The Woman in 3B - Eliza Lentzski Page 0,19

confusing emotions and focus instead on completing beverage service, but unresolved questions cluttered my mind.

Had she known I would be on this flight? And if so, why had she agreed to switch with Cheri if she knew with whom she’d be working? Was she regretting how we’d ended things?

Disappointingly, I also considered my bingo card. Gemma had been the one to suggest I might be able to complete the Mile High Club challenge with Lara, and even though I’d originally rejected the proposal, the longer I stared at Lara, the more reasonable the suggestion became. We’d already slept together; would it really matter if we had sex one more time and it just so happened to be mid-flight?

Thankfully we had a quick turnaround between our arrival in Philadelphia and our next flight to Boston. We didn’t have a plane change, but we had just enough time between arrival and departure to quickly pick up trash in the seat pockets and to inventory supplies before our Boston-bound passengers would be boarding.

Because Derek was the newest member of the flight team, and therefore was low man on the totem pole, he had the honor of picking up the bathroom areas while Lara and I divided up cleaning the rest of the plane. I was going to suggest we start at opposite ends of the plane and meet in the middle, but she had other ideas.

“Want to do sides?” she suggested. “I’ll take the seats left of the aisle if you go right?”

We’d similarly separated clean-up duties for the flights we’d worked together before. Neither strategy was more efficient than the other, but my proposal would have continued to separate us.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

Lara held the garbage bag for both of us while we cleaned the cabin on our respective sides of the plane. She seemed content not to manufacture small-talk, so I followed her lead. We worked in silence until she discovered something particularly disgusting that a passenger had left behind in their rear seat pocket.

“Oh, that’s nasty,” she practically gagged. She made a face and dangled a dirty diaper away from her body.

I couldn’t help my own laughter. The tension had been building over our three-hour flight, and I needed some kind of release. It wasn’t all that funny, but my initial chuckles morphed into a guttural guffaw that had me holding my sides.

I didn’t laugh alone, however; after her initial disgust, Lara joined in on the almost-manic giggling. She lay her hand on my forearm and doubled over. I was too distracted by my efforts to reign in my own laughter to dwell on the fact that she was touching me, but the action didn’t go entirely unnoticed.

After a moment, Lara righted herself and wiped under her eyes. Her cheeks were damp, but her mascara was unaffected.

“Oh God, I must be a mess,” she worried.

“You look perfect.” The words had escaped my traitorous mouth before I could stop them.

“Thanks,” she said with a soft smile.

“You’re welcome,” I felt compelled to return.

The moment—a truce, perhaps—was interrupted by a quiet buzz. A chirping noise followed as a reminder that I hadn’t silenced my phone. Lara pulled out her cellphone from the pocket of her dark blue uniform blazer as it chimed almost simultaneously.

I heard Lara’s frustrated sigh before I could check my own phone: “Our flight’s been delayed.”

The weather had been clear when we’d left Detroit, but while we’d been in the air, a thick fog had settled across the East Coast. The text from the airline said we were delayed by at least two hours. If I’d been working with anyone else, I would have suggested we grab dinner together. But I couldn’t picture myself sitting across a table from Lara and pretending like nothing had ever happened between us—like I didn’t know what she looked like beneath her navy blue uniform. I knew the length of her fingernails and the red trails she’d left on my back. I remembered how her thighs twitched when I sucked on her clit. I knew the noises she made when she came undone.

I had to get away.

The Philadelphia food court was busier than usual that afternoon. No flights were coming in or out because of the fog, so everyone was in the same holding pattern. I scanned the food court’s offerings. Chinese. Burgers. Salad. Burritos. Giant pretzels. My stomach all but growled when my eyes landed on a specific kiosk. I’d always had a particular weakness for cheap food court pizza.

I found an empty table,