Fly With Me | ✓

01

If Kingston Maverick—better known by the mononym Maverick—actually showed up for his flights on time, Everleigh Meadowlark figured most of her coworkers would feel about seventy percent less stressed. Everleigh had heard the legends, she just never thought she'd be on a flight stuck waiting for him.

Anyone who wanted to be consistently late should've had the decency not to check in online so the plane could leave. Everleigh had been planning on how she was going to say that to his face the entire time she was stuck waiting for him.

Then he showed up. Curls dishevelled. Jacket half on. Sunglasses pushed up his nose. (God, was that lipstick on his neck?) Smelling of two day old shower and booze. All Everleigh wanted to do was get him seated so she was one step closer to getting away from him.

"Hi. Sorry. Um." Maverick looked at the boarding pass in his hand, nearly dropping his carry on. "I don't—I think I'm—" Maverick fought a gag, Everleigh wrinkled her nose while he wasn't looking. "Do you know where A-2 is?"

Everleigh bit back the it's the only seat without an ass in it that she wanted to say to him and instead led him to his seat, made sure he had his seatbelt on, and managed a small, "Barf bags are in front of you."

Maverick laughed. Everleigh wasn't being funny. The last thing she wanted was to be funny. "Thanks for the tip," Maverick said.

"You're wel—"

"Oh." Maverick pushed himself off the seat and dug into his pocket. "Here."

"Sir—"

Maverick held out a twenty-dollar bill. Canadian. Which would do swimmingly in Australia, where they were headed. Everleigh was sure. "You can call me Maverick."

"Sorry, sir—" Everleigh refused to call him Maverick like the other flight attendants would've as per his request. They weren't friends. "We don't accept tips." She eyed the payment again and fought the urge to make a face. "Or other."

Maverick frowned and looked at his hand. Tucking the twenty—and the more prominent neon orange condom package—back into his pocket, he gave Everleigh a tight-lipped smile. She fought the urge to laugh at the semi-awkward nature of it. "Sorry."

"Enjoy your flight."

"You too."

The eyeroll escaped when Everleigh was well out of the sight of her passengers.

"You on Mav duty?"

It was something to say that Juno Song knew exactly what was bothering Everleigh at any given moment simply by the disgusted look on her face. Or maybe it was because it was between them for who got Maverick duty and Everleigh had, as always, lost rock, paper, scissors. (She needed to stop picking scissors.) (Juno always—always—picked rock.)

"When he blows chunks," Everleigh said, crouched as she loaded their drink cart, "you're on Kingston duty. I didn't sign up for that."

"When?" Juno raised an already arched eyebrow.

"Anywhere within ten feet of him is a toxic cocktail of beer and B.O." Everleigh wrinkled her nose. "It's a definite when."

"And you let him on the plane?"

"I don't think he's presently drunk. I think he was drunk last night." Everleigh pointed a can of cola at Juno. "Which would be why we haven't had the chance to listen to our wonderful safety video yet. Thank God we can hunker down and experience that together now."