“You should probably order some food if you’re going to keep sitting here,” I said bluntly. By the looks on Cassidy and Alejandro’s faces I realized that I had said that way bitchier than I had meant too. I felt my face flush red with embarrassment and I concentrated extra hard on rewrapping my napkin.
He reached toward my plate with a spare fork and speared some of my fries. I looked up at him and he smiled, giving me a wink to let me know there were no hard feelings. I smiled back.
“So tell me,” he said turning his attention back to Cassidy, “what brings you to Madrid?”
“We had to land here on the way to ... um...,” she faltered, looking at me for help.
“Germany,” I spat out.
I knew exactly what Cass was thinking. We didn’t know this guy and telling him where we were going when he was obviously so comfortable already was probably not going to be a good idea.
He laughed and shook his head. I gave Cass the look that said “he’s on to us” and she just shrugged and went back to her food. Alejandro sat at the table picking at my fries and I kept stealing glances at him to construct him fully in my mind.
When he had woken me up on the plane, all I knew was that he was a young man. Now that he was standing here, I guessed he was in his late 20s; 27 being the oldest he could possibly be. His brown hair reminded me of raw umber. I snuck another glance at him as he and Cassidy were chatting and I noticed that whenever he smiled or laughed he had these crinkles that would appear near his hazel blue eyes. He had lightly tanned skin and he seemed to be pretty big, but he hadn’t taken off his jacket yet so I wasn’t sure if the bulk was him or the coat. Leaning over he reached around me for a napkin, then forked some more of my French fries. When I saw his hand hovering for a second I looked up at him and saw him smiling at me. Did he know what I was doing? Did he know that I was curious about his body, his build? Did he see this blaring, damning ring on my finger, of whose hand I was now sliding as naturally as I could under the table so that I could wrestle it off?
‘What time is it?” Cassidy asked snapping me back to attention.
“Eh, 3:14,” Alejandro said checking his watch.
“We better pay for this and start heading to our gate, Liv,” Cass said as she reached for her wallet.
Alejandro waived the waiter over and before we could pull out our money, handed him a credit card, “Todos juntos.”
“Um, you didn’t have to do that, we were going to pay for it,” I said glancing at him.
“Yes, but I ate all of your f
ries, and Cassidy here was such pleasant conversation, that I feel it’s the least I could do,” he said signing his name to the receipt that the waiter had brought back to the table.
“Yeah, well, thanks,” Cass said as she got up and grabbed her bag. “It was nice to meet you and super cool to talk to you. Sorry we’ve got to run, Berlin is waiting. Right, Olivia?” she asked giving me her slight wide-eyed let’s get the hell out of here look.
“Yeah, guten morgen we go!” I replied with a grin.
“Well ladies, thank you both for the pleasure of your company,” he said standing as well and smiling at both of us. “It’s not every day that a man can say he’s had lunch with two beautiful, intelligent women.”
Six foot? Six foot one?
We all smiled at each other as Cassidy and I exited the restaurant. Oh well. It’s not like I was able to slip off this ring of death anyway, I thought as we made our way across the terminal to our gate.
“Where the hell did you come up with Germany?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. Valkyrie was a great movie and ... I don’t know,” I replied shrugging.
She laughed at my logic. That was typical me though. I usually never had a justification for the odd things I would say, so I would throw in a random fun fact and keep rolling hoping that eventually a good explanation would come to me. It usually never worked.
We got to our gate and dropped our bags on the floor in front of us when we sat down. Cassidy reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. As she kept herself busy, I watched the people walking back and forth. Some were walking casually, some were walking at a very quick pace with worry creased across their faces, some were children happily skipping by, and some just happened to be the man that crashed our lunch and we told we were going to Germany.
I nudged Cassidy and jerked my head in his direction.
He looked at us and smiled kindly, “This plane is going to Ibiza. I think you’re at the wrong gate.”
Walking around us, he sat down behind us and dropped his backpack.
“Oh. Ibiza isn’t in Germany?” Cassidy asked in mock confusion as she tried to keep up our charade. I laughed loudly and she grinned at me.
“We lied,” I said turning around to face him. “We’re going to Ibiza. We just don’t exactly know you and don’t hand out our travel plans to strangers.”
“I see,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye. “I am not offended. I understand completely.”