Page 41 of But For You

“What happened?” Jen called over to her mother.

“I don’t know. There was trouble with our tickets. They had an itinerary, but no flight number.”

“How is that possible?”

“I have no idea,” she breathed out and then tried to take her seat.

The man who was sitting on the aisle was supposed to be sitting by the window, simple as that. He had read the little seating icon thing wrong—everyone knew the curve represented the window, but he had read that as the aisle. Thomas had to sit on the aisle because if his claustrophobia started to kick in, he needed to be able to get up. People thought it was a prostate thing, but it was all about feeling confined. Unfortunately, it turned out the other passenger was drunk. I got how the flight crew had missed it because he had been quiet the whole time, but once he got belligerent, he got loud, and from the slurring words, you understood that he was sloshed. He was so out of it that he started swearing and then stood up and pushed Thomas.

It was a ballsy thing to do because Thomas Kage was a big man. Both Sam and Michael had inherited their height and broad shoulders and heavy muscles from the man, so for the guy to go straight to physicality before anything else was gutsy. There was a flight attendant right there, and Beverly, who had been one herself, immediately stood and explained what had happened.

My seat was next to the aisle; the guy had started out across from me, stood up, gotten in Thomas’s face, and then shoved him down into the seat. I got up to help Thomas because Regina yelled, and Doug and Michael were stuck on the other side. The attendant came up behind the drunk man, explained that he was to be escorted off the plane, and he lost it. He shoved her, which meant he was so going to be taken off the plane in handcuffs, and I reached for her. She grabbed hold of my arm so she didn’t fall down.

“Thank you,” she said quickly before turning and bolting down the aisle, calling for security.

When I moved to reach Thomas, who had banged his head hard on the overhead bin, the drunk guy barred my way.

“Please move,” I asked nicely, but in response, he came at me.

“Pa!” Hannah shrieked.

I never liked her to be scared.

“I’m gonna get Dad,” Kola yelled, and I saw him scramble out of his seat.

Sam had gone to the bathroom; that was where Kola went, I was certain. But I wasn’t worried about him. He couldn’t go far. I was more worried about the man looming in front of me.

“Just sit down.” I tried to sound soothing. “You’re drunk.”

“Fuck you!”

Thomas would have kept him off me as soon as he got up, I had no doubt, as would the other passengers who were moving in the aisle, but Kola had gone to fetch his father, and Sam was running.

He came over the seats, stepping on the armrests. He had to duck down, and really, for a man Sam’s size, it was impressive. And so fast. The guy was on his feet one minute; the next, he was on the floor, face pressed to the carpet, his shoulder under Sam’s boot. Before the flight attendant could even get back, before anyone else came to my aid, my man was there. When the air marshal arrived, Sam had his badge out for him before he could even get a word out.

The applause was instant.

“What the hell?” Sam barked at me.

“I—”

“Daddy, that man pushed Papa and wanted to hurt Pa,” Hannah told her father.

The guy groaned from the floor as Sam looked down at him.

“Oh God, somebody, hurry and get him off the plane,” I almost whined.

The guy was dead if they didn’t move.

Policemen came and took the guy off. They exchanged cards with Sam. All in all, the delay only cost us maybe twenty minutes. What was nice was that Sam was golden after that, and since the kids and I were in his reflected glow, we got the star treatment as well.

Thomas was very impressed with his son and had Regina trade places with Sam for a while so they could talk. I gave Thomas the antacids I had gotten for him, and he gave me a pat on the cheek for being such a good boy. Having never had a father of my own, I was always thrilled when I made him happy. Kola showed his grandmother how to play Fruit Ninja on my iPad and read her all the fun facts. Hannah leaned against me, using Kola’s DS since they had switched diversions two hours into the four-hour flight.

I had passed the cards to Jen and Rachel, who ended up sitting together, with Doug passed out beside his wife. We were a low-key group, and when we landed in Phoenix at eleven in the morning, Kola thought that was the coolest thing ever.

“We time-traveled,” he told me.

I agreed that we had.