let me drive you to the hospital?

93. We both wanted to rent a bike for an hour but the only one they have is a tandem bike

94. I’m on a terrible date and you’re my waitor please help me

95.Our dick landlord just evicted us both

96.I’m your neighbor and I can hear you fucking someone who  shares my name

97. You’re sort of famous and we vaguely know each other through bumping into each other all the time but the media thinks we’re dating

98. Your roommate cheated on me and I just threw your laptop out the window thinking it was his

99. It’s 2am on the night of my 21st birthday and we gotta fix this fucking mess by morning or else we’re fucked

100.Fuck you and your bee farm I’ve had enough

Feel free to use any of these as your own! If you wanna request you could drop an inbox saying ‘ could you do ____ AU with this character’!

[silvertae]

sorry that i haven’t been online for a few days!! allow me to recap my hellish experience...

so i flew out on thursday amidst a blizzard to go to chicago for my sister’s bachelorette! flight was delayed and probably the most turbulent flight i’ve ever been on....and i had a crazy lady hold my arm the whole time with bad old person breath :(

friday was spent basically all afternoon in a tattoo parlor because my artist was REALLY slow (but still good, thankfully!!) and that night we went out to a few bars and etc...on saturday we walked around downtown and visited the art institute and went out again that night....whew..

sunday rolls around and we’ve only had like 3 hours of sleep BUT we scrambled to get to the airport somehow! it’s blizzarding AGAIN and at like 1pm our flight home was cancelled...not delayed..just straight up cancelled. 

we get in the customer service line to find a different flight home but there are literally hundreds of people ahead of us so it takes over 3 hours to talk to someone. i get the last seat on a 5pm flight out and have to race over to a different terminal only to have that flight delayed until 10pm! :( at like 6pm they ended up cancelling that flight again and told us the next flight wouldn’t be until tuesday afternoon. at this point i’m Stressed because i have work and classes the next day... also we couldn’t get our bags back, so everything sucks.

anyhoo we regroup and find a hotel room that is definitely not fit for 5 people and crash for the night. monday morning we head back to the airport and manage to rent a car to just drive back home with :’( there was a mixup and it took a few hours to get the right car until we fiiiiiiinally got on the road. 9 hours on the road and i finally get home....... broken and tired and so sore

TL;DR i was stuck in chicago for over 24 hours without luggage or sleep and everything went wrong

[106days]

Friday was my last day in Amman. Got up and said goodbye to those on the tour continuing on to Israel via the Allenby border crossing, then walked to the cafe I went to the Friday before in downtown. As I walked I fed whichever cats popped out with the dry food I'd picked up the day before. The first was hesitant - I had to leave the food in the middle of the road for her and back away. The second and third ginger ones - one was cautious and wouldn't approach, until his bold little pal ran straight up to me and started eating. The fourth and fifth; the tortie was a mama and was extremely friendly - she kept brushing up against me - so much so that the long haired one came up and took her food while she was busy with me. They fought a bit so I tried to separate their food and left them in peace.

Once I got to the cafe I stayed there a while, drinking a delicious cold brew and writing postcards. Wandered the route back to the centre of downtown to meet Jen and Nina at the hotel Nina was moving to. We walked through the fruit and veg souq back up King Faysal Square, turning into the little side street that is host to Habibah Sweets - famed for their kunafeh. It was gooey and syrupy and had delicious toasted, crispy wheat on top, sprinkled with pistachio, and it was heavenly. It also burnt my tongue, cus I was too eager to eat it.

We walked around some of the shops a bit more before climbing up one of Amman's many hills to a place called books@cafe, recommended by a friend. It was a lovely place that occupied the first floor of a building in an otherwise residential and unassuming street, with an airy outdoor terrace and a nice view out.

Rehydrated with some juice before saying goodbye to the girls and taking myself back to the hotel, to grab my bags and get in an uber to the airport. Due to a very long story, I was flying business class for the first time in my life, on the shortest flight I have ever (and am likely to ever) take. That didn't matter though, because I got to the airport with 3 hours to spare and as I had a business ticket, had access to the Royal Jordanian lounge. Because I am a pleb I had literally no idea that this was a thing. Whilst I would've liked to have gotten shitfaced I still had Israeli customs to navigate, so sagely opted for two cocktails over 2 hours and nothing more.

The flight itself... I have been stuck longer on a delayed train between Redfern and Town Hall than we were in the air. That is not an exaggeration. It was an 18 min flight time. The scenery was beautiful, though - flew over the Jordan River where it meets the Dead Sea.

Everything went exceptionally smoothly at the airport. I'd been warned in advance by another friend (a Jewish friend, no less) of what Israeli immigration could be like. The customs officer could not have been less interested in my presence. I think the only thing she said to me was ciao, as she handed my passport back.

Because Israel is still doing PCR testing for entry (which they're getting rid of next month), not only did I have to pay to have a test done in Jordan in the 72 hours before departure, but for a test to be done at the airport on arrival too. Again, the apathy and disinterest involved from the person who did me was breath-taking. I also don't know why they're enforcing this if the entire populace has given up on covid. I've not seen a single Israeli wearing a mask and there's no such thing as social distancing. Unclear to me why they're testing tourists but whatever, rules are rules. That was all pretty smooth sailing too.

Once I got out of the airport though? Not so much. I arrived in Tel Aviv on Shabbat. This means that no public transport runs - the train station at the airport was shuttered, and there's an extremely limited bus schedule in the city only. Stood in a taxi line for about an hour. Finally got one. My driver had bad English, handed me his phone to type in the address. I saw that the language the maps app was set to was Russian, asked him if that's where he was from, in Russian. Cue a half hour conversation in my awfully broken Russian with an Azerbaijani Jew from Baku, who'd lived in TLV since his teens. It was interesting at least, and I felt cogs turning in my brain that are very, very rusty. It cost an arm and a leg, and at first I thought I'd been ripped off... but then I checked taxi prices again and nope, that's just how outrageously expensive Tel Aviv is - made pricier by Shabbat.

Got to my guesthouse and dumped my things before heading out on a walk around the area. Went up and down the stretch of Rothschild Boulevard nearby, up the street that leads to Carmel Market, down Allenby Street and around. Pockets were pumping - one pedestrianised street was filled with people lining up for or already sitting at restaurants and bars. Other parts were more or less deserted. There's a municipal rule that prohibits retail from trading during Shabbat, except, seemingly, for these 24/7 supermarket stores called AM:PM. Went in to get a gauge on prices... holy moly. I'll never call Australia unaffordable again. Oy vey.

How excellent my time in Jordan was, was both unexpected and totally not. I think of the four countries on my route to the UK, Jordan was where I was most excited to go. Before I'd arrived I kept thinking of those first moments I'd experience in the city, and how it would feel to finally be in the Orient. It did not disappoint. The goats by the main highway into Amman and camels literally moments from the centre of town; the thousands upon thousands of beige stone apartments perched around the city; the crisp, cold, dry air on that first night; the call to prayer before sundown as the wind blew; the kids playing on makeshift swings adjacent to roads filled with furious, honking taxi drivers... And it only got better from there.

Shopkeepers don't harass you. They invite you in. If you decline, their response 9 times out of 10 is "welcome to Jordan." I never felt unsafe. The men who served me at cafes and restaurants were patient and joked with me when I didn't understand the currency, or what exactly I was ordering. The men we encountered in the desert were calm, hospitable, and wore the most genuine smiles. The women I met - which granted, were much fewer - weren't shy. They were helpful, curious, kind, bold. The women I observed were fascinating, the younger ones often wearing elaborate make up and toking away at a shisha with friends; the older dragging hard on a cigarette with a Turkish coffee at a roadside cafe; the ones in between usually trying to wrangle a child or three.

I don't think I have a single complaint about my time in Jordan. If you haven't been, and it's within your means, you gotta go. I hope I'll be back one day.

[mashupofmylife]

The good, the bad, and the ugly

AKA the last three days of my life. I started Friday on the American west coast. I’m currently on a Navy base in Western Europe. I think I crossed 9 time zones. Adjusting to the jetlag and time change should be lovely. Fun.

For the most part, travel was uneventful on Friday, except when I found out that I had never ordered a special meal for my international flight. After 25 minutes on hold, I had to hang up to get on a plane, so I emailed the customer care address. When I got home and remembered to call again, it was 23 hrs and 45 minutes before my flight. Apparently they do not make any meal changes with less than 24 hours notice. And despite the website, they do not take meal requests in email form. Luckily, I’m not my sister and am willing to eat around meat, so I didn’t miss out on too much.

I started Saturday on the complete wrong foot by showing up at the wrong airport (yes, there are so many local airports where I live that this is totally plausible). After a surprise $80 cab fare to the correct airport, I got to wait for an hour and a half as my flight was delayed and delayed and delayed, meaning I probably could have saved myself a ton of cash and just taken public transit. I had a great time on a very very long layover hanging out with my college roommate who’s in year 2 of the PhD portion of her MD/PhD. We usually only see each other once a year so that was a treat. My phone was nearly dead when I got back to the airport, so I stuck it on airplane mode to charge up before the flights. Apparently I should have used that time to set up What’sApp because I dumbly didn’t think that might be something good to have set up before you get to the foreign country. 

Rang in Sunday morning with some really unique economy class sleeping positions. Made it through customs and security again, ran to make my connection, and then sat on the tarmac in a bus in 40◦C weather for 15 minutes while all the luggage was first put on the plane. Arrived in my final destination, found the airport bus line and made it to the bus station. Apparently it was the wrong bus station. Got on another bus and rode it around the city twice more before I managed to figure out where the right bus station was. Easy walk from that bus station to base. 

I meet up with my preceptor at 0800 this morning to inprocess, and before that I need to check out of the hotel in the morning. I’m staying with a friend’s cousins who live in town here for the rest of the rotation. Except while they’ve reiterated how happy they are to host me multiple times and they’ve also been pretty evasive about giving me their address or letting me know when it works for me to show up. So, we’ll see where exactly I end up sleeping tomorrow.

In summary: 3 days, 10 hours at home, 9 timezones crossed, 6 airports (should have only been 5), 6 subway/light rail trains, 4 security lines, 3 busses (1 was totally extraneous, should have taken a different one at home), 3 countries,  1 cab (ultimately not necessary), and no solid idea where I’m sleeping tomorrow night in a foreign country

[melissa-goes-to-italy]

Here we go

           I’m curious as to how many sittings this will take me to write up. I’m running on about 4 hours of sleep in the last two days, but if there’s anything My Favorite Insomniac taught me, is that sleep is for the weak.

           I am currently in a child’s bed with the window open, that’s wider than a twin, but not as long. There’s a pink comforter below me and I’m propped up against 5 cutesy pillows. I hear Italian. I hear small voices singing from below me that I can’t quite make out. There’s a soft breeze that barely tickles my skin and the sky is blue, but peppered with clouds. I made it, and I’m here.

           This journey has been a long time coming. I started at Little America in the fall, and this looming, distant “English Summer Camp in Italy” seemed like it was in another dimension of time.  The stress began a week ago, as I finished up 2 summer classes at Naz while preparing for 5 weeks abroad…but on the night of the 30th when my first flight of Rochester was cancelled for the next morning, I knew it was going to be a wild ride. I was supposed to depart ROC at 5:55 am, and be at JFK for 11 hours, which I made sure everyone heard about. That flight got cancelled around 9:30 pm the night before, and I had to rebook. Delta pre-selected me for a 6:30 flight that would take me ROC > MSP, MSP > JFK at 10:00, JFK . MXP. I had to Google MSP, since I hadn’t heard of it. Minneapolis. Minneapolis. They wanted to send me to Minneapolis before JFK. No way, dude. That would mean another connection in another new airport, and I’m not sure my anxiety could have handled that. I wanted to pick a 11:35 ROC > JFK but it filled up before I could make the selection. I ended up choosing 1:40 ROC > LGA and then realized I would a) need a ride to the airport because of working parents during the day and b) would need to get from LaGuardia to Kennedy in 3 hours…………

           ------

           (Okay, I’m back. More stuff happened, but I should be able to bang the rest of this out, unless I fall asleep in this bed now that I have a pancia piena.)

