On My Flight

My sister Noelle. What a gem she was. She always traveled for work, and therefore, she had a whole heap of frequent flier miles that she never got to use because, well, she worked too much.

I, however, got to benefit sometimes from her aforementioned frequent flier miles. She had transferred enough of them to me to bump me up to first class today on my flight, and I was loving it. I had lots of legroom, a more comfortable seat, and even a free drink while I waited for takeoff. Even better, I had the window seat, and the aisle seat beside me so far was empty. Maybe it would remain that way.

I could only hope.

I checked my watch. The plane was about ready to take off any minute now. It was a nonstop flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. I had been vacationing all by myself in Las Vegas for the past week as a present to myself after my divorce had finally come through.

God knew I deserved a present to myself. My husband had seldom bought me gifts throughout our entire 20 year marriage. It had been a sticking point for me, though my hints and nudges and sometimes outright mentioning it had always fallen on deaf ears.

While on vacation in Las Vegas I had done some minimal gambling, seen a few concerts, done some sunbathing, and had hung outside a bit at Bellagio in the evenings to watch the fountain. The whole trip was fantastic!

I had left the care of the kids with my now ex husband, though two teenagers didn't exactly take much work. Quick runs to fast food restaurants and nonstop internet service would entertain and suffice. Really, keeping them from burning the house down was all my ex had to do.

But now I was going to meet my aforementioned sister in Los Angeles as she had a couple days off there. Our goal was to see how many famous people we could in the two days we would be there. Oh, and we planned to shop and to see the Hollywood sign.

The plane's emergency landing procedures had just been demonstrated to us by our two flight attendants, and I was assuming the plane was just seconds away from taxing to the runway.

But I was wrong.

There began a slight commotion first between the two pilots, and then amongst the two flight attendants. This caught everybody in first class's attention. The flight attendants tittered and whispered to each other for several seconds. Those of us in first class all glanced at each other in confusion.

"What's going on?" A woman asked out loud.

"There better not be a delay," a man said angrily.

"The plane better still have both its wings glued on," a different woman said.

We all chuckled.

The door to the airplane that usually remained sealed at this point suddenly opened, and an airline employee I remembered from the airport counter stuck her head inside the plane. "This way," she said, as one extra man behind her squeezed onto the plane.

"Thank you very much. Sorry, but thank you," the man said to her.

I watched the tall, nicely-built, sunglasses-wearing man glance at the seat numbers. He began to approach me and came to rest in the aisle seat right next to my window seat. I looked at the man out of the corner of my eye. He had dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair with much lighter highlights around his face. He was definitely an older guy, in his upper fifties maybe, though his age was difficult to tell for sure from behind his Ray Ban sunglasses. He dropped his backpack onto the floor and it bumped against my left leg. I glanced over at him and shot him a small smile in greeting as he got situated in his seat.

He looked at me, sneered, and said quite directly: "Don't look at me, and don't talk to me."

I blinked and shook my head somewhat in shock. "Excuse me?" I said.

He glanced at me with a superior-looking smirk on his face and said, "You heard me."

I narrowed my eyes at him, but he'd already looked away.

I took this moment to look the asshole over. He was dressed in a black button down shirt, black jeans, and shiny black shoes. His backpack was also black. There was a theme here, I thought.

On his fingers were several sparkly diamond-looking rings - though there was no way they could have been real - and his scruffy face looked like he might have shaved maybe a day or so ago.

He dug around in his backpack and pulled out an expensive-looking, thin, gray, laptop computer.

His phone in his pocket suddenly rang and he immediately grabbed and answered it.

"Talk to me," he said into the phone.

He ignored me as I watched him and eavesdropped.

"You sent it to me finally? Yeah? Well, good. It's about time," he growled into his phone.

He pulled up an email program on the screen and I watched as he forcefully typed a few keys and a video came up. Music came blaring out of his computer as the video began.

I couldn't help but look at his screen. The video was as odd as he was. Waif-like women in silver bikinis in a city with tall buildings walked across a street to the beat of music. Then there was a close up of a dog that barked. Then lines swirled on the screen to the music, and then a diver swan-dived into a pool. It was all set to a song that was burned firmly into my memory from decades ago. I might have remembered a few words of the song, but I was currently so miffed at this man that the words escaped me.

