Sky High (Three Contemporary Novella's) Read online

“I don’t know. Something better? Something good?”

  “Something good? No, I don’t hope for something good.”

  “You don’t think anyone out there ever acts out of unselfishness or kindness?”

  “In my experience, no. People are mostly selfish assholes. They don’t do anything unless it benefits them in some way.”

  “Well, I don’t agree.”

  “I guess that’s why you’re the one moving to Mexico to marry a stranger.”

  “He’s not a stranger,” she said reflexively. “And I suppose I’d rather take a chance on happiness than spend my life alone.”

  Like you.

  She didn’t say those words out loud, but she didn’t have to. They were clear.

  He gave her a strained smile. “Well, maybe you’re right and Prince Charming in Mexico will make sure you never do.”

  Her shoulders dropped a little. “He will. I’m sure of it. I think I can see where you’re coming from, though.”

  “Oh? You agree that Spencer might be a work of fiction?”

  “No. Just…your rather dismal view of the world… You’ve seen a lot more of it than me. Maybe it’s as bad as you say. I hope not, but maybe it is. You probably see things most people don’t.”

  “And I keep seeing them, over and over. All I can do is write it all down.”

  “I don’t believe that it doesn’t change anything, though. Your reporting. You might not see the results, but somewhere, somebody reads your words and does something good.”

  “That’s a pleasant thought, but I’m not so sure the numbers support that.”

  Meg tilted her head, eyeing him speculatively. “Someday, someone in the world is going to prove you wrong, Garrett, and I wish I could be there to see it.”

  He was pretty sure he’d just met the person who had the potential to prove him wrong, but he couldn’t tell her that. He felt like he should say the same to her, that one day she’d meet somebody who would prove her wrong, someone who would destroy her confidence in people’s intrinsic goodness. But he couldn’t say that, either, because he was pretty sure she was set to meet that person tomorrow. It was a funny thing and a little profound when he stopped to think about it. No matter what happened tomorrow, Meg’s life was about to change forever. Good or bad, she’d likely come out of the experience a changed person. In a way, he was here for the sunset of this Meg’s last day.

  “Who was she?” Meg asked.

  “Who was who?” It took him a minute to find his way back into the conversation. For a minute, it seemed like she was asking him to describe herself.

  “The woman who made you this bitter about love.”

  “I’m not bitter about love.”

  “You seem to think it’s impossible that Spencer and I are in love.”

  “That’s just common sense.”

  “That’s just disillusionment. You don’t think it’s possible for two people to fall in love the way Spencer and I have. Why not?”

  He sighed and rolled his head to the side on the headrest, staring at the ceiling. He considered not answering. After all, he wasn’t one for sharing secrets from his romantic life. In fact, he’d pretty much never done that. But hell, it wasn’t like they were going anywhere. They had tons of time before the plane landed back at JFK. And who knew? Maybe his story of heartbreak could be a cautionary tale to her.

  “Her name was Serena and it was a long time ago.” When he turned his head on the head rest, Meg was staring at him. When he didn’t say anything more, she waved her hand in the air in the universal signal for “get on with it.” So he did.

  “We met when we were both working for the Boston Reporter. I used to live in Boston, too. We were both young, just starting out our careers. We both wanted to write about international affairs. I’d gotten lucky and landed a job on the international desk right out of school, but she was having a hard time getting her foot in the door. She was stuck on Arts and Culture and she hated it. I was traveling a lot for work and she was getting tired of it. She wanted to get married and she said she wanted me home more. There was an opening at the paper in the City division and she wanted me to take it. It wasn’t what I’d envisioned for my career, but I was willing to sacrifice for her. I started writing for the City division and she promptly stopped talking about getting married. One night I came home and she was gone. Just a motherfucking note. ‘Sorry, this isn’t working out for me.’ Three years and that’s all she had to say.”