           This post is going to include a lot of shout-outs, by the way, because getting through school this past week and getting to Italy has been too much for me to deal with alone. My pal Tim came in clutch, and was able to take me to the airport to catch my 1:40 pm flight to LaGuardia. He was given short notice, made at least one call to move stuff around, and quickly agreed and showed up early to get me. It’s friends like these that make the impossible possible, so thank you Tim.

           I got to the airport, dumped off my 31 pound bag of clothes and camp stuff, and as I talked to the baggage agent, I actually started feeling real excitement. Because of life and school, I have been struggling to look ahead, since uncertainty is anywhere… but at this point… I actually started to feel ready to go. I sat at my gate and ate as much of a Chocolate Chip Muffin I could (the nerves make me less hungry), while talking to Andy via text. Andy is Tim’s brother and has been a huge help with keeping me from going off the rails this week, and I owe him so much. Today is actually our friendaversary, so next chance I get: I’ll pour one out for you, Andy!

           It’s never a good thing if your name gets called over the loudspeaker. Sitting at my B1 gate, minding my own business texting Andy, the gate attendant called my name and my stomach sank. What had I done? She ended up asking me if they could move my seat up to seat 1A, because a passenger wished to switch to a different seat. I exhaled and chilled out back in my seat…. And about ten minutes later the gate attendant got back on the loudspeaker to say that LaGuardia Airport will not be taking any more flights in until 6 pm because of impending inclement weather, and that if people needed alternative arrangements to come talk to her. Instantly a huge line formed.

           I was at the front of the line with a friendly older dude who just wanted to get home to Cleveland, and a 16 year old girl who wanted to get to South Carolina to see her uncle. She kept calling her mom and uncle back and forth and was so #done with everything. The captain ended up getting a message from LaGuardia that if we got going within 25 minutes, we could land there since we have such a short (50 minute) flight. So we ended up boarding after all! And just a few minutes after our 1:40 pm time. We shuffled onto the tiny plane, where we had to leave our carry-ons in a different part of the plane since it was a small connection flight with minimal overhead space. We took off only a few minutes later and the pilot (who I legitimately couldn’t believe was old enough to be a pilot) thanked us for being quick and flexible with that plan. You’re welcome Alex H. from Endeavor Air, thank you for getting me downstate. The flight itself was barely noteworthy. Moments after we got to cruising altitude, we were already starting to descend upon Queens. The flight attendant must have been newer, because my seat partner and the pilot across the aisle and I, saw her reading from a script, and she turned to us and asked what flight number this was! WHAT! Girl, how don’t you know?! The other pilot shook his head and he, my seat partner, and I laughed softly.

When we arrived, I grabbed my purse and jacket...but almost left my carry-on behind because I’m dumb. I was so excited to walk down out of the plane, into our LaGuardia terminal shuttle that I didn’t grab my carry-on. About 2 seconds after the bus pulled away, I realized I didn’t have it and the people around me were worried for me. I hung around after the bus pulled away, and when the next one pulled up, one of the airfield attendants had it. Bless. Other than that, LaGuardia was easy. I landed at Terminal C, collected my baggage, went to the bathroom and waited basically an hour for my NYCAirporter.com shuttle to JFK. They’re supposed to come on the half hour, but the 3:30 one never arrived. There was a European-looking dude (later found out he was a Ukrainian dude) that was short some dollars for a ticket and the Airporter agents almost didn’t let him board. He gave them all the paper money he had, and counted out all the change he had to show them, and thankfully they let him go a few cents short of the $16 fare. The bus driver was nice (when he eventually showed up) and they don’t lie when they say there’s bad traffic in New York, but the driver handled it appropriately and got us to our respective terminals safely. I talked to the Ukrainian dude, and with 4% battery on my phone, I looked up his flight and told him he was going to Terminal 8. We talked about our adventures- he said he was at Syracuse University for a 2 week PhD Intensive in Political Science, and then he wished me luck with my mission this summer, saying that working with children is not something he is comfortable with. We had a laugh, and I shook his hand to wish him well.

           Maybe this is not news to most of you but JFK is HUGE. I’m talking huge. You could fit Rochester International inside of it 10 times probably. The guy at the baggage drop for Delta actually asked if Rochester was an International airport and I laughed and said probably just between there and Canada. I was happy to find a group of similarly aged people flying Delta, going to Greece so I stuck with them until I had to run through security where I saw SUCH A GOOD BOY DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB. I suppose when I see TSA K-9 units, they’re usually German Shepherds, but this was a very old, white-faced Golden Retriever and I was so emotional as I walked by him! I actually said out loud “I am so proud, you are doing such a good job!” twice. I’m ridiculous. After that I got held up at security because I forgot to ditch the water bottle I got at ROC and the TSA person gave me sass, and said “You thought we weren’t going to find this?” I wasn’t trying to hide it, I forgot. I had been drinking water intermittently and didn’t take it out of my coat pocket. Soooorry.

I got to gate B28 with a bit of time to spare, enough to use the bathroom and charge my phone. I listened to the Italians around me talk to their children about the upcoming flight, watched older brothers play games with younger sisters, and an older man jamming out with his big studio headphones on. They called my Zone, and I got in line and after waiting about 10 minutes, was able to head down to the plane where we were inevitably delayed longer once we boarded. We were originally supposed to leave at 6:15 pm, then 7:15 pm, but we sat there and I think we started taxiing at 8:30 pm because of inclement weather in Milano and traffic on the runway. It was drizzling some rain while we were lined up, but the sun caught the water just right and a full rainbow formed over the airfield and I took that as a good sign.

I sat next to a pretty nice, but quiet dude who kept watching a lot of children’s movies. I ended up talking to him towards the end of our relatively calm journey, and learned he was coming home from Puerto Rico after working there for a while. He helped me get my luggage when I needed something, because it was way too high-up for me to get on my own. Thanks dude whose name I never asked. I shook his hand goodbye once we got into the terminal, and wished him well in life. Aside from some minor turbulence, the trip was fine, but I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane. I hate being that guy and moving the seat back because it makes the other person behind me upset, but I had to a little bit because I was like a poorly made Auntie Anne’s mall pretzel in that chair for 8 hours.

FINALLY, I arrived at MXP and stood in the long Passports line to get my lil book stamped and gain entrance to the country. The customs officer looked at my study abroad visa, and looked confused…but realized that it was from 3 years ago, and went ahead and admitted me. After that, I went to the baggage claim where I saw my suitcase going around, so I chased it so I wouldn’t have to wait for that too.

I walked towards Uscita 5 where my ride Ettore would be, but I realized he was walking to me already with someone else. I’ve only seen him in the background of my online movie club that I do for Little America, and in one photo so it was a long moment for me to realize it was him…. Especially since the ‘someone else’ accompanying Ettore was ONE OF MY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS! SAMUELE! I might have freaked him out by hugging him, but I was so shocked, I didn’t even recognize him when he wasn’t on a computer screen. They happily carried my bags and we got into Ettore’s little car and drove to Merate, talking the whole way!  Everything from the road signs, restaurants, mountains, and beyond kept catching my eye…. It’s so strange to be back, you guys. As I said, it was like this far-off thing that “July 1st I’ll fly to Italy… but here I am, breathing the air, drinking the water, and eating the food again.”

We arrived at Veronica’s house which is right in Merate, and so beautiful! I did have to immediately switch to Italian because she doesn’t speak English really at all. She’s so sweet and gave me my own bedroom with an attached bathroom. I am so grateful she and her family opened her home to me. She has a dog too who I have to meet, another good boy I presume.

I wanted to do some writing -went to a soccer torneo in the town’s park where there’s a pool, a soccer pitch, and a grill set up where people can buy food. I loved seeing how happy everyone was, doing different things on a beautiful day. I would have participated more but I was dead tired and after eating and snapping a few pictures, Veronica brought me back to her house, and I napped for forever. I just woke up and it’s about 7:30 pm. I have a WiFi signal, which is exciting, so I’ll contact you all when I can again.  

[jessicabenson]

Fighting On.

On September 3, 2016, USC lost to Alabama by 46 points.

By no means should they have made it to the Rose Bowl 4 months later.

On January 2, 2017, I embarked on the day trip from hell to Los Angeles.

By no means should I have made it to the Rose Bowl 14 hours later.

About two and a half weeks ago I asked my boss for a personal day on January 2nd.  I’d come down with a case of the “I’m 24 and On The Verge Of A Quarter Life Crisis” blues and was fortunate enough for Santa Claus to FedEx me a pair of Rose Bowl tickets.  OK FINE, Santa Claus is my dad. Karl came up clutch.

Chris and I were both given the day off. In our industry this is like a pot of flippin’ gold, so bottom line, it better be worth it.

My mom was going, too.  She’d planned to go from the moment USC made it in even though she was recovering from extensive surgery that she’d had the week after Thanksgiving. But, if you’ve met Sharon, God forbid you tell her she can’t go to a college sporting event she’s planning to attend. I hadn’t seen her since the surgery, and suddenly seeing USC in the Rose Bowl with my mom became the most important thing to me in the whole wide world.

She had two tickets and no one to go with. I sent a text to two of my friends asking if either needed a ticket.

My friend Janet responded yes instantly; that she’d been on StubHub that very minute looking for a ticket. She won the lottery. Sorry, Paige.

Janet and I have had some great memories at the Rose Bowl. We had worked the 100th Rose Bowl and final BCS National Championship Game (RIP, BCS) together when we were students at USC.  Then there was the time she got us kicked out of the Beyonce/Jay-Z concert. Ask her about it! It’s her favorite story to tell!

Alright, back to business.

With this trip on the horizon, I had my groove back. It was the kick in the pants I needed to head into 2017 with some pep in my step. 

So, on January 2nd, I trotted into the Memphis airport humming “Tusk” and holding up a “Fight On!” while Sia’s “The Greatest” blared from the airport speakers.

“Don't give up, I won't give up

Don't give up, no no no….”

Chris brought his GoPro and said, “Oh this song will be perfect for the video I will put together of the trip!”

Ha…haha….hahahaha….

Our flight was scheduled to leave Memphis at 6 a.m. I had chosen for us to fly through Houston instead of Denver because I’m a genius and didn’t want snow to cripple my great day.

I’m a moron. The apocalypse hit Houston.

“Hi folks…”

Why do all pilots use the word ‘folks….’

“…the Houston airport has closed off all incoming and outgoing flights because of thunderstorms.  It should only be a 30 minute delay or so. We’ll keep you posted.”

We only had an hour to make our connection so my nerves started pumpin’ real hard.

Chris assured me we’d be alright.  The flight attendant assured me we’d be alright.  We finally took off, and I got a text from my dad saying our flight from Houston to LAX was delayed, too, and that we should have no problem making our connection.

I breathed. I slept. I smiled.

“Hey there folks!”

I jolted from a deep, neck-scrunched-against-the-window sleep.

Folks…the word of death….

“I’ve got some more bad news. We are in a holding pattern as the Houston airport is closed again. We’re circling around Louisiana but we’re going to run out of fuel in about 45 minutes, so if it’s not open by then we’ll have to divert.”