He glanced over at me, noticed that I was watching his computer, and he quickly folded the screen down, effectively closing it. "Just a second," he said to the person on his phone.

He held his phone to his chest to muffle it as he looked at me. "I thought I told you not to look at me," he said gruffly.

I frowned, my anger spiking. "Well, I probably wouldn't have cared, but for the fact that you explicitly don't want me to look. But now it's like a car crash, and I can't look away," I said, giving him a shit-eating grin. "Real classy video, by the way," I said with a sneer. "Who made it? Monkeys with ADHD?" I asked.

He huffed out a breath and turned the computer so I couldn't see it so easily and he opened the laptop again.

A female flight attendant came by and leaned down next to the man. "Sir, you'll need to put your phone into airplane mode and return your tray table to its upright position," she said. "We're getting ready to take off," she said.

The man huffed out another breath but he begrudgingly did what the flight attendant asked him to do. He ended the call and he put his phone back in his pocket.

The plane taxied to the runway and minutes later we were barreling into the sky. The seatbelt light was not off yet, but the man still undid his seatbelt, unlatched his tray table, and got his computer back out way before it was safe to.

I eyed him with disdain. He started up the video again. I watched it out of the corner of my eye. There were more scantily-clad women but this time they were dancing to the music. Then there was a cat in the foreground cleaning its face. Cells split apart by mitosis. A water droplet dripped into a cup of water creating ripples. Then there was an alien ship that landed and little aliens got out and started walking around. A man with a huge Mohawk looked like he was screaming.

I couldn't help it, but I started to laugh.

The man quickly shut his laptop again. "You're laughing at me?" He asked.

I laughed even harder. "What the hell is that you're watching?" I asked, pointing at his computer.

He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head. His eyes gazed at me and they were clear and icy blue - cold. "What's it to you?" He said with a sneer.

"Nothing," I said. I continued to chuckle and shook my head. I looked out the window and watched the fluffy clouds that were around us and I watched the ground far below slowly pass beneath us.

"Excuse me? Sir? Mr. Kane?"

I glanced over into the aisle. There was a woman probably in her late 40's - a little older than me - standing there with a little pad of paper and a pen. "Can I have your autograph?" She asked.

Curiously I watched as the man next to me wordlessly took the pad of paper and a pen, scribbled a signature on the paper, and handed it back to her.

"Thank you! Thanks so much!" She said.

He nodded, said, "you're welcome," and she walked off.

The man looked at me with a smirk.

I frowned at him.

Then a man walked up to my strange seatmate. "Hi! Kane, you rock! Can I have your autograph, man?"

The man in the seat beside me nodded, and signed another piece of paper. "Thanks, man," the guy said.

"You're welcome," the stranger beside me said. They fist bumped each other, then the man in the aisle walked off just as the woman had done.

I frowned even deeper. "Why are people asking you for your autograph?" I asked him.

He opened his computer and rolled his eyes at me. Then he focused again on the ridiculous video as it loudly played.

When a third person asked for his autograph, I'd had enough.

"Okay," I said when they had left. "Just who the hell are you?" I hissed at him.

"If you have to ask..." he said, but he didn't finish.

I watched some more of the video he was watching. The song...it was too familiar...the video played and the music as well as the words pinged a distant memory:

Into the street/

that's where we find ourselves/

hoping I'll meet/

you and not someone else/

Then it dawned on me. His name - Kane. My eyes widened as I stole another look at him. This was Kane...Kane Holladay. Better known as the lead singer of Destination Exhibition, from back in the day.

I felt my cheeks pink, because I hadn't recognized him in the first place. Thirty years or so changes a person a bit physically. Go figure.

And plus I was still majorly irritated.

"And the answer is no," he said to me.

"No? The answer is no to what?" I asked.

"If you want an autograph," he said. "The answer is no."

I crossed my arms over my chest and turned sideways in my seat to better look at him. "You think that I want to ask you for your autograph?" I asked him.

"Don't you?" He smirked.

"Hell no!" I said. "You're an asshole! I don't want anything from you!"

"Is that right?" He said.

"Well, I'd like for you to leave me alone and turn that ridiculous video down. It's too damn loud," I said.

Kane rolled his eyes and picked up the airplane phone attached to the back of the seat in front of him and he placed a call.

