Page 40 of Not Yet Yours
“Are you finished with your drink?” I ask. “Our car is due in the next few minutes.”
Harriet picks her cup up and drinks the last of her atole.
“I am now,” she says.
We go outside to wait for our car and when it comes, the driver once more loads our luggage away in the trunk for us while we get into the car. We ride to the airport in silence, Harriet staring out of the window on her side of the car and me staring out of the window on my side of the car I’m glad it isn’t a long drive. We reach the airport, and the driver retrieves our things, and we head to my plane, where once more, I store our bags and we wait for the official to come and check our passports and run the scanner over us and our things.
Once that’s done, Marcus comes over and confirms our flight times and Shana closes the door and asks if we need anything. We both answer no and again, I tell Shana to feel free to stay in the staff area. This time, it’s simply because I don’t think it’s necessary for her to stand behind the bar for the full flight when we don’t need anything. If either of us wants a drink, we can grab one ourselves and we’ve already eaten.
I wish it were for the same reason I sent her back there flying out here, but I don’t think Harriet and I will be reacquainting ourselves with the mile-high club anytime soon after the morning we’ve had.
Shana checks our seatbelts and goes back to her area, and we take off. She sticks her head around the end of the cabin once welevel out to tell us we are free to unfasten our seatbelts and move around. We both unfasten our seatbelts but neither of us makes any move away from our seats.
We’ve been in the air for about fifteen minutes when Harriet speaks up.
“I’m sorry,” she says. I look at her and see unshed tears shining in her eyes.
“Hey, come on, it’s ok,” I tell her.
She wipes angrily at her eyes.
“No. It’s not ok. You bought me two of the most amazing gifts I have ever received, and we had a lovely time together, and I ruined it by being a bitch,” she says.
“Honestly, you didn’t ruin it,” I say. “I shouldn’t have pushed you to talk about something you clearly don’t want to discuss.”
“Friends?” Harriet says with a tentative smile.
“With benefits. Don’t you go forgetting the end of that phrase,” I say with a grin and the iciness between us melts away, although there is still a little bit of distance between us.
I think that will just take time to go away because I don’t think it’s going anywhere until Harriet opens up to me about why she doesn’t want us to be anything more than we are. I can wait. It’s like a slow torture, but there are worse ways to be tortured than spending time with a beautiful woman and fucking her senseless on the regular.
By the time Shana reappears to check our seatbelts for landing, the awkwardness between us feels like a distant memory as Harriet sleeps with her head on my shoulder. It’s a shame to have to wake her up, but if I don’t wake her up now, I will have to wake her up when we land so I gently shake her. She smiles up at me, her face still puffy with sleep.
“Sorry, I must have drifted off there,” she says. “Are we landing?”
I nod and she fastens her seatbelt and we land. We wait for an official to come and do the checks once more and then we are up and heading for the door.
“Wait,” Harriet says. “Do I have time to go to the bathroom?”
I nod and sit back down, perching on the edge of the seat closest to me while I wait for Harriet to come back. I flick absently through Instagram because I know if I don’t, I will end up checking work emails and they can wait until tomorrow when I’m back in the office.
I smile when I see a picture of Harriet appear on my screen. A bathroom mirror selfie, which I am informed is an important part of any night out. I scroll on, seeing pictures from Cullen, a few from Carmen, and some from old friends and work colleagues. I see another one of Harriet, but this time, I don’t smile. She’s wrapped up in the arms of some man I have never seen before. They both look happy, big smiles on their faces. And as if that’s not bad enough, the date on the photo shows it was taken last Friday, a night I had asked Harriet to do something with me only to be told she was busy. Yes, it certainly looks like she was busy.
Anger swirls inside of me and I can feel my temperature rising. Who the fuck is that guy and what right does he have to put his hands on my girl like that? I lock my cell phone and put it in my pocket, after taking a screenshot of the offending picture and leaving it up on my screen. I need to confront Harriet about this, but not in front of Shana who is standing by the door waiting for us to leave. We will have this conversation in the limo on the way home with the screen up so that the driver can’t see or hear us.
Harriet comes back from the bathroom, and she frowns when she sees me.
“What happened? You look… I don’t know. Angry,” she says.
“Not here,” I snap, and I stand up and lead her off the plane, carrying her bag as well as my suitcase and laptop bag because I don’t want to interact with her enough to hand her bag over.
We thank Shana on the way past her and halfway down the stairs from the plane, Harriet calls my name.
“Liam, wait,” she says. “What’s happened? Why are you angry?”
“We’ll talk about it in the car,” I say quietly. “I am not about to have an argument with you in public,”
“What? You’re angry with me?” she says.