Damn middle seat.
“Sorry?”
Despite their close confines, she and Window Guy hadn’t exchanged more than the official “that’s-my-seat” gesture of air travelers the world over before he’d awkwardly shuffled past her to sit down. After that, he’d pulled his laptop out and tapped away at the keys like a good little company automaton while she’d worked her way through a few chapters of a gently-used Stephen King novel. She’d been so engrossed in her book, she hadn’t noticed that at some point he’d put the laptop away and moved on to reading the offerings from the seat pocket in front of him.
And that wasn’t all she hadn’t noticed.
Now that she was actually looking at him, his breach of their companionable silence was even more surprising. Because Window Guy was kind of sexy. Bedroom eyes the color of whiskey and twice as potent. A strong jaw and a straight nose. His brown hair was short enough to be business-appropriate, but long enough to get mussed up under the right circumstances. And that mouth! As she took her fill of him, it pulled slightly up at the right corner in an easy smirk that was hot as hell. He was the clean-cut kind of handsome that came with no visible neck tattoos and an expertly-knotted blue silk tie that bespoke gainful employment.
Men like him didn’t talk to women like her. He was way too...corporate. And she was...not.
At her question, he raised his chin at the worn gray vinyl seat back in front of her. “You’ve been giving that chair dirty looks for the last twenty minutes, and then you sighed,” he explained.
“I did?”
Window Guy nodded. “The sigh was pretty loud, actually. It disturbed my reading.”
“Oh. Well. I’m sorry that my sigh threw off your concentration.” Chloe sent a meaningful glance toward the airline safety pamphlet on his lap.
“The damage is done.” He picked up the tri-fold piece of card stock. “It was just getting good, too. After the cabin depressurized, the plane crashed and the passengers were proceeding in an orderly fashion for their lives!”
Huh. She hadn’t expected funny. Hot guys rarely had to develop such plebeian talents. “Sounds intense.”
“You’re telling me. I was really enjoying it until the author got all kinky and made the heroine take off her high heels before she used the inflatable slide. I think he might be a foot fetishist.” He shoved the pamphlet back in the seat pocket in front of him before he met her gaze with a teasing glint in his amber eyes. “Wow. Spoiler alert. I hope I didn’t give too much away.”
“No, I appreciate the recommendation. I’ll be sure to tell my book club about it.”
His grin was practiced, but appealing. “I’m Ben.”
Uh-oh. Time to nip this in the bud. “Well, Ben. You’re a very handsome guy, and I appreciate the effort, because I’m sure that maneuvering a sober pickup with only a safety card, an in-flight magazine, and an airsickness bag as props is a challenge that few men could meet. But don’t waste all your sweet, panty-dropping material on me. Save some of that A-game for Stewardess Barbie over there.”
They both looked at the perky blonde flight attendant who’d been making doe eyes at Ben since he’d boarded. Right on cue, she twirled her ponytail and glanced away coyly.
Ben shifted, trying to arrange his large frame more comfortably in the tiny chair—a futile cause. “Let’s get one thing straight here, if this had been a pickup, we’d already be—” he eyed his Rolex—so cliché “—three minutes into you becoming an airplane-bathroom sex convert. Let the record show that we are both still safely buckled into our designated seats, ipso facto, I clearly wasn’t flirting with you.”
Ignoring the frisson down her spine—legal jargon always had that effect on her—Chloe raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Okay, I was kinda flirting. But, it was completely recreational. Minor league stuff.”
“Oh, please! Foot fetish references? That is gateway flirting. If I hadn’t called you out, you’d have escalated to the hard stuff—asking me my astrological sign and telling me how beautiful my eyes are.”
He laughed, and Chloe ignored the flare of pride at having elicited the sexy, rumbling sound. Not that she was flirting, either, mind you.
“Well, it’s hardly my fault that your eyes really are beautiful. Emerald green, with golden flecks that sparkle when you roll them like that because you think I’m being cheesy.”
“Oh. Well that’s probably because you are being cheesy. At least the safety pamphlet pickup was original.”
“Original enough to get your name?”
“Chloe,” she relented.
“Nice to meet you, Chloe.” He offered his hand again, and this time she accepted it.
His palm was wide and his fingers were long. He didn’t molest her hand; it was just an acceptable, firm shake between new acquaintances. Even so, a phantom warmth lingered after he’d relinquished his grip, the kind that buzzed up her arm and sort of made her wish he had molested her hand, at least a little. Chloe rubbed her tingling palm against the thigh of her jeans.
His gaze held steady on hers and his focus was flattering, almost seductive. If you went for that whole slick-successful-businessman-in-a-five-thousand-dollar-suit look. Which, she reminded herself, she didn’t. Not anymore.
For the most part, her tiny diamond nose stud and purple highlights were enough to warn corporate wunderkinds that they had nothing in common with her.
But then she remembered that she no longer had purple highlights. She’d dyed her piecey, deconstructed bob for her sister’s wedding. Right now it was a respectable, boring, normal shade of mahogany that skimmed her jaw before angling a bit lower in the front. The dye job was her attempt at a peace offering to her family. She just hoped it would be enough.
“...so if you look at it that way, cheese could be considered a high form of flattery, you know?”
Ben’s voice snapped her out of a flashback of the most recent guilt-laden, middle-name-invoking phone call with her mother.
“What? Sorry. I wasn’t listening.”
Ben’s grin was endearingly self-deprecating. “Tough crowd.”
“It’s not you.” Chloe shoved her offensively monotone hair behind her ears. “Going back to Buffalo has put me in a rotten mood.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. What’s Buffalo ever done to you?”
The derisive laugh slipped out before Chloe could stop it. “Now there’s a loaded question.”
Ben cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“I’m going to see my family.” She didn’t add “for the first time in four years,” because that was the scary part, the part that turned her stomach into a churning pit of nerves and dread. “My little sister’s getting m-married,” she said, forcing the word out. Man, was it hot in here? She reached up and twisted the overhead air vent open.
“Oh! Well, that should be...” Ben paused in a way that let Chloe know she hadn’t managed to hide her true feelings on the matter. He corrected midcourse, “no fun at all. Rings are like tiny shackles. Screw love. That’s what I say.”
It was a sweet attempt at a save, but Chloe was too far down the well to grab the rope.
“Weddings...” Suck. Wreck