Page 11 of The Law of Attraction
“Really? Because I didn’t think it went well at all.” His refusal to acknowledge sarcasm was one of the less appealing aspects of his personality.
“No luck, then?”
“We’re stuck. The guy claimed the earliest flight he could get us on doesn’t leave until four o’clock.” He shoved his phone into the front pocket of his jeans, exposing a patch of flat stomach when he flipped up the hem of his shirt.
Olivia tried not to look, she really did, but he was flashing his torso right at her eye level, and even though her eyes remained on her knitting, she couldn’t help catching a tantalizing glimpse of brown skin in her peripheral vision.
No, not tantalizing. She didn’t like him anymore. His sexy muscled stomach wasn’t the slightest bit tantalizing.
“You might as well hang up,” Adam said. “They’re just going to tell you the same thing.”
Olivia was about to tell him that she still intended to try, thank you very much, when she finally got a representative on the line. Putting on her sweetest voice and letting a little of her native Texas drawl seep through, she very politely explained their problem, addressing the customer service agent—who’d introduced himself as Lamar—by name and asking if there was anything at all he could do to help her out. After a few minutes of investigation, Lamar regretfully confirmed that there were no earlier flights to Austin he could get them on.
“What about a flight to Houston?” Olivia asked, and Adam’s head snapped around.
“Now that, I might be able to swing,” Lamar replied, and put her on hold again.
“Houston?” Adam said, frowning. “How far is that from Fayette County?”
“Maybe an hour or two farther than Austin, depending on the traffic getting out of the city. And Houston’s a hub, so hopefully there’ll be more flights going there.”
Lamar came back on the line a few minutes later, and triumphantly reported that he could get them on a flight to Houston that was due to start boarding in just over an hour.
It was a tossup whether that would actually get them there faster than their current flight. If the new plane actually arrived when it was supposed to, it would be a wash. But if the new plane took longer than expected—and when didn’t something like that take longer than expected?—it would save them time.
“Do it,” Adam said, pulling out his phone again. “I’ll call and change our rental car reservation.”
“Do you want these two seats together?” Lamar asked.
“No,” Olivia told him. “Definitely not.”
Chapter Four
Once their amended travel plans had been secured, they grabbed their roller bags and set out for their new departure gate, which was at the opposite end of the terminal.
Olivia was feeling a bit smug about saving the day—not that Adam had acknowledged her victory in any way. A thank you might be nice, or a good job, but apparently that was too much to expect from Mr. Rock Star.
It felt like a just punishment that he would now be seated in steerage with the rest of the commoners instead of enjoying the luxury of first class. So much for all those miles he’d accumulated. He could eat off the snack tray and wait for the beverage cart to make its slow way down the aisle like a regular human for a change.
On the way to the gate, Olivia made Adam wait with her suitcase while she stopped off at the bathroom. His annoyed impatience at being asked to wait inspired her to take her sweet time about it. She washed her hands, refastened her hair into a fresh bun, and touched up her dark red lipstick—a shade appropriately named “Vendetta”—smiling to herself as she imagined his spittle-flecked rage.
“Thank you,” she offered with an over-friendly smile when she finally emerged from the ladies’ room, and Adam grunted irritably in response.
There were no free chairs at their new gate. In fact, there were no free chairs at any of the gates at that end of the terminal. The remains of a tropical depression that had come ashore in Louisiana seemed to be causing delays across a lot of the southern United States.
“I hope the bad weather doesn’t affect us,” Olivia said as she looked at all the travelers filling the terminal and camped on the floor along the walls.
“It’ll be fine,” Adam said, pointing at the monitor. “Our flight’s still on time.”
She bit down on the urge to knock on wood to ward off the bad luck his overconfidence might bring down on them. There didn’t appear to be a single molecule of wood anywhere in the airport, so they were on their own with any malevolent spirits that might be eavesdropping.
They still had three-quarters of an hour left to wait, so they wandered around until they found an empty spot on the floor in front of a large picture window overlooking the tarmac. Olivia sat down in the narrow gap between a couple with a toddler and a group of college-aged kids. There was room for Adam to squeeze in next to her, but he chose instead to sit cross-legged in front of her with his back to the crowded gate area.
“This is fun,” she said, leaning back against the glass and pulling her knees up to her chest. The toddler beside them waved a toy car at her, and she waved back.
Adam’s lip curled in distaste as he looked around him. “You think this is fun?”
“Come on, who doesn’t love sitting on dirty public carpets? I know I do. It’s my favorite thing ever to do in dress pants.”