"Yeah, Jerry? Yeah. Okay, I'm watching it. And I don't love it," he said.

I snorted.

He glanced at me. "It's not weird enough," he said. "It's not full of enough random shit. Have them brainstorm again and come up with something even better," he said.

He hung up the phone and closed his laptop.

I huffed out a breath.

He glanced at me. "Do you listen to music? At all?" He asked me in a bored monotone.

"What? Yes! I play the p-piano...and f-flute..." I spluttered, now flustered.

He raised a single eyebrow at me.

"Yes!" I tried again. "I've listened to rock music all my life," I said, irritated.

"Really?" He said flatly.

"Yes, and ok, now I know who you are," I snapped.

I turned even more pink, because I had a secret. I didn't tell him that 13 year old me once had had a huge poster of 25 year old him and his band on my bedroom wall. I equally wasn't going to tell him that I used to kiss that poster of him every night before I went to bed.

He grinned. "Excellent. So you know who I am. Then you probably know all about me and my music," he said with an arrogant nod.

I rolled my eyes. "Hardly. Like I barely remember it," I lied. "Your music went out of style like 30 years ago," I said.

He laughed, for once, and it was an honest, genuine laugh. "Ouch. You wound me," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "Well, if that wounds you, you need to get thicker skin," I said. "How did you make it to the popularity you did with such baby soft skin?" I asked him with a patronizing pout.

"Guess I shouldn't have used all that moisturizing hand lotion," he stated with a grin and a chuckle.

I laughed out loud. "Probably not."

He grinned at me, then glanced down at his computer. "Ever heard of a concert visual?" He asked me.

I frowned. "Never."

"Do you go to concerts?" He asked me.

I nodded, rolling my eyes. "Of course I go to concerts. I just saw a couple in Las Vegas," I said.

"Well, in the concerts you've seen, did the singer or band have a video that played on a big screen behind them while they played their songs?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. What about it?"

"Well, that's a concert visual," he said. "That's what I'm watching," he said, pointing to his laptop.

"Ok?" I said, shaking my head.

"Our reunion tour starts in six months and I'm trying to get some videos approved that we can play in the background while we perform our songs," he said.

I shrugged. "Why are you telling me this?" I asked him.

"Well," he said, leaning towards me, "I figure you might be interested. After all, I'm an interesting guy," he said with a smirk.

I flushed.

He leaned in even closer to me. "Plus, I plan to fuck your brains out once we land," he said.

My jaw dropped open. "What?!" I squeaked.

He nodded solemnly.

I narrowed my eyes. "Listen, I'm meeting my sister, not...f-fucking a has been rock star!" I said, again flustered.

He just grinned at me. "You sure about that?" He asked me.

I leaned as far away from him as I could in my airplane seat as if sitting too close to him was dangerous. "Positively," I said emphatically.

"Well, we're poised to make a major comeback," he said. "We're gonna be on the front pages again. Just you wait," he said.

The flight was a short one and we didn't speak again. He watched the concert visual video in its entirety, then he cued up another one.

The plane barely had time to reach cruising altitude when its descent began, I noticed. We circled the Los Angeles airport a couple times and then we approached the landing strip.

Once we'd landed and everyone got the ok to depart the plane, I watched him deftly push and shove through first class, yet apologize profusely to those people he so rudely moved out of his way. He had a way about him though that made people feel like they were inconveniencing him and that he was doing them a favor by hustling by them. It was strange to watch.

I shook my head. A few minutes later I walked into the Los Angeles airport myself, a little confused because my sister wasn't answering her phone. I tried a couple different times but she wouldn't pick up, or answer my texts. Finally I looked at the arrival board. Her flight in from Phoenix hadn't even left yet. How could it have been so behind? We had planned on arriving closely together. Maybe they were having some bad weather?

I grabbed my bright red suitcase from the luggage carousel and my intent was to head outside to hail a cab. But once I got outside, it was very strange: there were no taxis there at all, and according to my app, Uber wait times were terrible. "What is going on?" I mumbled mostly to myself as I studied my phone.

"Having troubles?" Said a voice.

I startled. Kane was standing right beside me now with a sleek, hard covered, black rolling suitcase. His hand brushed against my arm.