  “Oh my God, she sounds awful,” Meg said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Garrett sneered. “Wait. She wasn’t done. The next day at work, they announce who’s taken over my old spot in International.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How did she get them to agree to that? Didn’t they know about you and her?”

  “They did. But the last fact I uncovered was that she had been sleeping with our editor-in-chief.”

  “How could she do that to you? I don’t understand how anybody could be so manipulative and cruel to someone they’re supposed to love.”

  “Well, now I do. So you see, when I tell you that people are selfish and bad things can happen, I’m saying it because I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.”

  “Just because Serena was like that, it doesn’t mean Spencer is.”

  No, he thought to himself, Spencer is probably much, much worse. Spencer is probably fiction.

  “What happened after that?”

  “Well, I wasn’t about to stay at the Reporter and watch my ex-fiancée fuck my boss and steal my career, so I quit.”

  “Huh. So that’s how a cynic gets made.”

  “Yep. That plus witnessing a genocide or two and interviewing a handful of homicidal dictators.”

  She ignored that last part. “She didn’t manage to totally steal your career, at least. You work for the AP.”

  “Eventually I landed on my feet. I’ve even scooped the bitch on a story or two. She hates it when I do that. But yeah, there were some dark days at first.”

  Dark days he couldn’t remember, lost to drinking and worse. There was nearly a year after Serena that he had only patchy memories of. But people survived. He had. Meg would, too. He just hated the thought of what it would do to her. He’d made it through, but he was not the same. She wouldn’t be, either. And that was too damned bad, because he was growing pretty fond of this Meg.

  “Listen, Meg,” he said, mustering every bit of his rusty sincerity and turning to face her. “I told you all of that to show you that people aren’t always what they seem. I lived with Serena for three years and she had a side to her that I never saw. She fooled me, and even then I was hard to fool.”

  “But—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “Just please be careful. I like you. You seem like a genuinely good person, one of the few I’ve met. But I’m afraid this guy might be taking advantage of your goodness. I’m not asking you to think like a bitter cynic like me. I’m pretty sure that would be impossible for you. Just take your time. Think it through. And make damned sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  Meg opened her mouth to defend Spencer once again, but whatever she saw in his face stopped her. Instead, she just looked back at him solemnly and nodded.

  “Okay.”

  “That’s the best I can do, I guess. I’ve done my good deed for the decade.”

  “Don’t make a habit of that,” she said, giving him a shaky smile. “You might hurt yourself.”

  “No chance of that.”

  There was more he wanted to say to her, further precautions she should take, but the intercom overhead announced that they were about to land at JFK. Time was up.

  “Well,” he said. “This has been—”

  “Fun.” Meg finished his sentence. “It’s been fun.”

  Fun? Garrett tried the word on for size. Had it been fun? He hadn’t had any in what felt like a lifetime, but he was pretty sure this was it. “Yeah, it was.”

  He stared at h
er face, which was becoming prettier and prettier the longer he knew her, and found himself wishing that things were different. That she wasn’t already committed to her dubious future, that he was younger, without a lifetime of miserable experiences tarnishing him. Maybe there had been some younger, more optimistic version of himself that would have had a chance with Meg. But that guy, if he’d ever existed, was long gone. There was only himself, cynical and too old, and there was only her, young and fresh and walking away from him in the opposite direction. At this point in his life, he was quite adept with accepting reality, not wasting mental energy on things that couldn’t happen. But he wished he didn’t have to move on from Meg today.

  They didn’t say much as the plane landed—right back where they’d started—and they gathered their things and exited. They ended up walking together through the airport to baggage claim, suddenly awkward and quiet after hours of nonstop conversation. He supposed there wasn’t much more to say. It was just a random encounter. Rather exceptional, but over now.

  She had a ton of luggage, of course, since she was in the middle of moving to Mexico. He helped her with it, hauling her suitcases off the baggage carousel and stacking them on a luggage cart for her. When he’d retrieved his bag—one moderate-sized suitcase for his entire stay in Mexico—they turned to face each other.

