Page 11 of Fear of Flying
“So are you,” Drew seemed to blurt out, his voice low and husky and a little bit shaky.
Zach was still warm everywhere and still couldn’t quite breathe, and now he had no idea what to do or say. “Th-thank you? I, um... I’m—I’m not good at this.”
“At what?”
“At—at”—Zach gestured vaguely—“I don’t even know what.” Flirting? Dating? He was scared to name it in case he was way off base somehow. “Just...” Change the subject. He needed to change the subject. “Um, I guess we should pick a restaurant? S-so I-I can buy you dinner for saving me?”
Some mysterious emotion flitted across Drew’s expression before he smiled warmly and nodded. “Yeah, we should probably pick a restaurant. There’s gonna be a wait everywhere with the weather delays, I’m sure, so we might as well get our name on a list. Um, if there actually are any lists.” Drew pulled out his phone and brought up some app or website, presumably to look up restaurants in the airport.
“Oh, crap! I never took my phone out of airplane mode, and Jen is probably freaking out right now,” Zach said as he fumbled with the flap on his cargo pants to get at his phone. Once it was out, he toggled airplane mode off again.
Drew looked over at him and grimaced sympathetically.
“She’s my best friend,” he explained, even though Drew hadn’t asked for an explanation. But when the phone buzzed what had to be at least a dozen times, the network loading all the notifications that had come in while the phone had had no signal, Zach was sure glad he’d warned Drew.
“Ah, checking up on you?”
“Yeah. She, ah... well, you experienced what it’s like flying with me. Heh. She gives me a hard time, but she loves me.”
Drew’s brow crinkled slightly as if he was trying to recall something. “She’s... the Superman fan, right?”
Zach wasn’t sure why his heart did a little flip at the fact that Drew had remembered that detail, and he was about to ponder it more when his phone buzzed again, this time the longer buzzing of a phone call. Zach looked down at the screen. Jen.
“Ah, it’s her,” he said to Drew, holding up his phone. “I should take this.”
“Of course,” Drew replied. He lifted his own phone. “I’ll, uh, keep looking in the meantime.”
“Hello,” Zach said into the phone, holding it up to his ear.
“OH MY GOD, ZACH. I thought you’d died of a panic attack or something. Jesus, I was worried. I saw about the storm on the news.”
Zach winced and pulled the phone away from his ear briefly as Jen’s voice bellowed through the line. He stood and started moving away from the bench, giving Drew a cringing smile in apology. Drew just waved him off with a smile in return, indicating it was no big deal.
“Zach? Are you there??”
“I’m here, I’m here. I just...” He glanced back at Drew. “I, um, needed to step away to... talk—”
“OH MY GOD ARE YOU WITH HIM?!”
“Oh my god, Jen!” Zach whisper-yelled into the phone. “How the hell did you know that? I didn’t even say anything!”
“Your voice, dude. It got sexy-flirty. And cagey.”
“What does that even mean? I did not change my voice.”
“Oh yes, you did. Sexy-flirty. It sounded exactly like you get when you’re talking about daydream fantasies with Chris Hemsworth. Plus, I know when you’re trying to hide something from me.”
“I—”
“Don’t even deny it, dude. Voice. Changed. Why would you even try to hide this from me? Now SPILL!”
“I... don’t even know what to say,” Zach whispered into the phone, his eyes wandering back to Drew, who looked up and gave Zach a brief smile that set his heart racing again. “It can’t be real life, Jen. God... he held my hand more than half the plane ride, and—”
“EEEEE!! Are you serious right now?”
Zach held the phone away from his ear, wincing again, then moved it back to his ear and whispered furiously, “You’re gonna make me go deaf, I swear.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll be good,” she promised. “So was it all, like, romantic and shit?”