"There are no taxis and Uber will take forever. What the hell?" I mumbled.

"Hum. Well, it's Sunday and football season just started. I'd imagine either the Rams or the Chargers play today so fans are taking up all the taxis and Ubers," he said smoothly. "And it's LA. There's always something going on," he added.

A black limo, nevertheless, right then pulled up to the curb right in front of us.

"But my limo is here, right on time," he said with a smirk.

I just looked at him. "That's great for you," I said.

"Hold on. I'll take you wherever you want to go," he said. "Just...as long as you take me...where I want to go," he said, his finger slowly tapping his bottom lip. His eyes slowly scanned me from my toes up to the top of my head. He made me feel absolutely naked.

I was flabbergasted. "Still stuck on the idea that I'm going to sleep with you?" I hissed.

He just nodded. "What other choice do you have?" He said. "You need a ride," he added.

I laughed out loud. "I have plenty of choices," I said. "Besides, I haven't even tried Lyft yet," I said snootily.

He laughed out loud. There were no Lyfts to be had either, and we both knew it.

I sighed, grinding my teeth. "Fine. I'll take you up on that ride offer, but the other part of your bizarre deal is a no-go," I said.

He shrugged one shoulder. "Nevermind, then," he said.

I stomped my foot like a child. "Damn you," I said. There was nothing I hated more than to be stuck at an airport.

I watched as the limo driver got out, circled the vehicle, and opened the door in front of us. "Mr. Kane?" He said smoothly.

Kane looked at me as he handed off his suitcase to the driver. "Well?" He said.

I sighed, defeated. I was already tired from my recent Las Vegas vacation. All I wanted was to get to my hotel room and rest before my sister arrived and we'd be going out again.

"Oh, for the love of...sure. Fine," I said. "You probably can't even get it up anymore anyway," I said as I handed my suitcase off to the limo driver, brushed past Kane, and climbed into the limo.

Kane's mouth dropped open. "How old do you think I am?" He asked me.

"Old enough," I said.

Angrily he climbed in beside me. "Look, I have Viagra, sure. But I'm as good as I ever was," he said testily.

"Whatever. Because I'm not doing it," I said.

He just chuckled. "We'll see," he stated.

Now my mouth dropped open. "I pretty well know my body and today it's not going to be under yours," I huffed.

The limo driver shut us into the vehicle and we sat there for a few seconds. I could hear him putting the suitcases into the trunk.

"Safety first," Kane suddenly said. He reached across my person and took hold of the seatbelt. He paused for a second, our bodies very close together. I looked up at him and his blue eyes were uncannily bright. Also, I could almost smell the pheromones coming off of him.

Finally he pulled the seat belt across my body and hooked it. "There," he said, returning to his seat and hooking his own.

"Where to, Sir?" The driver said once he was seated up front. "Home?"

"No. Not yet. To the lady's hotel," he said with a flourish of his hand.

"Where's that, Ma'am?" The driver asked me. He glanced at me in his rear view mirror as he pulled away from the curb.

I crossed my arms across my chest. I seethed. "Fine. The Airport Charleston Hotel," I said.

"Ooh. They have real comfortable beds there," Kane whispered to me.

I huffed and said something about him being an easy lay, but he didn't respond, only smirked at me.

When we got to the hotel that was only a mile away, I mumbled a thank you to the driver, opened the door myself, and scurried out of the limo.

The driver popped the trunk, and I had my suitcase out faster than he could get out of the limo and get it for me.

I hurried inside the hotel and to the front desk. I tapped my fingernails impatiently on the counter, waiting for the lady behind it to turn around and see me. "Can I help you?" She eventually asked. She had a name tag on that said Elise.

"Yep. I'd like a room, please, Elise," I said.

She immediately frowned. "I'm so sorry, but this hotel is full," she said.

My jaw dropped. "There are no rooms? At all?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "No."

"Good afternoon!" Said a loud, now very familiar male voice from behind me. I put my head in my hands. This couldn't be happening.

"Yes?" Elise said to him.

Kane sidled up to the front desk and slid his sunglasses up to the top of his head. He put his other arm around me. I tried to inch away but his arm tightened. He basically had me caught.

"How are you today, beautiful?" Kane asked the woman behind the desk with a panty-incinerating smile.