The clock said 8:25. Our flight to LAX had been rescheduled to take off at 9:15.

I ate not one, but two, waffle cookies the flight attendant gave me. No New Year’s resolution diet could exist in a time like this.

At 9:22 we were diverted to San Antonio, TX. It was 60 degrees and sunny.

There was a single flight from San Antonio to LAX.

It was overbooked.

With the help of Karl, we were rescheduled onto another flight out of Houston, this one leaving at 10:45 and getting us to LAX at 12:30 p.m.

I looked out the plane window.  We were surrounded by eight other airplanes, all waiting for fuel.

“It should only take about 20 minutes!” The words of our pilot.  No “folks” included. I should’ve seen this as a sign that he was a Lying-Mc-Liar-Pants.

We waited in line for fuel, which turned into waiting in line for an open runway to take off to Houston which was now perfectly sunny and beautiful and wtf weather why you gotta be like that.

The clock ticked 10:25 as the wheels went up.

Travel agent Karl informed us we could get on the standby list for an 11:45 flight that landed at 1:30 p.m. PST.  At this point, I didn’t care if we made kickoff, I just wanted to get there by half time.

In what should be investigated as the longest flight ever between San Antonio and Houston, we landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport at 11:30 a.m.

We were at Gate C8. The mystical 11:45 flight (which was - shocking! - rumored to be delayed) was at C46.

Chris took off in a sprint.

I ran like the gazelle I’ve always aspired to be.

Just kidding, I huffed and I puffed and my Uggs started to give me blisters and at some point I took my sweater off and tied it around my waste like a 90’s mom at Disneyland and somehow those two waffle cookies didn’t end up on the ground in front of me. Saying “Diet starts back up, Monday!” for the last four weeks was really biting me in the ass.

Let’ go back to Sia’s “The Greatest”:

“Uh-oh, runnin' out of breath, but I

Oh, I, I got stamina

Uh-oh, running now, I close my eyes

Well, oh, I got stamina…”

We reached the gate. The plane had already been closed. No delay, no magic.

We just laughed.

At this point the only chance we had was to reroute to Orange County and then drive to Pasadena.  The flight would land at 2:35.

This is the part where I remind everyone that kickoff was at 2:00.

Well, we can make the second half!

I calculated that if we landed at 2:35 we could be in a car by 2:40 and at the Rose Bowl by 3:40. We could make it by the 3rd quarter.

“Well we can hope for the world’s longest game and a USC 4th quarter comeback! Maybe some overtimes, too!” I joked.

Boarding was set to begin at 12:08.  At 12:20 we were still waiting.

“Just an update everyone, the flight attendants for this flight were coming from an international flight and they’re now stuck in Customs, so we can’t do anything until they make it through.”

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

I still didn’t lose it! I still didn’t cry!

When we were still sitting on the runway at 1:35, nearly an hour after our scheduled departure, that’s when I cried.

But, what can you do?

The only thing that went right at that point was that this flight had DirectTV which meant I was going to watch kickoff from the sky. So technically, I had the coolest seat of all. THE SKY!!!!

(Literally trying to keep that whole return of “Look On The Bright Side Jess!” at the forefront here).

The flight attendant gave me a free Heineken.

USC and Penn State decided to throw me a bone in the form of a bajillion pass plays followed by: Touchdown. Review. Touchdown. Review. The clock ticked slowly.

We made up some time in the air and landed in the OC at 3:04 on the dot. The 1st quarter had just ended.

Oh my lord, we have a chance.

This is where you meet our new bff, Moe. Moe was the driver of the car picking us up. He waited at baggage claim with one of those signs that said “J. Benson” and had a luggage cart waiting.

Chris and I sprinted towards him.

“Hello, are you Jessica? I’m driver, M...”

“LET’S GO MOE!”

“Where is your luggage?”

“WE DON’T HAVE ANY!”

We traveled with a single backpack filled with our toothbrushes, toiletries, a pair of yoga pants if I decided to take a 6 a.m. SoulCycle class before our flight out the next day (spoiler alert: this was not happening), my small purse, Chris’s wallet and a brush.  We’d planned to drop it off at the hotel when we landed at, oh I don’t know, 10:45 a.m. like we were supposed to, but now it was totally expendable. We had every intention of transporting our things into one of those game-friendly plastic bags (backpacks not allowed in the stadium) and ditching the backpack in the Rose Bowl parking lot.

Moe hustled with us to the car. Moe is a baller.

What if I told you…there was a day where there was zero traffic between Orange County and Pasadena?  We seemed to fly down the 405 to the 605 to the 5 to the 110. We made it in 53 minutes. I just looked at how long it would be estimated to take right now.  The answer is 1 hour and 47 minutes.

But like, you still didn’t think we were in the clear right? Because if you did you have not been paying attention.

The Rowl Bowl didn’t allow passenger drop off.  The closest we could get was about a mile out.

I gave Moe a giant hug.

And again, we ran.

And again…why had I taken a 4-week hiatus from the Kayla Itsines workout plan?

We got to the gate closest to our seats, Gate G.

“Do you have any plastic bags?” we managed to choke out between coughs.

“No, try Gate A.”

So we ran again.

“Do you have any plastic bags?”

“No, we’re out. You’ll have to check your bag at Gate C.”

At that point, we’d be running around almost half the stadium.

“Don’t be a quitter!” Chris yelled at me.

“But I’m going to throw up!” I screamed back.

This is love.

We checked our bag. Lost in this moment was my happiness to not have to part with my backpack. We entered at Gate C. We had to walk all the way back to the Gate G area to get to our entrance tunnel.

We walked up the stairs right after Penn State scored in the opening minutes of the 3rd quarter.

I saw my mom. I saw Janet. Instant happiness washed over me.  They greeted us with hugs and at that point more importantly, beers. The girl in the seats next to us had gone to one of the high schools in my hometown of Highlands Ranch, CO. Everything seemed to be falling into place perfectly.

We proceeded to watch Penn State score 28 points in the 3rd quarter.

And then we proceeded to watch a damn miracle.

I can’t describe the happiness I felt as Ronald Jones II ran it into the end zone wearing Joe McKnight’s No. 4 jersey to get USC back within a touchdown.

I can’t put into words what it was like to watch a freshman quarterback, Sam Darnold, throw his 5th touchdown pass to tie the game with 1 minute and 20 seconds left on the clock.

People joke that I went to USC during the worst four years of football.  But everything - from the sanctions to Kiffin being left on an LAX tarmac to Sark- all became so worth it when Matt Boermeester nailed a 46-yard field goal to win the Rose Bowl.

As I stood watching USC win the Rose Bowl with my mom, my boyfriend and two of my best friends all I could think was, “Holy hell this day went from being one of the absolute worst to the absolute best.”

And couldn’t we all use that reminder as we enter the New Year?  Pick a cliche, any cliche, but often times the best things come just after we think things can’t get any worse.

From USC football fighting its way back into the national spotlight; to 14 hours of travel that included 3 flights, 6 potential missed connections, 2 diversions, an hour car ride and a 2 mile run that landed me in the Penn State section at the Rose Bowl...you just cannot ever give up.

Because if you do, you might miss the part where the impossible transforms into one of life’s greatest moments.

After all, is that not what it means to “Fight On”?

As we walked down the steps of the Rose Bowl, no joke, Sia’s “The Greatest” played in the background.  

“I'm free to be the greatest, I'm alive

I'm free to be the greatest here tonight, the greatest

The greatest, the greatest alive

The greatest, the greatest alive…”

The day was perfect.

The next day our flight to Denver was delayed 4 hours, we missed all connecting flights to Memphis and got stuck at the airport for the night.  It was 18 degrees, we had no extra clothes and didn’t make it home until 2 p.m. on Wednesday, January 4th.

Again, it was perfect. And most of all, it was so worth it.

[taylorwritesaboutthings]

The resulting transportation

This is a long conclusion. 

We missed our bus back to Providence, and had to negotiate a transfer to a bus going to Boston, which we discovered is not easy. Luckily, the Greyhound representative was a pinnacle of customer service, helping everyone sort out their issues and save whatever money they could. He got us a bus that would arrive in Boston at 9PM, in time for the MBTA train at 10PM. Since we didn’t have time to sit at a restaurant, we called in and ordered our food 15 minutes before arriving. We probably ordered too much - eggplant basil, chinese broccoli, watercress pork soup, turnip cake, shrimp dumplings, a sweet/salty yellow sponge cake, and some red pepper clams. We ate some of the messier things at the station then boarded and set up the rest of our feast at a booth table. By the time most of it was gone we were extremely stuffed.

The next day was my flight from BOS to LAX. First, the silverline airport bus had a temporary delay, which only minorly worried me. I passed through security about an hour before boarding. The flight attendants lead us on board, then it went still for 30 minutes. I figured something must have been off, but continued carefully eating the ceasar salad I had bought for my dinner. At last they gave an announcement that there was an issue with the engine, and a mechanic would have to asses it. It took them a bit longer to finally excuse us all from the plane, as the assessing alone was going to take at least 2 hours, and if it needed fixing, who knew how long we’d have to wait. I wandered around the airport for a while, finding a bookstore to browse. I found Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and started reading it but became so immersed I bought it, which I have never done at an airport bookstore. 

I returned back to the gate, but was quickly notified that it would be another couple hours at least, and they would provide meal vouchers for all passengers. I checked my phone to watch the increasing delay time, stopping at 6:00AM the following day, then looked for the email meal voucher. It said I could spend $12 on board an AA flight. Great, I could eat a single airplane-price sandwich in return for being stuck in a terminal for 6 hours. 

I freaked out a bit, since I had to do another thing I’d never done before. If I wanted to stay in Boston, I’d need a place to crash. I called Kay, and she reminded me that Shell and Conny lived there and might be able to host me. I figured I’d ask Shell, since she owed me a place to stay since her week-long crash at our dorm last summer. Turns out, as I had preconceptions about, only Jun was staying there, but Michael was visiting that night, so I continued to tell myself it would be fine. I admit I even felt a bit excited. I got in touch with Jun, who seemed surprised and gave me his location. After a delay of 20 minutes, I got to South Station then transferred to the Red Line to Alewife. 

Jun & Michael were hanging out and skateboarding at Harvard Commons, which I found mildly amusing since neither of them went to Harvard, Jun was a drop out, and Michael was unemployed for the most part. But here we were, partially naive misfits surrounded by an obviously elite college town. Michael had also recently arrived, so we dropped our stuff off at the apartment and Michael took a well needed shower. We grabbed dinner and beer at a nearby store with some self-serve food options. On the way we checked out a bookstore (I found one title with something about a fish, but I can’t remember anything else so the memory is pretty useless) Michael bought a $40 textbook about physics, and Jun got 3 from different genres, and I didn’t buy any. 

We ate outside, on the grass back at the Commons, and got bug bites all over our legs. I started getting cold and we went back to the apartment. I lay on the couch and messed around with some guitars, loving the satisfying confidence of the electric guitar. I tried reading a bit but got sleepy and indicated I’d like to sleep soon. First though, they wanted to test their abilities and try waterboarding each other in the bathtub. With one bending backwards over the tub, and a wet washcloth over their face, the other would pour a steady stream of water on their nose and mouth. They came out coughing and wet, and asked if I’d like to try; wanting to not be too surprised, I stood and smiled silently in response. I pretended to take photographs, and they joked that I was probably an actual spy, and therefore had already really experienced waterboarding torture. I enjoyed this idea, so I remained quiet. 

Finally, they calmed down and Jun hugged me goodbye since he’d sleep in, and I curled up under my blanket and passed out. 