  “Good luck with your trial,” she said. Her curls were tucked behind her ears now, which made her look even younger, her face open and bright.

  “Good luck with your life. I…” He stopped and closed his eyes as he got stuck on the words. He could express the horrors of war in thousands of words, but human emotions weren’t so easy. He wanted to tell her that today was her do-over. The plane had improbably, miraculously, turned around. It was a sign, a chance to pick a different ending for herself. But he didn’t believe in signs, and even if he did, Meg was never going to take his advice. In the end, he didn’t say any of that. “I really do hope it works out for you, Meg. I mean that. I hope he makes you happy.”

  Her smile faded and she stared up at him. God, she was lovely. It was taking everything he had not to physically hold her back from this doomed move to Mexico.

  “Thank you, Garrett.” Impulsively, she reached up and hugged him, standing on her toes to reach and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her hug caught him off guard, so it took him a second to catch up before he put his arms around her, too. She was small, her chin just resting on his shoulder even when she was on her tiptoes. Her soft curls brushed his cheek and he inhaled. She smelled good, something subtle and floral. She felt good, too, warm and perfect in his arms. How long had it been since he’d hugged someone…a woman? A lifetime. He’d enjoyed plenty of far more intimate embraces with lots of women, but this, just a hug… It had been years and years.

  She began to draw back and he loosened his hold on her, but before she was fully out of his arms, she paused and kissed his cheek. He closed his eyes as a sudden, hot flush of desire raced through him. Her soft lips against the scruff of his face were incendiary. He swallowed thickly and licked his lips. When she released him, he opened his eyes and he could see from her expression, the flush along the tops of her cheekbones, that she’d felt it, too. He wanted to wrap his hand in those curls, tilt her face up, and kiss her until she couldn’t remember her own name, never mind that asshole Spencer’s.

  Instead, he forced himself to smile. “Take care of yourself, Meg.”

  She nodded, still looking a little dazed.

  He needed to go. He needed to break out of whatever this was that kept drawing them toward each other. She was set on her course and there wasn’t much he could say or do, not even kissing her, that would dissuade her.

  “Well,” she began brightly, clearly about to back away, too.

  “Wait. Do you know anybody in Mexico?”

  She shrugged. “Spencer, of course.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Anybody besides Captain America.” She shook her head. On impulse, he reached into his pocket. “Here. Take this.” He pressed his business card into her hand. “I know Spencer’s got things all set up for you down there, but just in case. If you run into trouble or something.”

  She looked down at it and nodded, swallowing hard. Then she tucked it into the pocket of her jacket, and when she looked up at him again, the heat and promise of that moment were gone. She smiled, her brilliant, sunny smile. “It was nice knowing you, Garrett. Even just for a little while.”

  He smiled back. “Yeah, nice knowing you, Meg.”

  Then she turned away and pushed her luggage cart through the milling crowd. In moments, he’d lost sight of her. Time to go find a cab, go home to the dark, empty apartment that wasn’t a home, and drink until he washed today away.

  #

  “Miss?”

  The voice of the man in line behind Meg snapped her out of her mental fog. She’d let a gap develop in the customs line ahead of her.

  “Sorry.” She scooted her roll-aboard forward to close the gap and fingered her passport anxiously. She’d barely slept last night. This morning on her second flight to Mexico City, she’d grown more anxious by the hour, until now, when she was moments from collecting her suitcases and meeting Spencer, she was practically a basket case. Yesterday when she’d boarded her flight, all she’d felt was excitement that she was finally going to be with Spencer and they would be starting their new life together. Today, she was filled with worries, some vague and some painfully specific. What if they didn’t click? Yesterday she’d scoffed when Garrett suggested it could happen, but today she was terrified by the prospect.

  Mentally, she talked herself back down off the ledge. This was Spencer. She’d spent the last four months learning everything there was to know about him, sharing everything about herself. They were made for each other. Of course they would click. There was nothing to fear, no matter how much Garrett had tried to shake her confidence yesterday. Why was a conversation with some stranger on a plane eating at her so much?

