Sky High (Three Contemporary Novella's) Page 12

  Years of dealing with people from all walks of life had given Garrett what he felt was a pretty decent understanding of the human animal. He prided himself on making quick reads of people, and he was usually right. But he was going to have to revise his initial estimation of Meg. She had a lot more going on upstairs than he’d guessed.

  “That’s really…” He was having a hard time finding the words, which was rare for him, a man who slung words by the column inch for a living. “You really have your head on straight about it.”

  “Not every day, but I’m trying.”

  “So when you said you were at a crossroads…”

  “I didn’t work while I was taking care of Dad, and I kind of fell out of the loop with the contacts I’d made in Boston. I was looking to start over anyway.”

  “And then you met Spencer.”

  She smiled, the kind of smile that made its way into her voice. “And then I met Spencer.” He wasn’t going to think about the fact that he could still feel her hand on his arm ten minutes after she’d taken it away. It wasn’t cool when she was clearly so starry-eyed for another guy. She might not have been as young as he’d pegged her for, but she was still miles out of reach.

  “How did that happen? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking. I seem to be prying into your personal life an awful lot for a stranger on a plane.” Why was he prying? All this conversational engagement wasn’t really like him. But it was surprisingly easy to keep asking questions, and it was certainly easy to listen to her answers. And now that he thought about it, his reporter’s brain sensed a hole in her story. She was home taking care of her dying father, cut off from her social circle and not working. How did she meet a retired investment banker from Mexico?

  “We met online.”

  “Ah.” Garrett tried not to let the judgment show in his voice. Tons of people met online now. Everybody he knew who was actively dating was doing it online. Maybe it made him a Luddite to resist it so strongly. Or maybe he just dreaded seeing the whole of himself summed up in a Match.com profile. He feared the picture he saw wouldn’t be pretty. Besides, his life didn’t allow for dating, and after Serena, he wasn’t interested. Casual encounters with women in hotel bars around the world suited him just fine. A night of mutual satisfaction before parting ways in the morning. He didn’t need or want any more. “If wealthy investment bankers are doing online dating, then I guess it really is the way it’s done now, huh?”

  “Oh, we didn’t meet on a dating site. It was a bereavement support message board. He’d recently lost his aunt, and of course, I lost my dad. We got to talking and things took off from there.”

  “So you’ve only known him five months?”

  Meg scowled. “Four. But honestly, I knew within the first month. We just clicked immediately. It was like we were made for each other.”

  Garrett scoffed softly. In his experience, there was no such thing. Then his reporter senses tingled again as her story slotted into place. “Wait a minute… Have you even met this guy? Like, face-to-face?”

  “Not exactly. No.”

  “Jesus…” He let out a huff of laughter and dragged a hand through his hair.

  “But I don’t need to,” Meg rushed on defensively. “Everything I need to know…everything that really matters…I know already. I didn’t need him to take me to dinner to find out what I already knew from talking to him.”

  “He could be anybody.”

  She pulled her phone out and swiped across the screen. “But he’s not anybody. He’s Spencer. This is him.”

  Garrett glanced at the picture she’d brought up. Spencer was exactly what he’d imagined, handsome, all-American, blond, broad-shouldered. In the picture he was sitting at a table at some sort of outdoor cafe or bar, holding a beer and grinning into the camera. He was nauseatingly perfect. Which made Garrett doubly suspicious. Things that seemed too good to be true almost always were.

  “Listen, Meg.” Garrett sat up in his seat and angled toward her. “You think you know this guy, but you don’t. Not really.”

  “I do know him. I’ve been talking to him for months. The things we’ve talked about…” She paused and shook her head. “That’s a real person I had those conversations with. Those were his real thoughts and feelings. Spencer knows me, and I know him.”

  “You know what he wants you to know.”

  “No one can fake what we have.”

  He chuckled bitterly. “People can fake anything if they want to.”

  She drew herself up slightly and ran her eyes over him. He was aware all over again of his rumpled shirt, his unshaven face, his hair in desperate need of a cut. She was probably thinking that he was the last person on earth to be giving relationship advice and she’d be absolutely right. But one thing he knew was human nature, and every reporter’s instinct he possessed told him she was heading into danger.

  “Look, you might think you know everything there is to know about people because of everything you’ve seen,” she said. “But you don’t know Spencer and you don’t know me. You weren’t there when he talked to me all night every night for weeks after my dad died. That was genuine. He’s real. He’s a good person. The best. And I’m lucky enough to have found him.”

  She meant every word of it. Her conviction was shining in her eyes as clear as day. She trusted this Spencer asshole with every fiber of her being. Perversely, he found himself praying to God that she was right. Let Spencer, Wall Street Wunderkind, be the real deal for once. He hoped that their improbable story of meeting online to share their grief was the truth. Because if Spencer turned out to be the figment Garrett suspected he was, it would kill something inside this girl. And Garrett knew from personal experience, those pieces of your soul never grew back. For Meg’s sake, he wanted Spencer to be on the level, but jaded realist that he was, Garrett knew he probably wasn’t.