[mceproductions]

The Terrible Trifecta (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1                                                                                       December 30, 2004

              The local club scene in and around the greater Los Angeles area was buzzing with absolute excitement. In just a few days most residents who could would be descending upon Miami for a chance to see USC repeat as National Champions of College football. Most fans would generally wait to go down, but inside her room at Fluor Tower on the USC campus one of those fans was busy packing. The Youthful exuberance of her skin only paled in comparison to her long flowing brunette hair but, Maya Dunst however was missing something from her bag.

“Willa, where did you put the sunscreen?” May bellowed back to her oblivious roommate.

Willa then turned back and stood behind her “Its right by the tampons May” bellowing just as loud as her and knocking May to her butt.

“Willa, I know you want to come with me to Florida for the game,” May said “but how do people like Taylor and Mina manage to put up with you.”

“Maya when you’re an heiress everyone can put up with anyone”

“Yeah, like that’s supposed to be a comforting thought” May mumbled to herself as she got back up

While May loaded two pieces after two pieces into her small carryon bag 137 miles away in Norman Oklahoma someone was in a state of uneasy solitude for his trip.

“I better not be setting myself up for a disappointing trip” thought Dominic Scott as he watched a Sooners highlight show on FSN

Dominic was also heading for Miami but first he’ll make a journey to New York to see the ball drop in Times Square.

“The Guys said that the Ball Drop usually attracts around a half a million visitors each year. One of those people is bound to like me. Other than that and my visit to the Marine Park before the game, I better hope Oklahoma can do it.”

Norman had given Dom a lot of opportunities for success and the notion of the Stoop led Sooners always getting to the Title game had allowed him to visit great places. Just last year he was in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl and after that he knows the ins and outs of traveling. He went to his closet and grabbed his favorite Sooner possession an Adrian Pederson jersey.

“I think I’m set. Now to get to sleep. I got to get up early.” thought Dom as he turned off the light and thought ahead to his trip and his chance at destiny. The Right girl is out there I know it then Blackness overcame him.

    December 31, 2004

  The fight from LA to Miami had May on edge from the get go, what didn’t help was the 2 ½ hour flight delay in Atlanta and now just as May and Willa came into Miami Dade Mays wheels were in motion.

 “Willa, you stuck up nut were goanna be late you got to move now.” She yelled back to Willa who moved at an absolute standstill. But for Willa Ford this was her pace,  as the daughter of a West Virginian tycoon, she had been allowed to travel as free as she wanted provided she kept her grades up which was easy for her because she finished high school as her class valedictorian. That gave her parents the confidence to allow her to attend school on the west coast.

“May I got to get my bags on customs hold up, and aren’t we forgetting something else?”

 The off the cuff remark from her friend did get May thinking as Willa recovered her bag and they proceeded down the terminal to the taxi depot. “What did I forget, other than my game day accessories and trip essentials I think I have everything.” May and Willa popped in a Starbucks to ponder that as there was one close to where the taxis were.

 As May and Willa were securing their way to their hotel a lopsided Dom was just getting off of his long flight in LaGuardia. He had already set up arrangements to stay at his relatives Marine Park in Miami so lodging wasn’t a problem. What was his problem involved his IPod.

“Here we go Usher,” he thought as he switched on the 2004 hit song Yeah!

Dom made his way down the terminal well all the while the New York skyline was showing in the window where there was great outside views of the traffic and airport surroundings. The nearby taxi depot also allowed him to get a first view of greater Manhattan. The attendant was shouting directions into a nearby sound system.

“I need a pickup at 415 East 71st and you can proceed directly to 107th and Park because there is a persistent no show today.”  The surrounding is showed with phones and pictures of hotel locations so that anyone who needed to can set up arrangements. Dom switched off his IPod and proceeds to the counter

 “Excuse me sir I can’t find the hotel vans for Can I get a taxi”

The attendant simply hung up the phone and explained. “The hotel shuttle vans are on the other side of the terminal; I can send a request for a private one.”

“No I don’t mind public transit thank you anyway.” Dom responded with a coy demeanor.

He walked off and headed toward the van depot, the sun was starting to touch the very top of the buildings not much longer. The van rude into Manhattan delivered some of the most excellent scenery he had ever seen. New York had always had a great shimmer of hope and optimism rising out of the darkness of the pre 9-11 way of life. Now in this vicinity Dom had hoped to make destiny his own. It was 1:45 when they shuttle arrived in the parking lot he quickly entered the lobby and went to reception. Thankfully he sis the reservation before the football season began as he knew he wanted to go to New York, no matter what Bowl Game the Sooners needed up at. After getting all settled he watched TV for about 24 minutes, it was 3:16 when Dom exited the lobby and headed out on to the Manhattan streets all set to make NYE 2004 the best night of his life.

“Look out Times Square Dominic Scott is here to Party”

 Inside their Miami hotel room May and Willa had settled in when Willa made a stark realization

 “: May what else did we come down here for, and don’t give me the Lineart crap, we need men Dunst, actual live men;”

May walked up to her and gave the pet mop off to her hair. “Dear, will I know all that but He helped me out back in August when I first arrived, even recommending the ballroom dancing class as an elective and trust me my tango has never been better, I vowed to come to this and cheer like mad for him”

Willa scuffed a small chuckle at that notion “Maya, you’re just saying that because he thinks you’re available, millions of women across the campus pour out their hearts to him and where do they all end up.”

 May Pondered that notion while asking a very important question. “Am I setting my expectations...?”

  “…expectations way to high?” Dom thought as he touched base with the clock. After a few hours of museum hopping and mall trolling Dom finally entered the perimeter of Times Square itself. The all too familiar security checkpoints were hard enough but wearing a crapload of all day gifts made it almost impossible not to drop them. The clock on the nearby table read 8:03 as he finally got through.

 “Oh Look, 2005 hats and glasses, Dom quickly picked up a half dozen of both as he fell into line with the half million in attendance. The square had reveled in New Years Eve parties before and now he was part of the next edition of that festivity.

 It was about 2 hours later when Dom was watching the end of another act on the Dick Clark Stage on the broad side of the street bar. He turned back for the beverage stand when he ran head first into a passerby. Falling flat on his rear he was dumfounded as can be.

 “Oh crap, sir is you all right.”  The woman yelped quickly but unlike what Dom was thinking happened he was quickly helped to his feet. Dom regained his composure to chew her out

 “Why the hell did you, oh…”

 Then he saw her, the girl was a beautiful college student with long flowing black hair that stretched down to her hips. A figure that matched any recent beauty pageant winner was only complimented by one of the most beautiful faces this side of Natalie Portman. Wearing an Auburn Sugar Bowl Matchup shirt he could easily tell where her alliances lied. Regaining his train of thought Dom finally mentioned what was on his mind.

 “Man you are so beautiful, has anyone ever told you that you could be a model?”

 “No really, people have said that and I brushed it off but, oh no sir, I just got out of a 3 year commitment with a guy but he went the way of the tide and in my book Navy and Orange beats Crimson and white at all costs.”

 Realizing that she was talking about the iron bowl rivalry that Auburn and Alabama had he took a chance and reached out his hand to introduce himself.

 “Hi, I’m Dominic Larry Scott, I’m from Oklahoma and you’re really beautiful.”

 She chuckled but was able to tell his seriousness and returned the favor

 “Allison Perry Monticello” One of the most sidestepped features of Allison that Dom did not notice was a small but visible line down her left middle finger, now noticing that he was looking directly at it Allison looked away and started to pull out of his body length.

 “Wait, Allie!!” Hearing that caused her to look back, “I mean ball drops in 95 minutes so you want to hang out or something.

 Allie gave him a small look of consideration and a slight nod was all that was needed “You’re sweet lets go find a good spot”

 “Don’t worry my pretty,” Dom nonchalantly grimaced someday I’m going to own this town and all the good spots will be mine but I do know one in particular

Allison was not convinced. “Mr. Scott, now where would that be?”

 Dom simply spun her and said it “Any building that you can see Yankee Stadium from”

 With that out of the way the next 90 minutes saw Dom and Allie tracing around the road blocked perimeter set up for the ball drop. Whether getting a gander at the performances on the jumbotron or sneaking into the adjacent Toys-R-Us to pick up a gift he was by all counts the perfect gentleman. What Allie saw however was a masterpiece in the years she has been out with guys never had one caught her in a relationship so quickly but she couldn’t help it there was something about him that sealed her decision to stay with him. It was 11:58 when the two found themselves as close to the tower as possible that Allie popped her big inquiry.

 “Dom, have you ever kissed anyone at midnight?”

 That was a haunting subject as he spent most NYE’s with the family he had never really been out that much. But he gave his honest answer.

 “Once but it was a peck on the cheek to my younger sis, I really don’t think she liked it at all.”

Above them as the countdown showed 100 Allison leapt in

“Well, let’s change that.”

“Wait, Allie you seriously want to kiss me I mean you’re very beautiful and everything but I just met you.”

Dom rambled on even as the clock showed 60 as the ball began to descend and the crowd began in “60, 59, 58, 57, 56, 5...”

Allie placed her finger on his mouth

“Dom, I do admit you are much better than the other guys I met in my life…”

“…7, 46, 45, 44, 43,”

“But even your friends from Norman can’t see that you have a bigger path, I do and I think I can help you with that.”  

“…4, 33, 32, 31, 30, 2…”

 “Allie, I do admit, I see us being something more, you convinced me”

 While longing each other for 2 or 3 seconds at the 15 mark they joined in with the crowd

“12, 11, 10, 9, 8,”

All around them couples were popping champagne and kisses flew as the moment reveled in excitement.

…4, 3 2, 1, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!”

 Above Allie and Dom the 2005 sign lit up and confetti and balloons enveloped the square while below two strangers who only met a few hours before were now engaged in what was a passionate kiss. With Auld Lane Synge over the jumbotron and fresh in everyone’s hearts, Dom knew Allison was the one. For themselves they were each others keys to the future as they took “A cup of kindness yet, for Auld Layne Synge.”

[idontownabike]

Planes.

My luck with flying has been the worst, and I am NOT being dramatic.  Typically, flying is fun and exciting. I like to guess where I am; I'm always wrong but it's fun to act like I know my geography. So, how is it so bad?? Well, I have too many examples but I'll take you back in time (like 10 years back).

 BAD EXPERIENCE NO. 1

 I was about 12. For Christmas, my parents surprised all of us children with a trip to Mexico. I had only been to Canada so this was so so exciting for me. I know it was summer time, but couldn’t tell you what month it was. We drove all the way out to NYC to fly out, Laguardia to be exact, got through security and customs, got to our gate and as we were getting ready to board our flight, there was an announcement; "Any passengers traveling to Cancun, you will not make your connecting flight." GREAT. We are instructed to go back to the main check-in area because they had rebooked everybody for a different flight. What they didn’t tell us was that the flight was for the next week. Why they assumed that we could just go to Mexico for a week the WEEK AFTER we had booked our rooms and stuff was and is still beyond me. When we (when I say we, I mean my stepdad) said we needed a flight out that day/night, they told us they didn’t have any flights until the next week. Now, my stepdad is a pretty laid back guy, very calm, definition of a dad… so what happened next was 100% unexpected. He got behind the counter and started flipping out at the guy behind the desk, demanding that they find a flight for us. Us small children were scared. The man usually says "Hi hungry, I'm dad!" was now acting like a crazed maniac and, to this day, do not understand how he didn't get arrested. After hours and hours of looking for a new flight, we were able to be booked for a flight 1st thing the following morning.

Now, you would think it would end there, but it does NOT.

