kind of sucked. Airport TSA lines at six in the morning weren’t much better. At least we checked most of the luggage at the curb. Archie had a frequent flyer pass thing that would have gotten him right on through, but he waited with us. When it was my turn to go through the scanner, I got picked to get a pat down.
That was fun, with the four of them giving hard stares at the male agent who pulled me aside. Only he didn’t do it, it was a chick. She was fine, she was even nice about it. When I asked, because well why wouldn’t I want to know why I’d been picked, she just said sometimes it was random.
Once we were all clear, Archie took lead and I walked, hand in hand, with Ian to pick up coffee, and then we settled into the first class lounge—swanky. Not that we had long to wait. I still couldn’t get over the fact that they’d pulled this off.
“How long have you been planning it?”
Jake shrugged. “Thanksgiving-ish?”
“Not long after,” Archie admitted. “Thought about it before. We’ve talked about trips.” We had.
When it was time to board, I was a bundle of nerves and excitement. Or maybe my excitement was from my nerves. It was anyone’s guess. Of the five of us, only Coop and I hadn’t been on a plane or a trip like this. The pair of us had a lot of shared life experience on this particular aspect. Fortunately, it gave me a partner-in-crime to make faces with. Archie wasn’t alone in laughing at us either. Both Ian and Jake kept shaking their heads and chuckling, though they all wore indulgent smiles, so I wasn’t going to let it bother me.
First class was kind of fancy with huge seats. I had a window seat—score! Coop had the seat next to me. Ian and Jake were behind us, and Archie in front. My only complaint was that would make it harder to talk to them, but really? We’d manage.
I totally took a picture of myself and then a picture of me and Coop, and fired it off to Rachel. It took a beat to realize Ian and Jake photo bombed. Archie grumbled so we had him do a selfie with all of us in the background and then the flight attendant gave us a not so indulgent look, and we planted our asses in the seats.
The butterflies in my stomach turned to hornets though, right about the time the plane hurtled down the runway as it prepared to take off. Coop held my hand, fingers threaded together as we both stared out the window. It was the craziest thing I’d ever done. I really didn’t want to see the landscape racing by, and then suddenly, the roaring noise of the wheels on the tarmac gave way to just the engines as we were airborne.
I swore my eyes had to be saucers as I glanced at Coop and found him grinning like an idiot, too. He leaned into my shoulder as we stared out the window. The sun wasn’t up yet, so it was all lights in the darkness twinkling, and at the same time, it was absolutely gorgeous.
This was even better than a roller coaster.
After we achieved altitude, the flight attendants offered us coffee—which we declined because Archie just shook his head with wide eyes, good to know—and juice or soda. Caffeine was vital, so I went for the soda. We also had a warm breakfast. Nothing fancy, despite the swank of where we were sitting. But hot biscuits that actually tasted like biscuits, scrambled eggs, and bacon? Yes please and thank you.
In no time, we were landing and it was still dark outside, but we’d been time traveling, so that was weird enough. The real difference hit me after we collected our bags and headed out to meet the car waiting for us.
The air outside was cold. Holy. Shit. Cold.
I clamped my teeth together as the wind cut right through me. Thankfully, it wasn’t far to the car and the driver had been right there at luggage claim to meet us. Jake nudged me into the—thankfully, heated—back before handing over the bags. One by one, the guys slid in, and I was sandwiched between Archie and Ian this time, while Coop hooked his foot around mine.
Ten minutes later, we were pulling out of the airport. While it was getting lighter outside, it was definitely not getting sunnier. Maybe that