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“You might be worse.”
“I ain’t your older sister! That’s my hell with you!”
“You’re right. If you date the wrong guy, Mom and I will finally have something to gang up on you about.”
“You think I don’t know? Half the reason I never tell you about my one-shot dates is because I don’t want the drama.”
“There is always drama with love, Kay.”
“How would you know!”
They dug back into their fried rice, Kaylinn grumbling about her dating woes while Arianna held back the kind of new love giggling that would have embarrassed her as a teenager, let alone now!
Chapter 17
Elle emerged from the Royal Asia lounge in LAX for her first trip back to Singapore in three weeks. As things settled on the business end of things, her trips were coming fewer and farther between – something she would have celebrated before she became involved with Arianna, a woman she flew down to see and no one else.
That was marginally easier on her than the constant trips over the Pacific Ocean. But now that she was going back for another round of meetings with the Singaporean side of the company? Very nice.
That’s what she thought as she waited for her boarding call at the gate. She shared a grateful smile with the ground crew who recognized her before heading down the jetway, where she was held up behind a woman dressed in nothing but Gucci. The wheel of her carryon was stuck in the gap between the plane and the jetway, and no one other than Arianna was tried with helping the First Class passenger get the wheel out and the woman to her seat.
Arianna shared a shy look with Elle, who had practiced the perfect poker face when her girlfriend was on duty. As she slowly approached her First Class seat by the window, she heard Arianna tell someone behind her, “It’s another beautiful day in LA.”
Elle couldn’t help but smirk. That was something she had told Arianna the day before when they lay curled in one another’s arms before parting ways. Elle had a board meeting there in LA the evening before and couldn’t spend the night with her girlfriend. Which was fine, because they would be spending plenty of time together in Singapore.
“My sister wants to meet you,” Arianna had said while her nose nuzzled against Elle’s shoulder. “She’s the only one I’ve told about us. It’s okay. She won’t tell our mom or anyone from work. But I had to tell someone. Holding in that I’ve been with you these past few months is too much to bear. I want to tell the whole world.”
Elle hid her blushing behind her tablet, which held an unlabeled graph detailing company revenue. She liked to think that Royal Asia bursting through their half-year goal was due to wonderful employees like Arianna – and Esther and, yes, Charmaine – but she knew better. It was due to factors beyond any one person’s control.
All that was in Elle’s control was her response to Arianna, who approached her with something her girlfriend had dropped in the aisle.
“Oh, thanks.” Elle accepted the receipt from a convenience store that tattled on her purchase of Pepsi Zero and cheese popcorn. Both were in her overnight bag currently tucked in its allotted place.
There was no time to say anything else. Arianna was immediately needed elsewhere, and Elle spotted something else she had dropped a couple of rows ahead. She knew there were about five minutes before more passengers flooded onto the plane.
“Well, well.” As much as Elle should have anticipated the voice only a few feet away, she was still surprised to see Riley standing just outside the cockpit. Aren’t you a bit late heading back there? Elle was too familiar with the pilot protocols, not only since she started her job, but in the wake of certain events in the early 21st century when she was still in high school. “I was wondering when I’d see you on one of my flights again.”
There wasn’t much time for them to acknowledge each other before the other passengers arrived and Riley was needed in the cockpit. Yet Elle was given a critical piece of information, and Riley would more than likely be a thorn in the side while a certain couple attempted to keep things on the down low while they were in Singapore.
Damnit. Riley was perceptive. But she was also a big fan of women getting together, so that would play in Elle and Arianna’s favor should they get caught. But… damnit. Elle would prefer the pilot not to know, and not only because they had slept together before.
She settled back into her seat, buckling up and commencing her ability to be the consummate passenger who followed every instruction and never caused any problems. Not even when Charmaine forgot to bring her drinks more than once after the flight began.
“I can’t wait until we’re on the ground,” she texted Arianna, who was still in the middle of work and not likely to take her four-hour break for another thirty minutes. “There’s so much going on, and all I can think about is getting you naked again.”
Arianna brushed past her to tend to the passenger dressed in Gucci, who had pressed the magic button that brought beauties like Miss Song to her side.
“And getting on top of you. It’s killing me not being able to touch you right now.”
She tossed her phone into her bag and closed her eyes. If she couldn’t have Arianna right now, then she wouldn’t even look at her.
“Don’t suppose you know where’s the best place an American woman can get a drink?”
The crew was held up at immigration, right before they were processed through their designated lines that allowed them to bypass the massive swell of passengers coming from multiple flights at once. Normally, Arianna was already rushing through customs and meeting with her sister at their weekly designated pickup. Even with Elle in the picture, Arianna wasn’t meeting up with her anywhere until she had gone home to shower and change. And take a nap, usually. Even a ten-minute catnap was gold.
Today, there was an issue, and the crew was kindly asked to wait right outside their designated line. Some of the passengers pointed to them as they leaned against the wall with their bags around their feet, the usually perfectly pressed kebayas and jackets now wrinkled and stained with sweat.
Can’t wait to get out of this. The sooner she was naked and beneath Elle, the better.