We arrive back to the airport the next morning and get up to the desk to check in and the women asks if myself and my brother have permission from our father to leave the country. My mom is confused since she is our real life mom and asks why we need permission if she is already there and has primary custody. Because she got remarried and has a different last name than us, there was not really any real proof that she was our mom. We called and called my dad who never answered. Great, I'm gonna have to sit in NYC while the rest of my family has a fun time in Mexico. We are able to reach my oldest brother who tells us that he will sign something and send it over. That's the day that I learned that my brother doesn't know cursive. Long story short; we made it to Mexico after 27 hours of pure panic.

 BAD EXPERIENCE NO.2

 Yes, I have another one, and more to come.

I went to visit my step-sister in Mississippi back in December of 2017 and we had a plan to drive back to NY with a puppy to surprise our parents. We were going to spend the night in Oxford and hangout and then leave and hangout in Memphis the next day and then continue the drive from there. I don't know if you all remember the snow storm that hit Atlanta, and then NYC and then everywhere else, but that is when I attempted flying out. The night before I flew out, I received a notification that my flight was cancelled due to the storm in Atlanta and I could rebook. I didn't think much of it so I just rebooked thinking I'd be just fine. I flew out to JFK and had a 5 hour layover. Everything was great, I got some food, a drink or 2, watched a movie. My next stop was Detroit and then Memphis. As it was getting closer to my departure time, other flights began getting delayed, but I checked mine over and over again. ON TIME. I was supposed to fly out at around 5:15pm and then leave Detroit at around 8:00pm. 4:00 come around I get the notification: FLIGHT DELAYED. My worst nightmare. 4:30, flight even more delayed. My flight continued being delayed and the snow started coming down harder and harder. It was now 6:00pm and I would be cutting it extremely close making my connecting flight so I hoped and prayed for a miracle. It was 6:30 and we began boarding. I checked to see how much time I’d have to book it off the plane and make it to my next flight before they left, roughly 15 minutes. What I didn't know was that our plane had to be de-iced. I was hoping that would take like 5 minutes. I also didn't know that it took about 20 minutes and that we were about 4th in line to be de-iced. That took ONE HOUR. To add to my wonderful time, we then taxied on the runway for another TWO HOURS. By the time we took off, my flight to Memphis had already landed. I spent the night in Detroit in a fabulous hotel, made it Memphis and got into a car and drove 15 hours back to New York…

 BAD EXPERIENCE NO. 3

 This story is a tad shorter. You're welcome.

 I went to Mississippi again to actually spend time there with my stepsister and booked a flight for a Friday late in the afternoon. Little did I know we were getting a snowstorm, with an estimated 4ft of snow. I got on the phone with the plane company and expressed my concern about not making it and explaining that it happened the last time I tried flying. One women told me that she didn't see a storm anywhere on the radar so I tried another customer service rep. He was so kind and put me on a 6am flight and put me in 1st class, all for free. I fly out, no problem, just to find out there was about an inch of snow on the ground and my original flight had no delays whatsoever.

 BAD EXPERIENCE NO. 4

 I travelled to Huntsville, AL for work at the end of March and had an crappy things happen on the way there and on the way back. On my way there, I was placed next to the family with 5 children who didn't know what personal space was or how to be quiet. The entire flight, all I heard was MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM and the child next to me elbowed me the entire flight and when I pointed it out to him, he continued to elbow me. His mother even saw me say something and didn’t do anything.

On the way back, I had a connecting flight in DC to Boston and had very little time to get off the plane and make it to my next flight. I told the flight attendant and she told me  "oh, you have 30 minutes, you'll be fine." I took her word for it, but didn’t realize that I was seated all the way in the back of the plane. We land and we slowly deplane. I get off the tarmac and began looking for where I need to go. I had to go to the terminal one over from the one where I was so I start doing a light jog; I had about 15 minutes until the doors closed. I turn the corner and noticed that I had to go back through security to get into the terminal! I panic because the line was very very long. I see the TSApre boarding lane and go in and tell the guy there that my flight left in 10 minutes. He was very nice and let me go ahead but then I was stuck behind a family with 3 kids and they were taking their sweet time. I was able to tell the security guard that my flight was leaving in less than 5 minutes and he let me skip the line and run through. I barely made it, but I made it.

 BAD EXPEREIENCE NO. 5

 Almost done, I swear.

 When I flew out to Boston for a quick visit, I had no issues until I had to fly back home. It was about 10:00pm and there was an announcement that our plane and another plane were arriving at the exact same time at the same gate  and it was like a fight to see who got to board first. Luckily, it was my flight and I got home at a decent hour.

 BAD EXPERIENCE NO. 6

 This is the last one!!

 I am currently flying home from a trip to Florida and the child in front of me is yelling and standing on his seat and jumping up and down and his mom and dad are not doing ANYTHING to control him and it is beyond annoying.

My flight on the way there was smooth sailing except for the fact that  we were supposed to fly out at 6:45am and didn't leave until 7:30 because they didn't have anyone certified to tow the plane to the gate. How on earth????

 Update: Little boy mentioned before just got told to sit down by a flight attendant and he then proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs. This is NOT what I signed up for.

   Stay tuned for more horrible flight experiences that I have, I'm sure there are more to come!

[quirkyqirl]

I was over excited about this trip but I am slowly getting a mild case of the blues. Let’s begin with how the day began, I woke up at 7 am showered and made sure I had everything packed for this trip. I was maybe overzealous with the planning but everything went as planned as far as the itinerary. There was this guy on the shuttle to the airport who kind of rubbed me the wrong way. He skipped six empty seats to sit by me of all people.

My bag was overloaded so instead of putting in the bag compartment I sat it next to me. The shuttle was anyways so I figured no major issue. This guy decides to sit next to me for whatever reason and just took the notion to move my bag out the way. So, I exchanged words with him with no response back from him. I later came to the assumption that he didn’t speak English.

I was feeling maybe a bit petty so I stared him down until I believe he got uncomfortable and started fidgeting and playing with his phone. To my dismay, I learned he spoke English very well so he understood exactly what I had said.   My flight was delayed and a full flight at that, but somehow I managed to get a second-row seat. The lady next to me whispers to her husband not many people traveling along on this flight. Boy, don’t remind me! I get to Jose Marti Airport and waited through another line once I passed through customs.

They opened another line and people almost knocked me down to rush and get to it. We get through their checkpoint and  had to wait for our checked bags. I waited almost 30 minutes panicking only to find out my bag was on the carousel behind me. I rushed to use the bathroom that has no seats and door doesn’t lock but hey my bladder was full. Then I rushed over to the currency exchange in another building. I previously already exchanged US currency for Canadian currency.

I was hailed by anxious cab drivers  on my way to the  exchange area once I got over there it was another line I waited in. I had exchanged US dollars early this morning to Canadian currency only to get literally the same amount back. So, for 245 Canadian dollars, I got a whopping 180 cuc back.  I just sucked it up and left the building only to see that one cab driver that had been following me waiting for me. I was a tad creeped out but I said to myself what the hell.

He took me to my destination and didn’t rip me off either. I begin to climb the stairs when a rather decent looking guy comes rushing down saying my name. I said yes that’s me he grabbed my heavy bag and we went up more stairs. I was little confused because the Airbnb host picture I had seen was not him. But I learned he was the host son. When I got to the apartment he begins questioning me how I got there.

I said I arrived by cab and he points at his dad and said he sent a cab for you. Of course, I forgot I asked for a cab to be sent and the dad was not to please by his facial expression. He called the driver and I guess explained the situation. He didn’t speak English and didn’t have many manners either from first impressions. The whole time while his son translated he never acknowledged me.

The son gave me some half-assed directions to get a Wi-Fi card and how to get to a grocery store. Showed me how to use the keys and in my opinion, rushed off. When I did finally decide to go for a little adventure I found I was locked in the apartment from the outside. I stood there like a deer in headlights fumbling with the keys. The only thing that saved me was a teenage boy appeared at the next apartment doing something I have yet to figure out what exactly.

I asked for help and he tried to in Spanish, but something is dawn on me to hand him the keys to unlock from the outside. It worked to my surprise and his as well. For an hour I walked around got lost and still didn’t find the Wi-Fi card place. I got quite a few stares and some catcalls from men. At this point, I am rather down my last trip to Cuba last year I felt was better.

I stayed in Cojimar and now I am in La Playa. I want to remain positive but I am feeling a tad lonely. No real restaurants or anything I have yet to discover. But tonight, is a full moon maybe I will be surprised. I am going to try to find this Wi-Fi card place again now.

Well, I eventually found the Wi-Fi place and purchase a card for 3 Cuban dollars for 1hr. The place is like a park and the young male teenagers sell them. Once I left I went to a restaurant ordered a daiquiri and their version of cordon bleu chicken with beans and rice accompanied with a salad. When I came back to the apartment it took about 10 minutes to get through the first gate because of the lock. Once I passed that obstacle the apartment door wouldn’t open at all.

I started panicking and kept trying, for about three hours I was outside and it was chilly. My internet wasn’t working at all but I thought it wasn’t smart to go to the park now at night. I called my ex-boyfriend in the states to get help. He tried to find my host on his Airbnb app but could not. So, I went on my app and something told me to hit the call host link and it worked.

He picked right up but gave the phone to his daughter who spoke English. He was there in 10 minutes, I handed him the keys he got through the first gate then went to the apartment gate. The same problems occurred but somehow he fixed it for the moment at least. He called his daughter to tell me that it had never happened before and basically, he is sorry. Well after a night of some rest am ready for the next adventure.

I went out to find some sort of breakfast and followed the Airbnb host son directions to find the markets. Funny thing is I am always getting lost but I managed to find the markets easily. I settle for some sort of pig in the blanket type of meal with a small cup of Pina colada. I only ate the bread because the meat was not to be trusted by the look of it. Once I finished I walked back and was wooed by a guy name Selz I believe.

From what I understood he wants to marry me and he is a competitive dancer. His house has a palm tree in front of it. We had a rather odd conversation with two different languages. He bought me some churros which were just ok in taste. This little lady came out of nowhere begging for pesos.

Selz and the churros guy told her basically to stop begging from what I understand by their actions. Both saying she is American leave her be from what I am learning Cubans are proud people. I finally found an escape from Selz and just told him I will come back when its dark. I am not opposed to a fling but he just was not my cup of tea. So now I am back at the apartment watching some English movie in front of an old-school fan. I wonder what’s next for me I am curious.

So, after watching Zorro which was my Papi favorite movie I took a long nap. I went out at 5 pm to go get a Wi-Fi card. Just as I  am making it down the block I hear somebody screaming MIAMI!!!. Turns out it was Selz with his friend drinking and walking, Cuba is always alive I am learning. His friend greets me and Selz continue to tell him how he wants to marry me.

The friend’s house was on the way to the Wi-Fi place, he took a picture of me and Selz together afterward I use the one hour to contact my friends and update social media, keep up with what’s going on in my neck of the woods. Selz was infatuated with Instagram and looking at all my friend’s crazy pictures and some of my minds. He explained to me that he was leaving Monday to go work on a project in Valdero. Tonight, we are meeting up at 8 pm to go see old Havana. I was mesmerized with old Havana last year and can’t wait to see it again.

Well I met up with him and we walked around and he showed me  his home. Then he took me to this house that prepared meals for sale. That was the best meal I’ve tasted in a while which consisted of pork chops ,beans and rice with tomatoes and sweet potatoes. We then went to see if his friend was home who works at a music place. He wasn’t there and my bladder was about to burst.

He took me to his brother house to use his restroom. After seeing it I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use it there was no door or running water. But when a girl must go she must go! Well we finally caught one bus to get to Havana I assumed but he was still looking for his friend and we went to his job. He was stuck on taking me to hear the music.

