The twitch also tells me he enjoys it.
“Oh, please,” I say, enjoying it too. “If all you do is say why not, then you’re gonna get screwed.”
“You might get screwed anyway.”
“And I didn’t want to get screwed over on the flight, so I checked the fine print for hidden fees. It said the ‘cheapest airline for humans.’”
“Ah, that tracks now,” he says, with a tip of his forehead to the back of the plane before turning to his phone once more.
This puddle jumper is egalitarian when it comes to passengers. A couple of dogs are seat-belted in a few rows back, and in front of them, some cats travel in carriers. When I was boarding, I also spotted some metal crates in the back row.
I hope they don’t contain snakes. Indiana Jones and I have a lot in common, and neither of us likes slithery animals.
A dog barks, deep and booming.
“Sounds like a Great Dane. I hope he got two seats,” I say, tapping my fingers against the denim on my thighs.
That gets Nolan’s attention—the tapping. He looks away from his game and at me. “Are you nervous?”
I scoff. “No. C’mon. We’ve flown before. I usually just nap.”
“And you’re not sleeping now. So, I’ll ask again. Are you nervous?”
A cat behind us meows. Sounds like she’s saying meow-yes.
Stop reading my mind, cat.
It’s just this flight that’s rattling me. The incessant hum of the tube hurtling through the clouds. “Nah, I’m fine,” I say, even as a voice in my head whispers liar.
Nolan squeezes my thigh, an affectionate gesture that elicits . . . goose bumps.
Just what I didn’t need.
A dose of shivery tingles that make me think of . . .
Nope. Won’t go there.
“We’ll land soon,” Nolan reassures me. Then he offers me his phone. “Want to play?”
“No, I’ll just watch you play solitaire. Since that’s not creepy at all,” I say drily.
Another squeeze of my thigh. Another blast of sparklers along my skin. “Be a creeper, Em. Do it,” he urges.
I sigh, aggrieved, and watch as he goes back to moving cards like a solitaire shark.
A swipe here. A play there. I stare mindlessly, settling for any distraction. I am wound up more than usual, more than this plane trip warrants.
Maybe it’s because traveling with another person is strangely intimate. You learn things—like whether someone handles bumps in the road like a rickety old car or a smooth pair of wheels.
But don’t I already know Nolan’s style? We’ve flown together for the show a few times. A year ago, a food delivery app sponsored us for a month and sent us to Miami to review a ton of beach food trucks there.
In Florida, I discovered I’m the we-have-to-get-here-at-this-time person, while Nolan is the no-worries-it’s-all-good one. All month, I made sure we didn’t miss a single stop for our sponsor. Then on the last day on that trip, when traffic backed up on the Rickenbacker causeway and I was about to burst with worry over missing an appointment, Nolan found the perfect Jimmy Buffett tune to settle my nerves.
But he never played solitaire on that trip.
Is that why I’m jittery today? Because I didn’t know this about him till now? I know so many things, but not everything, of course. There are always new quirks to discover about a person.
Suddenly, this detail feels vital. “Have you always played solitaire?” I blurt out.
He finishes the game with a final swipe, giving a small fist pump as the screen fills with You beat the clock!
“Yes. I play it for luck,” he says.
“Have you always?”
“Used to play it when we traveled on family trips, like when we went to Jason’s championships and stuff. I joked that he won because I played solitaire before his games like a lucky ritual.”
That’s a sweet image, and it tugs at my heart, their closeness. “Did he believe you?”
Nolan shrugs with a smile. “When he was younger, he did.”
“He idolized you,” I say, smiling now too.
“Maybe. Anyway, I stopped playing a while ago. Just lost interest, I guess. But this morning, I remembered it once felt lucky to me, so I broke it out again.”
And I bet I know why. “You figured we could use some luck?”
His eyes lock with mine, those hazels flickering with unsaid words—isn’t it obvious we do? “Yeah,” he says aloud. “Since you’ve become even more superstitious lately, maybe together we can double our luck.”
I jerk my chin back. “You think I’ve gotten more superstitious?”
He clears his throat. “In the last few months, I’ve seen you pick up pennies on the street for good luck, stop to take pictures of rainbows—and now you avoid ladders too.”
“That’s just good sense. Ladders are dangerous.” I fiddle absently with the ladybug charm on my necklace.
His eyes drift to my throat, sweeping over the brushed metal on my skin, almost as if he were touching it. A flash of heat inconveniently spreads over my skin. “That too. Your ladybug. They’re a sign of luck. Maybe we’ll get lucky on this trip.”