  “Okay, maybe he’s the real thing. But leaving everything behind and moving to Mexico to be with him? I don’t know…maybe just visit first, to test the waters.”

  “What do we need to test? We’ve been talking nonstop for months. We’re perfectly compatible.”

  “There’s more than one kind of compatibility, Meg.” He looked steadily at her as a flush of pink rose up in her cheeks. Damn, that was attractive. She probably flushed all over; she had that kind of complexion. If he could touch her, run his hands over her shoulders and down to her breasts, he could imagine color flooding in the wake of his hands, her desire made visible on her body. He licked his lips unconsciously. Her eyes flickered to his mouth. Then she drew in a short, sharp breath and looked away.

  “I’m not worried about that.” Her voice was a little high and breathy.

  He laughed. “You should be. That is important.”

  “I’m not some fragile virgin, you know.”

  Garrett choked on his sip of whiskey and covered it up with a cough. That was not a mental image he needed.

  “I’ve had relationships before,” Meg continued, oblivious to the vivid fantasies she’d unleashed in his brain. “I’m not completely inexperienced.”

  “You’ve had relationships before? With real, non-internet guys?”

  “Of course. High school, college. Back in Boston. There were guys.”

  Of course there were guys. Look at her. How could there not be guys?

  “So why are you taking this chance with Spencer, some guy you’ve never met?”

  Meg settled back in her seat and the expression she shot him was surprisingly world-weary, considering what he’d learned of her personality so far. “Have you actually talked to a guy in his twenties lately? Ones you meet in bars? They’re awful. All the guys I knew in college, all the ones I met in Boston before I moved back home…they were idiots. Nobody’s serious. None of them have any depth. Spencer was different right from the start.”

  She had a point. If that pack of rabid twenty-something males he knew from the AP sports desk were a representative sampling of her dating pool, no wonder she’d decid
ed to take her chance on her virtual Captain America.

  “Okay, fine, the real-life guys your age are all morons. But this? Have you even Skyped with the guy?”

  She shook her head. “We didn’t want to. I know that sounds crazy, but we connected when we were writing. We exchanged these epic emails. It was so different than any relationship I’d had before, without that physical stuff getting in the way. He thought so, too. We decided to keep it that way, at least until now.”

  “But you have no idea if you’ll have any kind of physical connection with the guy.”

  “I was looking for more than a physical connection. And with Spencer, I found it.”

  Garrett shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He’d been drawn to her from the moment he sat down, and a minute ago it had undeniably gone both ways. Physical attraction and a momentary spark of chemistry didn’t mean much to Meg, though. She was looking for more, and he didn’t have more to offer. He very much doubted that Spencer did, either, but she’d already made her choice and she was firm in her conviction that it was the right one. Nothing he said was going to change her mind. He was just some stranger on a plane. The smart thing would be to back away and leave her to her dubious future. He should politely excuse himself and get back to his reading, which wasn’t getting done while he sat here chatting up his attractive, deluded seatmate.

  Still, he couldn’t help poking at her just a little bit. “And if Spencer turns out to be less attractive than the Captain America look-alike in the picture there? People put up bullshit pictures of themselves online all the time. Maybe that pic is ten years old. Maybe he’s started prematurely going bald. Maybe he’s gained fifty pounds in his early retirement. Maybe he really is retirement aged. You could be dating a senior citizen.”

  Meg made a face and shrugged one shoulder, her thumb tracing along the edge of her phone where Spencer’s handsome mug still grinned back at her.

  “That wouldn’t matter,” she said with a sniff. “We connected intellectually and emotionally. Those are the really important things.”

  Garrett chuckled. “Sure. The hair, the teeth, the shoulders… That’s all just a bonus, right?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So you’re not worried that you’ll see him and be disappointed in the reality?”

  “No, not at all. Physical beauty is fleeting. I’d love him no matter what he looks like. Although it’s a moot point, because he looks like this.” She waggled her phone at him and he sneered at Spencer’s smug smile.

  “True. And I suppose you’re not worried that he’ll be disappointed when he sees you?”

  “Of course not. And besides, he’s seen me. He’s got my picture, and no, it’s not old or Photoshopped or anything else you’re so sure everyone does. Believe it or not, some people are completely honest with what they present to the world.”

  That was the problem. He was pretty sure she was one of the first genuinely honest people he’d encountered in a long time, and he was also pretty sure she was about to get her heart stomped to smithereens. This protective impulse he was feeling had to be entirely understandable. It was no different than seeing a stranger about to step out into oncoming traffic and instinctively reaching out to save them from harm. Except there seemed to be no saving Meg from her fate.

  “If he saw you the way you are, then he’s not the one in danger of disappointment.”

  She turned her face to look at him. “What’s that mean?”

  “Only that you’re very pretty. He has no reason to be disappointed with the reality.”

  There was that flush again. She smiled softly. “Well…thanks.”