We finally went to catch another bus and when it came everybody rushed to get on. I was so anxious I didn’t notice my foot had slipped into a pothole and twisted. He caught me as I lost my footing and said “Dale”. I was in so much pain the bus was packed so I had to stand the whole ride. I was located behind the back door so when it open either my face kept getting hit or my foot.

I had already started to regret even going out. We got to the location and he had to help me get down. He kept asking was I in pain a lot and I started to get a little angry. He had to stop for everything like a hotdog and drinks. I was in pain and it was ridiculous that he still was full of energy wanting to go dance.

We kept walking around aimlessly and I finally said get a cab I want to leave. For three hours cabs passed us by not going to La Playa. So, we walked further down to where the buses came we missed two because I couldn’t run and they were over packed. Kids were hanging from the doors because they didn’t want to wait for another ride. Kids were everywhere drinking and gyrating, breaking the glass and running behind each other.

It was alive but I couldn’t get over the pain my foot was in. Finally, a bus going to La Playa came and thank goodness it was not over packed. People were still trying to push people out the way to get on the bus. Selz kept saying this is Cuba this is Cuba meaning this is how it is. I was dozing off on the bus amidst all the noise and yelling that the kids were making.

Finally, it stopped and I wanted to cry when I saw the stone say we were only on Calle 60 and I needed to make it to Calle 66 and 13. So more walking on my foot and Selz kept wanting to stop at stores to buy fresco and I wanted to just go home. So, he walked me to my apartment slowly but surely and watched me go up. I never hated stairs so much and of course, I started experiencing issues with the first lock but finally, it opened. I took my sneakers off and my foot was so swollen I wasn’t sure if it was broken or sprained. I just got immediately in bed thinking that rest would heal my pain.

When I woke up I was proven wrong, the swelling was huge and I barely could walk. So, I made myself shower and the hot water made it somewhat better in feeling and I forced myself to stand up for some time. I am not sure how my last day in La Playa will be I still need to get some Wi-Fi and food and make sure I have a cab to the airport tomorrow. How will I manage to do that with and swollen foot?

Well, the Airbnb host son came by while I was watching old movies on the flat screen in my apartment. He asked how my stay had been and I told him I found everything well, but I needed a cab to get to the airport tomorrow. He suggested I walk to the hotel and I explained I had sprained my ankle. So, he said he would come by later to see what can be done. He did return around 5 pm and said his dad will come for the key in the morning and they arrange a cab for me.

That was finally done but I really wanted to speak with my friends and get some food. I forced myself down the stairs and began the short but long walk since my new condition. I felt so different the stares and dragging my foot along the walk. But eventually, I got to the park where they sold the Wi-Fi cards at. I use my whole hour and my way up to the street to the first restaurant I had dined at.

I ordered food and a mojito and sat there contemplating my trip. I ventured back to the apartment and felt super groggy. I made it in the apartment and once again I struggled with the first gate. When eventually one of the tenants came out to help me and explained how the lock has been causing problems. I was like finally from the whole trip someone hears me struggling with this darn gate.

Once inside I packed and passed out after setting my alarm. I woke up before my alarm and listened to the sounds of Cuba. Chickens and whistles and the start of the morning in the neighborhood. I showered and tried to play with my foot to get it working I guess you can say. Shortly after there was a slight knock on the door.

It was Diego the Airbnb host to check the place out and wait for the cab with me. The driver came in his aged cab and Diego helped me and told me to be easy on my foot. He said adios and told me how much the cab would be and we pulled off. I am back home after a pretty easy flight and great margarita mix. I hope I have not bored you with my long blog. And that you don’t assume my take on the trip was negative I just wanted to let you know everything that occurred.

If you would like to travel to Cuba I have some tips that may come in handy for you. The tips are below: 

Do your research on Cuba and its borough’s there is about 15 in total.

If you are traveling from USA our dollar is nothing there try to exchange to Euro or Canadian before you go. (Get smaller bills)

Everything is pretty cheap I didn’t even spend all the money I had brought.

You will have to purchase a wi-fi card unless your service works there.

Drink bottle water versus faucet water.

Cuba lacks in finances so don’t expect over the top luxury but a richness in culture.

Some places may not have common toiletries or you may get charged for a to go box like I did.

If you have an airline credit card try to purchase your flight through their rewards program. I purchase through my SouthWest  rewards and my total was the flight taxes only. Which was only 70 bucks this tip can be used for any flights.

Next is pictures from my trip:

 Well I will be doing and YouTube vlog about my travels to La Playa,Cuba which will include more pictures and video footage,see you guys on the next blog !!

  My Visit to La Playa ,Cuba I was over excited about this trip but I am slowly getting a mild case of the blues.

[opepin]

september: week two

04: we got out of bed pretty late. we were exhausted from traveling so late yesterday. i did a bit of cleaning up and doing some household errands  / internet errands for myself. we ate chicken nuggets and potstickers for brunch and then went straight into playing overcooked. we beat the main game! the last level was pretty hard because you were only given a certain amount of time for different foods to make. then we played a bit of battleblock theater before meal planning and getting groceries from kam man; it was a quick trip. kevin played some overwatch after putting away the food and i continued doing things on my to-do list haha. then i did a hiit workout with my old mizunos i brought back -- they’re not cutting it LOL so i think i’ll bring them back home during thanksgiving for my mom to donate with the other shoes. i think for now, i am leaning towards working out in the yoga studio with my adidas. i’m still thinking about getting the white ones but when they’re on sale mayhaps. anyway, after exercising, i made rice and made the pico de gallo part of our makeshift chipotle burrito bowls. kevin made the chicken.

we ate our pretty healthy dinner while watching an episode of agents of shield and then we went into playing another co-op game. i think it’s called something force? i forget, but it’s more fighting-based. it took some time to hook it up so i talked with vivian for a bit and then once kevin figured it out, we got into the groove of the game. i actually did an abs workout as well today after. i put on the rest of ‘the break up’ on netflix and worked out while finishing the movie. it was too late for me to wash my hair so i just took a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and headed into bed. i was struck with sleepiness during my shower haha. i think kevin showered soon after and went to sleep too. zzzz. it was 1 am though and we felt like it was 12 am (it would be the case if we were back in chicago).

05: i was so dehydrated when i woke up x_x i did 30 minutes of cardio and then kevin left for work and i ran some errands before working. i washed my hair today and i felt so cleeeaaan. then i went downstairs to drop off a package mistakenly put into the concierge locker under my name and also pick up my package from eggie!!! it was just a normal box but when i opened it, my black blazer was covered in an eggie bag, it was on a hanger, and there was a cute eggie zip bag in there that i can use to hold skincare or make up for flights! i can’t really tell what it looks like because i don’t have a full body mirror, but it looks and feels amazing! then i started doing laundry and used the new mesh bags i got on amazon to wash my sports bras, bras, and delicate shirts. after all of that, i hopped on a client call and then cleaned out my email and ordered another sports bra from aerie just in case i run out again...haha. i ate lunch while catching up on youtube videos and then went to work a bit on wireframes.

after stand up, i talked with phil about my wireframing and i basically have to make new ones, which frustrates me a bit because dave and phil didn’t really communicate what they wanted from me? or at least, when they decided to switch gears, i wasn’t involved in that conversation so all my wireframes are ‘not attached to real life situations’ right now. ugh. the good thing is that these wireframes are probably going to be easier to mock up. after the call, i folded laundry and then finished some errands and then did a bit of work on the wireframes. i want to double-check with dave as well before diving in so we’re all on the same page... i did some of the beginnings of the wireframes and then i took a break and worked out. i did thighs today and they burned like crazy. then i showered while the chicken and rice cooked. kevin got back later than i expected so i ended up nomming on my chicken and then ended up just eating dinner before he came back. we watched agents of shield and then i became pretty obsessed with finding what shoes kelsey wells, an instagram fitness star, wore. LOL. she had three pairs that i was super curious about and they were all adidas so that was a start. i ended up pinpointing that she has the black adidas adipure 360.3s, black ultra boosts, and black/turquoise pure boost x’s,

this gives me a lead on what shoes to get for training again. i also noticed she wears the shit out of her white edge lux shoes ;D this was what i was going to get if all else fails but i didn’t want to get the same shoe in a different color because i own the black/white ones. anyway, i really like the shock yellow pure boost x runners and the black / dark grey / sunglow pure boost x trainers. the adipure 360.3s would make more sense for me to get but i don’t just want a plain black sneaker ;( anyway, kevin and i also spent some time figuring out flights for holidays. i might get my family to come over for thanksgiving and then for christmas, fly out dec 18th to st. louis to hang with the chen fam and then fly back to chicago for christmas and new years. tickets for thanksgiving are so expensive thoooo. i’ll figure it out. with all the shoe research i did at night, i went to sleep later than i wanted to (12 am) but i still ko’d real quick.

06: i woke up at 7:15 am and then felt really awake but then slept for like 10 more minutes lol. i did a cardio kickboxing workout in the morning, showered, and then ate breakfast. i decided to wear my new eggie tuxedo blazer today; it blew in the wind like crazy but i felt so cool ahahha. there were severe delays on the red line coming from both ways -- cole messaged me in the morning and said he was basically stuck for like an hour on the train x_x; so i took my time in the morning but i still ended up taking an hour to get to work. i got to work before 10 am though :P i found out where the ups drop box is inside the building -- there’s a fedex one here too! then i did a bit more adidas shoe research and got to work. it felt like a pretty short day because we had a 1.5 hour meeting for all-hands. i finished up my wireframes for the day and did some internet errands before the meeting. it was an in person meeting so we all had to go upstairs to a conference room. we all hopped in an elevator and then met some people in the conference room. i didn’t know what was happening. i got to snack on some sweets before the meeting started. so by the time i post this, the news will be out, but my company, t7, has been acquired by genpact.

nothing is changing culture-wise and work-wise yet so i’m not sure what the effects are going to be on the company, but it seems like a symbiotic relationship and i hope this goes well! lol, it’s funny because i said i would probably never want to work under a huge corporation and now i am. x_x we’ll see how i’ll feel about this. the meeting went a bit over 5:30 but i stayed a bit and mingled until kevin got to south station. he waited for me so we would go home together <3 i told him the news and then we went back home. we chilled a bit too long before he cooked and i exercised. i did pretty intense oblique exercises because i feel like i haven’t been at my best recently and i feel blech all around -- eating and working out. i think it’s more of my stomach troubles though because my stomach has been hurting nonstop for a few weeks. anyway, i made sure i worked out my obliques real good but i was super hungry after and i ate a bigger portion of noodles than i should have...

needless to say, i went to sleep bloated ): ugh. i need to eat earlier too. man, i should take my own advice. lol. we ate at like 9:30 pm so that’s pretty late. we watched an episode of agents of shield and because we slacked off when we came back home, we couldn’t game together. i was exhausted and went to sleep at 12 am...because i was on my phone before sleeping lol. gg me.

