Fly with Me: a novel by Andie Burke

chapter 3

Allied Airlines pilot Stella Soriano's eyes brightened. "I was so surprised to find out that the person saving the other passenger was just a nurse."

Okay ...

So the most beautiful woman on the planet might be an ignorant asshole.

Fabulous.

Murphy's Law.

Olive shook Stella's hand, which, to Olive's dismay, was perfectly soft and prettily manicured. "Well, on most of those shows, whenever they show a doc touching a patient, it's usually actually a nurse doing the stuff in real life." She hadn't meant to say that, but between the nerves on the plane and helping the man, her mouth's social filter had decided to malfunction.

"Oh, I don't watch TV."

A snobby ignorant asshole.

With a too-perfect smile and goddamn dimples. Of course she had dimples.

But seriously, who doesn't watch TV?

Olive forced on a facsimile of a grin, slung her backpack over her shoulders, and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. "Well, I better go look and find a flight to Orlando."

Stella's lips pursed. "There are no more flights tonight."

Olive's hand tightened on her suitcase handle, her nails digging into her palm. "Well, I better, uh-I better go, then."

A smooth voice came from behind Stella. The white man grabbed Olive's hand and shook it slowly. "I'm the captain of this here aircraft. Call me Kevin. Or Captain Kevin." He guffawed at his own joke. "Well, y'all didn't mention how pretty she is. She'll look great in the photographs. Won't she?" Captain Kevin was in his forties. Blandly good-looking with the air of someone you wouldn't be surprised turned out to be a suburban swinger or have a secret life as a niche porn actor with three families across three states.

Stella had the good taste to grimace at the captain's smarmy tone. "We hadn't asked her about the photographs yet."

"W-what photographs?"

Stella smiled. "The airline would like to pay for your flight and give you a voucher for ten free flights."

Olive decided not to mention that this was essentially like awarding an arachnophobe a collection of free tarantulas. Instead, she said, "Great."

"And we'd like to take your picture with the crew for our newsletter and website."

The airplane seemed to shrink, her vision tunneling like it had before takeoff.

Olive ran a nervous hand through her messy curls. She hadn't even had time to put any product in after her shower. She probably resembled a poodle by now. Grime from the airplane floor coated her leggings. "I'm not really dres- I look terrible. I don't think a picture would be good right now."

"You look great. Trust me, most men would disagree with your assessment of how you look." The smile from "Captain Kevin" wasn't genial. His eyes fixed on the area of her tank top that had pulled down enough to expose her cleavage.

She pulled the zipper up higher on her hoodie. Olive was too tired to hide the frostiness in her voice. "Random men's opinions on my appearance have never been very high on my priority list, but cool." Why bother fighting this?

Stella shook her head. "If she doesn't want to take a photo, we shouldn't-"

"I'm sure she's just being modest." And he pulled Olive close. "Smile, sweetheart."

Unnoticed before by Olive, a gate attendant stood with a smartphone held aloft.

As the entire crew gathered around her, Olive smiled.

She was sure she'd be very glad she did in about twenty-four hours if this photo actually ended up posted somewhere. But for now, she needed to get the hell away from these people so she could cry about the fact that everything was ruined, and she would be stuck in Atlanta until morning. There was no way she'd make the race for Jake.

"Thank you again for everything you did to help the passenger." Stella shook Olive's hand one more time, her face more apologetic than it had been before and a little less snooty. "Goodbye, then."

Olive walked down the tunnel to the terminal and went to find a seat where she could fall apart.