  And there was that spark of…something between them again, a flash of heat that he felt in his belly. Damn it all to hell. He looked away and she did, too.

  They were saved from the awkward lull in conversation and the simmering sexual tension by an announcement from the pilot crackling through the cabin.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid we have some bad news out of Mexico City. They’ve had some volcanic eruptions this month, and it appears the one just outside the city is kicking up a fuss today. At present, Mexico City has closed their airspace to all air traffic.”

  All around them, the cabin erupted in groans and muttered expletives.

  “We’ve been rerouted back to JFK. We should have you back on the ground around three p.m. local time. We’re sorry for this inconvenience, but sometimes Mother Nature just doesn’t want to cooperate with our plans.”

  “Motherfucker,” Garrett cursed under his breath.

  “Oh no,” Meg whispered. “We’re turning around? This can’t be happening.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure Spencer will still be there tomorrow. If he exists at all.”

  “Shut up,” she snapped, in the first flash of temper he’d seen from her. In spite of her generally sunny disposition, he suspected she could flare up hot when provoked. Perversely, he wished he’d be around to see it when it happened. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long. I can’t believe this. It’s not fair.”

  “It’s a pain in the ass, but you’ll get there eventually. This happened a few years back in Iceland and it screwed up all the European flights. I was in London trying to get back to the States. It took a few days, but eventually I made it. You will, too.”

  Meg blinked rapidly. To his horror, tears were welling in her eyes.

  “Jesus, are you crying?”

  She swiped angrily at her cheeks. “Not really. Only, you know when you were a kid waiting for Christmas to get there? Imagine you woke up Christmas morning and your parents told you that Christmas had been rescheduled for next week. I’m just a little overly emotional about this whole thing.”

  Garrett nodded, feeling oddly chastised. He might hate her reasons, but he understood how she felt. “Yeah, I get that. But you’ll be there tomorrow morning at the latest. Not the end of the world.”

  She threw him a watery smile. “Sure, I know. I guess I’d better email him and let him know, huh?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got some plans to change, too.”

  Garrett pulled his laptop from his bag and paid for the airline’s exorbitant internet access so he could email the agent who was supposed to meet him with the keys at his corporate apartment rental. Then he rebooked on the next available flight, which was indeed the next morning. After that, he was done. There was no one else to tell about his changed plans. His editor at the AP wasn’t expecting to hear from him until later in the week after the trial had started. Garrett had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that this plane could crash and it might be days and days before he was missed. He didn’t even have a cat that needed to be fed or plants that needed watering. He was practically a ghost. A ghost with a byline.

  “Well, that’s that,” Meg sighed. “Nothing else until tomorrow morning. Does this happen to you a lot when you travel?”

  “Not volcanoes, exactly, but unexpected delays? All the time.”

  “Must be hard, being away from home so much.”

  “Not really. Home is just me, so it’s pretty much wherever I make it.”

  “You’re not married?”

  He shook his head.

  “And no girlfriend?”

  He scowled at the fleeting memory of Serena. “Nope.”

  “And no boyfriend?”

  “Never had one of those.”

  She let out a breathless little chuckle. “I didn’t think so. I mean, you can never tell, and I didn’t want to just assume, but you didn’t seem… You’re so…”

  “I’m so what?”

  “Nothing. Not gay. I didn’t think you were gay, that’s all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  He smiled as she babbled nervously and twisted the hem of her skirt around her fingertip. This suddenly felt very much like flirting, and it really shouldn’t.

  “No, nothing wrong with that at all. But I’m not.”

  Her eyes flew up to his, wide and full of…something. Something he wou
ld be foolish to try to name. “You’re not,” she said softly.

  She took a deep breath and promptly changed the subject, which was for the best. “So you live in New York?”

  “I have an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that I’m almost never in. I’m more comfortable in hotel rooms than my bedroom.”

  “Wow, I can’t imagine that. But you’re doing what you love, right? Your job must be really fulfilling.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Maybe once, a long time ago.”

  “And not now?”

  He hesitated for a second and then passed a hand wearily over his eyes before speaking again. “You go into journalism because you’re passionate about shining a light on the world’s injustice. I was going to dig deep, report on all the bad stuff that goes on in the world, and expose it for everybody to see.”

  “And that’s not what you do now?”

  “No, that’s exactly what I do now. But what they don’t teach you in college is that a year later, a new bad guy shows up doing the exact same shit. Or in six months or in three. People don’t change. The world doesn’t change. And the outrage I stir up in readers doesn’t fix anything.”

  Meg was quiet for a moment. “Wow, that’s…bleak.”

  “The world is bleak, Meg. I just report on it.”

  “I think it’s rubbing off on you.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. Doesn’t matter. I find it’s easier to take when you go in knowing what to expect.”

  “And you expect the worst?”

  “I usually find it.”

  “Maybe because you’re already looking for it.”

  “Or maybe because the world is fucking full of it. You can’t take a step in this life without running into a million examples of mankind at its worst.”

  “So you’ve stopped hoping?”

  “Hoping for what?”