07: man, i need to sleep earlier with at least 30 minutes of no electronics before sleeping... i woke up tired again x( i did a cardio sculpt routine in the morning and then showered and took forever to figure out what i was going to wear in the rainy/humid weather :/ then i ate breakfast and waited for the train for like 10 minutes :/ womp womp. my train slowly moved and then stopped and told everyone to get off at jfk/umass so we waited for the next train. i got to work an hour late again but when i got in, no one was in the product office...lol. i talked to cole for a bit before going to the new members brunch for wework. we got free french toast <3 we ate and talked for a bit and then headed downstairs to get back to work. i made a few changes to the wireframes and then decided that i would leave work probably after the 2 hour training session phil and i had at 1 pm. my stomach was not feeling ok though. i decided to leave during lunch time because my stomach was feeling pretty bad. i got home and just had calls for the rest of the afternoon. after work, i did a weighted booty workout and then i showered and relaxed. kevin got back home from climbing and we ate leftovers while watching an episode of agents of shield and we got to play a bit of battleblock theater before kevin washed the dishes and cooked lunch for tomorrow. lol i ko’d on the bed while waiting for 12 am to arrive so i could wish vivian a happy birthday <3 i woke up at like 11:50 pm and then brushed and got into bed, typed up a message, sent it, and then stayed up on my phone until 1 am LOLLLL. -__-” i was so close to sleeping early and healthily T_T

08: i slept in today and got up when kevin did. then i ate breakfast before i did a strength workout in the morning. i’m going to focus on strength stuff moving forward and cut down my cardio. i need to change up my schedule a bit. after, i showered, and then got on a call with phil and a client. i picked up my aerie package and saw that they sent me the wrong shirt :( so i live chatted customer service and they were pretty much useless... so then i decided to call. i also found out that my zappos returns was just sent to me as store credit -_- so i had to email customer service on that. blech. today i feel a bit unfulfilled. i got on stand up after eating lunch. i recorded a video tutorial before the end of the work day and then went straight into another strength workout. i think i worked on back and arms. kevin came back early and we played some coop games before eating dinner and watching agents of shield. i was expecting us to sleep early but we didn’t lololol. we gamed after dinner as well and yeah, it didn’t feel like we were going to be moving tomorrow. i think we slept somewhat late but planned to get up early tomorrow... well, at least i did LOL. oh, the ae rep i called was super helpful and let me keep the wrong shirt, gave me a refund, and ordered the correct one at the price i bought it for previously! he was great. i also got my zappos return back on my credit card. woot! yup, lots of things happening.

09: kevin got out of bed at like 11 am. i thought we were supposed to wake up early today :P haha. we ate breakfast and then signed our lease and then we got a cart and started moving. it was sort of a moving blur today. lol i kept thinking about when i was going to eat next haahah. we moved all the entryway stuff, then clothes, and then to actual furniture. we didn’t want to deal with the bed in the morning so we left that for last. we used all of our suitcases in storage to move everything and some plastic bins as well. you’d think it’d be easy to move down a couple hallways but it was still a struggle. the cart we had kept veering off to the left too. ahha. well, we moved from 12 pm or so until 6 or 7 pm. we left the cart outside of our apartment just because it didn’t seem right to keep it inside. we ordered takeout fro kkatie’s burgers and i got a veggie black bean burger again because i need that fiber. i also got green fries, which turned out to be green beans ahah. kevin got the hawaiian burger with curly fries. we put away things that we could. while we moved, kevin and i noticed things that might be a problem. for example, there is no built-in spice rack anymore and i realized that our kitchen cabinet space was cut by about half because the kitchen only takes up one wall...

so little things here and there were noticed but the windows and light coming into the apartment soothed my worries haha. we drove to get the food and then kevin popped in oh my tea to get us some boba too. we ate at home while watching agents of shield and then once we digested and everything, we opened the door only to find that the cart was gone. .___. kevin looked on all the floors to check if there were any anywhere. there are 3 carts in the building for use: two smaller, shorter ones and one tall one where you can hang stuff on. we had the tall one. this meant that we couldn’t move our mattress and bed frame. this meant we would have to carry all the cups and pantry stuff in boxes. by this time, our arms and backs were tired. so then we did some organization in the new apartment. then we both went to look for a cart a couple more times. we even reached on out the facebook group -- we had a lead but nadda. this means that someone in the apartment flippin’ took it inside their apartment and didn’t bother to put it back in an common area. -__-”

kevin was tired so he relaxed on his computer for a bit after he set it up. we set up the den area with our computers and stuff, which was nice :) we also picked out a kitchen shelf for our pots and pans and pantry items / stuff we couldn’t fit into our cabinets. then i went back to the old apartment and started cleaning the crap out of the kitchen and bathroom. kevin came by to help vacuum and swiffer later. after that, we just chilled on the sofa in the new apartment. we checked one last time to see if any of the three carts were returned but nope. so we went and got our sleeping clothes from the old apartment, showered in the new apartment, and then went back to the old apartment to sleep. yup. great. lol. we did ko super quickly though. i think we went to sleep at 1 or 2 am. moving is tiring even if you’re in the same apartment complex x__x;

10: kevin actually woke up at 9:30 am :O we had to walk over to the new apartment from the old one (where we slept) and then get ready for the day. we pretty much skipped breakfast and then drove to target to pick up the kitchen shelf. i got benefiber and kevin got glazed apple fritters because he got hungry. we waited a bit for them to bring the shelf up and we also looked at other furniture and found a nice ottomon we liked :) it was cheaper online so we decided to get it there. we got everything and then went back to the apartment. the office didn’t open until 12 pm so kevin built the shelf while i went back to the old apartment and brought all the fridge stuff and leftover pantry stuff over. i was cleaning like crazy and walking back and forth a lot and my body kind of freaked out. my hands were red and started shaking so i ate some food and rested a bit. then we finally got a cart and i went back to the old apartment to clean the fridge -- it was dirty af. kevin helped me and then i finished cleaning the apartment in its entirety after that. :D

we also moved the dresser and all the artwork. moving the mattress tested my frustrations LOL. -__-’ it was a floppy queen sized mess but we made it! kevin had to take the head board of the bed frame off and then we moved the light headboard and then moved the big af bed frame. it was so heavy x_O we got it and then celebrated a bit. we fixed up our room and then went to vacuum the old apartment once more and said goodbye to it :( then we dropped off our keys and laid on the bed for a bit to rest. then we drove to ikea! ikea is only a 10 - 15 min drive from us! it looked like an amusement park when we drove in. there were a lot of flags. i noticed that kevin was just overwhelmed by everything and asked if it was his first time in a physical ikea LOL. it was his first time as an adult in an ikea :OOOOO we went straight to the restaurant and i got the vegetable meatballs and an almond brittle cake and apple pie slice, kevin got the swedish meatballs and cheese pie, and we split a plate of chicken and waffles. all of this was only $26!!! i got the lingonberry fountain drink and it was so refreshing. the vegetable meatballs were kinda meh because of the artichokes in the sauce x( i’m always going to get the swedish meatballs from now on.

after eating, i guided kevin through the showroom and taught him how everything worked. we actually got everything we needed...and more... kevin was addicted to getting stuff and we had to kind of run through the last sections of ikea because he was scared he was going to buy more things LOL. we got a dining table, 6-drawer chest, and a large mirror and sent that for home delivery because those things were loooonggg. we also got 2 really pretty serving dishes, jars, drawer organizers for the kitchen and clothes, baskets for the kitchen shelf, and some orange marmalade. after shopping, i got us an ice cream cone, hot dog, and cinnamon roll for only $2.75. i love ikea. we’ll be back! we still need dining room chairs so yeah... we got home, cleaned the apartment and put things away the best we could. there was a foul fishy stench coming from where we stored the potatoes and the dish washer so i thought the former tenants didn’t clean the dish washer properly because there was gunk on the sides... we cloroxed it and then ran a cycle with vinegar but even after, it still stank. we pulled out the potatoes and found a rotten black ass potato and i asked kevin to sniff it and he’s basically traumatized now LOOOL. it was the rotten potato... i didn’t know that potatoes could smell like that???

well, i watched youtube videos for a while, kevin gamed, and then i showered and noticed that the water kept draining slowly... ugh. then i watched more videos until kevin showered and we called it a night. it was like 2 something am when we went to sleep. i was definitely going to wfh. both of us are exhausted from moving this weekend... we are ded. our apartment is looking really nice though <333

[twistedcurlgirl]

My Entitlement Switch

I will start from the very beginning. It seems to me the best place to start. If I told you only of the moment my ego kicked in shouting ‘’PRIVILEGED WHITE WOMAN WITH USA PASSPORT COMING THROUGH,’’ I think you would miss my evolvement getting there. 

So here we go from the tippy top.

As you may or may not know there have been recent restrictions made on which electronic devices can fly into the UK and USA from certain countries, one being Turkey where I was flying from to London to meet my sister for the weekend. 

Having read this update, my Kindle was out and ready for questioning. I start chatting with others in line, as I usually do, to discuss our mutual uncertainty of our varying electronics. ‘’This’ll pass the 19 cm long test, right?’’ I finally ask a British Airways desk attendant with what appeared to be a plastic board for us to test our items. I also noticed the plastic stated ‘’NO ROUND POWERBANKS’’ quite boldly. ‘’Sorry, no, just a smidge too long. You’ll have to check it.’’ Now there was something here, a little voice that said, ‘’Hey mister, check again - I am not paying for a checked bag just for this new law and there is no post office at the airport to send it back to my apartment in Istanbul soooooooooooo ...’’ 

It was the long so-oo that caught my compassion and I quieted myself before saying or thinking anything else that might encourage resentment. ‘’Hmm,’’ I looked around, ‘’anyone already checking a back I could slip this into?’’ A few said they would but couldn’t because they were already unsure of their carry-on weight; although, I heard ‘’never take something from another passenger’’ echoing through my head and realized there could be another reason no one was volunteering for this quest. Until 2 women traveling with many bags said they would ‘’of course’’ take it. I handed it off and let them try ahead of me at the ticket counter. However, realizing they hadn’t paid for luggage prior they moved to the side to repack and I moved up in line leaving them to sort ‘their’ luggage issue without hesitation. 

The representative questioned why I gave them my kindle and went on to explain she’d check my luggage because of the new restrictions. ‘’Yeah, as long as it has no round powerbanks you’ll be fine.’’ I lied, and put the one that was fully charged from my purse into the checked bag. It was within the new policy that anyone who bought their ticket before the new law was in place would be able to check a bag FOR FREE. My mouth said, ‘’Oh, that’s wonderful, I will grab my kindle and come back to check this pack,’‘ but my ego said ‘‘THAT’s more like it,’’ and stuck it’s nose in the air. I am not sure it came back down because here is what happened next. 

‘‘Right ladies, thanks so much for taking the Kindle but they will check my bag for free so I will take it back and do that.’‘ ‘‘Oh good news for you darling, here is the Kindle and could you possibly take this as your carry-on now that you don’t have one? It seems we are over on weight and are only allowed 1 carry-on each.’‘ ‘‘Of course, just get it tagged?’‘ I said, presuming obviously they wouldn’t expect me to go through security with their bag. ‘‘Well ya, but also go through the check point with us. Oh, and have you any money? We don’t have a credit card or enough money to check these bags on us so we are at a lost as to what we should do.’‘ I didn’t have the money on me, but I did have a credit card that I didn’t offer up. After I got the carry-on luggage tagged, I returned and quickly excused myself to use the toilet and get a coffee before take off. They understood completely and I headed for security, without their carry-on. I slipped away, and even though my heart wanted to help more - I could have and didn’t. This is when I probably should have noticed all my rights & wrongs were shifting around. 

The line was quick and painless as now I only had a purse with me. A couple of the friendlies from the line before and I started chatting. After we got through, we looked at the flight board and decided we all needed a coffee after all the electronics hiccups we each had. When checking out, I offered to pay for the lot of drinks, having adapted to Turkish hospitality I felt it only right to act as hostess. ‘’No, I couldn’t possibly allow that. However, your kindness has been noted and karma accrued.’’ We giggled it off, but I wonder now if that karma only paid off the debt I’d just withdrew for the free checked bag and leaving those kind women to sort themselves without my financial or moral support.