  Because that wasn’t just any conversation with a stranger on a plane. All night long, when she’d been staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, her thoughts hadn’t circled around Spencer. They’d circled around Garrett. It didn’t make any sense. He was all wrong for her in a million ways, and besides, she was in love with Spencer. Without a doubt, Garrett was hot, although not at all her type. It was hard to deny his appeal, though, all knowing and bitter, with his shadowed dark eyes and messy, dark hair. Even his stubble was kind of hot, though she liked clean-shaven guys as a rule. She could still remember with vivid clarity how that stubble felt under her lips when she’d kissed his cheek… What was that anyway? Not the hugging part. Meg was spontaneous and affectionate by nature. She hugged lots of people for all kinds of reasons. She was definitely a hugger. Hugging him goodbye after the day they’d shared was no big deal. Until he hugged her back. She suspected Garrett was not a hugger. Maybe that was why, when his arms came around her, she didn’t feel like she was being hugged. She felt like she was being embraced. She felt like any moment, he’d lay her down and… God. He’d held her in his arms for that instant and her whole body had come alive. That was not supposed to happen in hugs. All that heat and tingling and inexplicable longing must have screwed her brain circuits. That had to be why she’d kissed his cheek. Hugging was familiar territory for Meg, but kissing hot strangers on the cheek was not. If hugging Garrett had short-circuited her brain, then that was nothing compared to what happened when she kissed him. And that was only his cheek. Just imagine if those lips… Stop!

  People had momentary attractions to other people all the time. It certainly didn’t mean anything. The reason he was sticking in her mind like glue certainly had more to do with their conversation than his handsome, haunted features. She’d never met anyone like him. His jaded outlook on the world was the polar opposite of her own, which should have annoyed her. Instead, she found herself poking at him, wanting to peel his layers back like an onion to see what was at the heart of him. Despite
his words, she suspected he had a more genuine heart than he thought he did. He believed all the good in him was dead, but she suspected it was just sleeping, waiting for something to wake him back up. She wished she’d be there when that happened. She’d like to know that Garrett.

  “Uh… Miss?”

  She’d let the line move ahead without her again.

  “Sorry. So sorry,” she muttered, hurrying to move forward. There were only two people ahead of her now, and then baggage claim and then…Spencer. Panic like she’d never known gripped her chest. This was probably normal. Meeting each other for the first time was a huge thing, when you thought about it. All this anxiety was perfectly understandable. Yesterday she’d only been focused on the excitement of it all. Today, the reality was creeping in, which was to be expected since Spencer was about to become flesh-and-blood real. Not that he’d been pretend before. That sounded like something Garrett would say. Of course he was real. Now he was going to become physical.

  Breathing rapidly through the panic, she pulled out her phone and swiped it to bring up her screen saver, Spencer’s picture. There he was, with his blond hair and his easy, open smile. This would be fine. She’d see that smile, that face, and these butterflies would become butterflies of a different sort. Not that his beauty was everything. Of course not. But it helped. Feeling tingles about Spencer would help banish all these inconvenient, unexpected tingles stirred up yesterday by Garrett. She was sure that after her first day with Spencer, Garrett would be just a memory… That weird flight, and that guy she talked to for hours.

  She’d cleared passport control and navigated the airport’s strange and confusing baggage claim area. It took her a few minutes to load all her suitcases onto a luggage cart by herself, but then there was nothing to do but walk through those sliding glass doors and meet the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Taking a deep breath, she focused on Spencer, on everything they’d built in the past four months, and she walked through the door.

  She didn’t see his blond hair and smiling face anywhere at first. Then, as her eyes scanned the crowd, she caught sight of her name scrawled on a piece of paper, being held up by a nondescript, dark-haired guy. She pushed aside the momentary feelings of annoyance and disappointment that he’d sent a driver. Maybe he was waiting out in the car.