Page 95 of The Déjà Glitch
“Ma’am, you can’t be parked here.” Helen cut her off with a sharp command.
Gemma flinched. She looked side to side, and in truth, they were the only car idling at the curb. All the others quickly pulled away as soon as the passengers were dumped out onto the sidewalk like cargo. “Aren’t you a ticket agent?” she asked Helen. “What are you doing out here policing traffic?”
Helen smoothed her hand over her prim uniform. “As an employee of this airline and a tenant of this airport, it’s my duty to address problems where I see them,” she said robotically, and Gemma considered checking her back for a battery pack. Or an off switch. “Now please, move your vehicle.”
Gemma smiled at her, half laughing that they’d run into each other again. “Okay, we will, but don’t you care that I found him? This is him!” She pointed at Jack again, hoping they could crack Helen’s frosty exterior with a happy ending. “We told you love would win!”
Helen narrowed her eyes once more. Her mouth flattened, and Gemma realized that she knew better than to think she could melt this ice queen of a woman.
She stopped smiling and poked Jack in the side as if they had to escape a bomb about to go off. “Get in the car,” she said to him, feigning a deadly serious tone worthy of a scene fromMac Drake. “It’s futile, and we should run before it gets worse.”
He caught on to her teasing and cast her a dramatic look like they were in true danger. “How much time do we have?”
“None. You don’t know this woman, Jack. She’s going to call security in three... two...”
“If you don’t move your vehicle, I’m going to call security,” Helen said right on cue.
Gemma and Jack exchanged a glance of fabricated fright, trying not to laugh, and pushed off from each other. Gemma threw herself at her door, and Jack sprinted around the hood, shouting, “Go! Go! Go!” Rex barked for dramatic effect at all the commotion.
They slammed their doors and Jack hit the gas on the car, which had been running the whole time. They left a bit of rubber on the road and turned heads as they sped off into the sunny day, cracking up, in a dramatic escape worthy of a Hollywoodending.