Last matter with the Aussies, a trade of local vs tourist. One of them needed a Turkish stamp, which I happened to have in my wallet and gladly offered. I also mentioned there was no post office in the airport. I promised to mail it when I returned to İstanbul on Monday, but only having the tiny purse with me I encouraged him to give it to me when we collected our baggage in London. İn return he asked if I needed help where I was heading once we landed. Grateful for the information alone, he also offered up his Oyster Card - I just couldn’t believe my luck. Here it is again - My Luck. As in the luck I deserve and own rightfully because I have been kind.

Together we go to gate and find the 2 women being searched. ‘’They let us through with all 3 bags, but now they are taking issue with them,’’ one said to me as I took a seat. Once they finished they sat down and whispered a bit about needed to reach their nephew and brother to pick them up and bring the funds for the nice man who came to their rescue and paid for the extra baggage at the ticket counter. ‘’I can help!’’ Eager to make up for leaving them stranded I handed them my phone with unlimited data and insisted they use it to call their family in London. ‘’Phew, that was a karmic close one,’’ I thought to myself.

Passing them to enter the plane, I overheard one last call for my salvation. ‘‘Only 1 carry-on bag ma’am.’‘ Before I realize my own actions, I have scooped up the 3rd carry-on and thanked the women for watching it for me as I went to the toilet. Redemption! We all get situated on the plane and thank each other for everything we tried to do to get each other (and all our stuff) on the flight.

Once aboard, a new set of twists emerged. For starters, the Captin informed us that we would be waiting an additional 20 minutes or so before take off as someone had been removed from the flight, but they needed time to remove his baggage as well. 

I found my seat and though the 2 friends I had yet to make moved out of the way for me to take it, I had to pee first and made them sit back down. 

Finally ready, I sit down and take off, we all introduce ourselves. ‘’Right, so I can already tell you’re nice but possibly dreadfully irritating and likely to cause me great grief on this flight,’’ said the chap, Sam from London. ‘’Ah-ha, he is just annoyed you had to pee. He doesn’t understand we are women, of course we will pee before the flight,’’ said the dentist, Elif from İstanbul. ‘’Welp, this should be fun,’’ said my ego, Maggie from NYC.

Just in time to break our awkward introductions a man starts to search the overheads, feverishly looking for his bag. An attendant followed behind him and dropped a hand-carved wooden tavla board on a woman’s head. ‘’Oh dear, look what I’ve done. I’ve dropped this on your head. Are you alright? I am so sorry, I will get you some ice. Really, I do apologize about that. On the bright side, he’s found his bag. It’s  quite a nice bag, actually .. soft. Not like the hard one I dropped on your head.”

At this point the 3 of us are dying laughing and bonding over the fact that we all found this other person’s injury delightfully amusing. 

'’Look look, her she comes with the ice.’’ ‘’ Right, we will make a report about the ice,’’ said the flight attendant.“Could I give back the ice and not report this?” said the injured. At this point the 3 of us as well as the rows beind us were all in hysterics. ‘’We’ll fill it out you’ll just sign, but we won’t force you to sign. We aren’t United Airlines - we won’t force you to do anything,” which encouraged many more chuckles followed by a long awkward silence which was finally broken by Sam, ‘’Are are we in a rom-com? Is Hugh Grant gonna come pop out the back?’’ This might have gotten more laughs had the Captin not then come on AGAIN to inform us of an additional delay, a medical issue. Good thing for them we were delayed for the baggage removal, unless of course it was the stress of waiting that sent this passenger into their emergency.

Nothing tickled me more than the Captin making the announcement to switch off laptops and put our tray tables away TWICE before take off while we all reminded each other of the new laws and the fact that we couldn't bring them on the plane, much less switch them off now.

‘‘Right, well, I wasn’t planning on drinking on this flight, but I think we better,’‘ said Sam, and once we were airborn (1.5 hours delayed) that’s exactly what we did.

Now the flight itself was perfect, at least that is what I remember from our cocktail party in the sky. It was only upon my entrance to the UK where my trip picked up any turbulence.

‘‘Oh Maggie, where is your landing card?’‘ Elif asked, wide-eyed and serious. ‘‘What landing card? I wasn’t given anything on the flight.’‘ ‘‘Ya, you definitely need one, here I carry extra and here is a pen,’‘ Sam offered. Those two were true buds now. I knew I had filled the card out incorrectly, I crossed something out and wrote next to it the correct answer, but I had no idea this would mean .. well just keep up because this part goes fast.

The line was moving quite slowly, and I noticed a family in a waiting area being questioned by one of the customs agents. ‘’Why don’t you have return tickets though? How long do you plan to stay? Why are you here?’’ were just a few of the questions I overheard. ‘’Well, we are from Syria and I am going to try to get a job here.’’ She said it so innocently, but I knew she’d just signed her own deportation paperwork.

I was next in line. The agent I saw in the waiting area came to booth 28, a significant number for me and I saw it as divine luck I was in store to get it. ‘’Here I go,’’ I giggled to Elif, who had been warning me to be respectful (and sober) to the agents. ‘’Don’t be nice even, make no jokes Maggie, I am serious.’’

‘‘Right well I see you either couldn’t be bothered to fill out your landing card or you are a total idiot,’‘ Customs Agent 565 announced loudly. I said nothing at first, just handed him my passport. Elif, already through, waited for me on the other side, noticing my smile had been wiped clean. 

‘‘Are you dumb as well? I said you didn’t fill out the landing card,’‘ he shouted as he ripped up the one I had filled out (albeit with one mistake). 

‘’Hey! Wait, what? I know I crossed something out but I did fill that out.’’ This was Strike 1, defending myself. 

‘‘Why are you here?'’ 

‘’I am here to visit my sister for the weekend.’’ 

‘’So when do you leave?’’ 

‘’Monday morning.’’ 

‘’Show me your return ticket.’’ 

‘’We took off nearly 2 hours late and as you probably know the airline now won’t let us travel with powerbanks.’’ Strike 2, dead phone.

‘’How is that my problem? If you can’t prove you have a return ticket, why should I let you in the country?’’ 

This was it - this was the moment I heard it. ‘’WHITE WOMAN WITH USA PASSPORT! THAT’S WHY YOU SHOULD LET ME IN!’’ Of course instead I just recited his badge number to him, told him he shouldn’t be treating ‘me’ this way and asked if there was someone else I could talk to. Just then he noticed Elif waiting and I motioned for just 1 minute to her with a smirk. Strike 3. ‘’İf you and your friend think this is a joke, I will show you it isn’t. Come with me.’’

He took me to the same area where he had been questioning the family earlier. There was also a man bleeding from his head, a mother with a crying baby and a small boy who looked to be on his own. ‘’Take a seat,’’ 565 said. I sat down in shock that I would be put in ‘this’ area with ‘these’ people. ‘’Don’t sit there, sit over there,’’ 565 motioned toward the injured man. ‘’No thank you, I am fine here.’’ ‘’I said move,’’ 565 shouted. ‘’I said no,’’ I situated in my seat. No longer alone he quickly changed his tone with me and decided not to push it further. ‘’I will be back in 10 minutes once your passport clears.’’

I was only in this waiting area about 15 minutes before I started to complain. ‘’He said 10 minutes,’’ I said to the female agent in the area with us. ‘’I shouldn’t talk to you,’’ she actually said that more than once. ‘’That little boy has asked you for water several times, you won’t do anything about that?’’ This was the first time she responded to me with anything else.‘

’Actually I didn’t understand him because he doesn’t speak English.” 

“So now that you know you’ll get him some water?” 

“I would do, but I am not allowed to leave this area and they have forgotten to give me a walky-talkie today.’’ 

‘’Excuse me? They forgot? Like that other agent is forgetting about me in here? İs this normal? Do you even know why he put me in here?’’ 

I saw her starting to squirm in her seat. Finally, after another 10 minutes passed, she was able to flag down another agent to make requests to. He came and brought the boy water which is when I took the opportunity to state my case.

“Hello, I’ve been forgotten about. Actually, I was never really told why I am in this area in the first place. That officer, there, put me here to make a point, but I have actually done nothing wrong and I would like to be released immediately.” 

I spoke quite loudly too, you know, the way one does when they are trying to make the one they are speaking to uncomfortable. Why I chose this position against any authority figure at all can only be explained by privilege. If I didn’t recognize it before, I sure as hell know what it looks like now. It looks a whole lot like waiving a USA Passport around, making demands and knowing it will end the way I want it to. Which unfortunately for my higher consciousness, is exactly what happened. 

Customs Agent 8336 brought me my passport and took me directly to another agent. The agent asked me the exact same questions as Agent 565, but accepted my answers and stamped me into the country. Agent 8336 apologized to me and led me towards the exit. 

Maybe it was the fact that I had already missed the play where my sister and I were supposed to meet. Maybe it was the adrenaline from the time in purgatory pumping through my vains. Maybe it was the Entitlement Switch not shutting off - but do you know what I said to this agent instead of “thank you”? 

“It’s not enough. I have missed the play. My phone is dead and the people who were helping get where I was going are long-gone. I want to make a complaint. I want to talk to someone and fill out paperwork on what that agent just put me through.”

He left for a moment and returned with a pamphlet. “Here, here is how we accept complaints. Write it down when you’re calm. We have a way of tracing every incidence here, no matter how much time has gone by.”

So there it was, I got to leave with a way to complain just 40 short minutes after I got into the line in the first place. And you know what? I re-lived this 40 minutes the entire 1.5 hrs it took to get to my sister where I thought for sure I would breakdown in her arms. I didn’t. Instead I said, “I am traumatized but looking at you now, I can’t do anything but smile.”

I waited in the lobby during the second half of the show, and talked to my sweet Turkish guy who tried his best to put things in perspective for me. Though I couldn’t yet hear all the truth behind it, one thing he said resonated. “Honey, you didn’t deserve it, but Cathy & London don’t either so don’t ruin your time there with her. If you enjoy your time, that agent loses with you.”

He was right, of course. So while I nursed my day-hang with water, I tried hard to let the experience go. At least until I could get my thoughts together and fill in that pamphlet.

After the show got out, I met my sister and her co-worker where I vocalized a bit more as we walked toward a pub for bites and booze.  I said I tried, I didn’t say I succeeded. 

“Do you want a pint?” Cathy suggested as I sat down. 

“No thanks, just water. I’m so thirsty.” There is was, the first wave of guilt. I am thirsty and just like that I am going to get ice water from the tap for free. Where is the justice? That little boy might still be in that waiting area. 

A while later, my headache started to clear and I caught another wave. I remembered the wounded man, the one I didn’t want to sit next to when the customs agent barked at me to move. How was his head? Why didn’t I care about his head before?

I didn’t need a third wave to see it now. “You guys, I didn’t want to be in the waiting area or lumped into any category with ‘those people’.” “Who Maggie?” “People who the Customs Agents were deeming illegal, I guess?” I said this aloud, but what I thought and what I am sure my smart sister heard was, “People who are less privileged.” 

It didn’t take me much longer to come to that awareness fully formed as an apology to my own heart. Not only had I outrageously behaved towards a government official who rightfully detained me for not having proof of a return ticket AND incorrectly filled out a landing card, I had also dismissed the entire country - hell the whole island - for something 1 representative “did to me.” Where was I, my higher consciousness, my compassion, my memory of the many friends I have had detained at airports recently either denied entry or deported from Turkey. Many of which hold UK or USA citizenship (NOT THE POINT), but I felt even set apart from them? Who did I think I was? Who do I think I am now that I realized my human is not always so awake. 

I have more work to do around this, because try as I might to not repeat this offensive attitude towards my fellow man, I won’t know where my entitlement switch is until it clicks on again. Right now I know it exists within a combination of my anger, time sensitivity and 3 Proseccos. For everyone’s sake, I hope it does happen, I have a lot more to learn.