1
“Okay.” Zeta rolled her neck and massaged her butt with the balls of her hands, indifferent to the people streaming by them on the gangway. Or more likely unaware, knowing Zeta. “I never want to set foot in a plane again.”
Elisa shot a quick apologetic smile at the frazzled mom hauling three carry-ons and two crying toddlers trying to pass. The toddlers had started crying as the long-haul flight from LA to Sydney began its touchdown and hadn’t stopped. Elisa understood their pain. She hated landings as well. Her ears always popped, andsheknew why. Poor little kids had no clue.
“It’s going to be hard for you to get home then,” she said, scooping up Zeta’s hobo bag from beside her sister’s ankle. She slung it over her own shoulder—damn, what wasinthere?—and gave Zeta a pointed look. “It’s a long swim from Australia to San Diego. Very long.”
A tall man in an impeccable charcoal-gray suit hurried passed them, bumping into Elisa a little.
“Hey!” Zeta glared at him. “Watch it. You hit my sister.”
He didn’t slow down. Or acknowledge their existence.
“It’s okay,” Elisa mumbled, giving her shoulder a gentle rub. “Wearestanding in the way, after all.”
“We’re off to the side,” Zeta pointed out, sticking her tongue out at the man’s back. “Clearly he traveled first class. Who looksthatgood after a thirteen-hour flight?”
Elisa took a few seconds to admire the view—he definitely filled out his suit well, with his broad shoulders and tapered back and long legs that she bet were corded and strong—and shook her head. “C’mon, let’s get moving. I want a shower more than breath right now.”
“True.” Zeta retrieved her bag from Elisa’s shoulder, gave her a quick hug, and turned a narrow-eyed glare down the gangway. “Let’s beat the douche in the suit through customs.”
Elisa laughed.
A few seconds of power walking later, the man in the gray suit appeared in their sights, weaving through the other passengers heading for the custom gates.
“Do you think it’s always this quiet here?’ Elisa asked as Zeta picked up their pace. There weren’t many people around at all. There was almost a calm sense to the area which messed with Elisa’s mind. International airports were, in her experience, always crowded with stressed people. She was usually one of them.
“I think we were the first plane to land,” Zeta said, determined glare drilling into the man’s back. “It’s only six in the morning here. I think. My watch went flat somewhere over the ocean. Quick, he’s heading to the right.”
Elisa noted the manwasheading to the right, toward the Returning Australian Citizen checkpoint stations. “We can’t go that way, Zet,” she muttered, snagging her sister’s elbow. “We’re not Australian.”
Zeta’s eye narrowed. “Damn it.”
Elisa laughed. Zeta had always been the competitive one. Bria, the eldest of them by a mere twelve minutes, was the adrenaline junkie. She was also the reason for the insane thirteen-hour flight to the other side of the world—and a different hemisphere, no less—ten days before Christmas.
Zeta spun to face her. “Quick, give me your best Australian accent.”
Elisa dropped her jaw. “You’re kidding?”
Zeta shook her head. “He’s going to get there first. C’mon, you’ve been listening to Owen talk since October. Do an impression of him for me.”
“I can’t sound like an Aussie,” Elisa protested. “Owen sounds like an Aussie because heisan Aussie.”
Bria’s fiancé had mentioned to them a few times he sounded more, what he called Ocker Aussie, because he grew up in a small rural town away from the multicultural big cities like Sydney. He’d even given Elisa and Zeta a few lessons in Australian slang.
“C’mon,” Zeta pleaded, flicking the man in the suit—now much closer to the point-of-no-return for non-Australians than a few seconds ago. “He bumped into you without saying sorry. Just…”
“Push passed him and pretend I’m an Aussie?” Elisa cocked an eyebrow. “And then present the customs officer myAmericanpassport?”
Zeta blew out an exasperated sigh. “You’re no fun.”
“Exactly,” Elisa agreed. “I’m the worrier of the family, remember?”
“Maybe we’ll see him on the sidewalk and beat him to a cab?”
“He doesn’t look the cab-catching kind.” Elisa watched him stride with graceful confidence toward the Australian Citizen checkpoints. Tinsel and Christmas baubles hung from the various stations. For some reason, the decorations made her want to smile. She always liked Christmas, even if she constantly worried everyone would hate the presents she bought for them.
“More like a limo,” she said.