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Hurry up and wait.
Should have been the air travel motto, honestly. All of that get there two hours early, brisk walking, panicking about the security line, just to get to your gate and... wait. I was on my third delay of the morning though, so maybe I was a bit jaded.
Waiting at the airport was a prime people-watching opportunity though, so instead of complaining, I took advantage. I wasn’t in any particularly hurry, so it was no big deal to simply observe my surroundings, and if I was lucky... maybe I’d see something interesting.
There was a cute guy – honey-toned skin, goatee, glasses – damn near staring a hole in the woman two seats down from me. She was impeccably dressed, flawlessly made up, perfectly coiffed, and way out of his league. He knew it. She knew it. We all knew it. But still, I smiled to myself as I crafted a whole narrative in my head about how they’d fall in love before our flight boarded.
A commotion in the wide hallway of the terminal caught my attention, and I turned in time to see what was, essentially, a waste of good coffee. It was airport coffee, so it was probably terrible, but I wanted a cup, badly.
Just not badly enough to lose my great seat.
In any case, the coffee was no longer in the cup, and was instead streaming down the long, graceful fingers and beautifully tailored slacks of a man who was no longer rushing to make his plane. His cell phone, wallet, and boarding pass were on the floor, rolling carry-on perched unceremoniously behind him, and his face was pointed at the ceiling. His shoulders were low. Defeated.
It didn’t take much to deduce that some rude-ass had knocked into him – in a hurry, no doubt – completely screwed up his stride, and then kept going.
I was on my feet, wrinkled napkins from my purse in hand before I realized.
“Here,” I told him, wiping his knuckles with one hand, and using the other to peel the crumpled paper coffee cup from his fingers. I tossed it into a nearby trashcan, then bent to gather his things while he cleaned himself up.
Why?
I don’t know.
When I straightened to a stand, he was staring at me like something he’d never seen before, and that was true. But somehow it was deeper than that. When I met his eyes – beautiful, deep pools of mahogany that matched his skin - the corners of my mouth immediately curved into an unsolicited smile.
He returned my smile with a grin of his own, and heat flooded my face in response. I dropped my gaze, trying to collect my lost composure as I held his belongings out to him.
“Um... your stuff,” I said, relief sinking my shoulders when he immediately took it, instead of prolonging the moment. The cell, wallet, and boarding pass went into the inside pocket of his jacket, where they belonged in the first place, and I... stood there.
Waiting.
And looking at his coffee-stained shoes.
“Thank you.”
I was slow to bring my gaze back to his face, but not on purpose. For some reason, my brain was intent on collecting details – the perfect length of his slacks, the subtle thread of teal woven into the gray fabric, the buffed shine of his cuff links, the coffee tinged napkins still balled in his hand.
“You’re welcome,” I forced from my tongue, once my eyes had finally traveled up his tie, over his Adam’s apple and neatly groomed facial hair. “It was nothing.”
He smiled again – a smile that could rival my grandmother’s kitchen in warmth, and honestly gave me a little of the same feeling as her sweet potato pie. “Or was it everything?”
Confusion lifted my eyebrow as I considered his handsome face. Those beautiful brown eyes under sleepy sort of eyelids and silky-thick eyebrows, a broad nose, and full, succulent, enviable lips. Not like you were jealous of the lips themselves – you were jealous of whoever got to kiss them.
My attention snagged there, instead of further interrogating the cryptic question he’d asked. I was so momentarily enthralled, in fact, that I had no idea why the next thing out of his mouth was, “I’m sorry.”
My eyebrow climbed further. “Sorry for what?”
“For what I’m about to do.”
I didn’t have time to interpret that before his hands were cupping my face, and his mouth was coming toward mine. Common sense should have said to slap him, scream, do something, but for whatever reason none of those internal alarms went off.
His lips were like velvet – just as good as they looked like they would be. At first contact, his touch was feather-light, assessing my cooperation with whatever the hell was happening before the pressure increased. Without saying a word, the decadence of those lips sweet-talked me into opening myself to him, accepting the minty-cool sweetness of a tongue that hadn’t even tasted his coffee yet. Shamelessly, I allowed myself to melt into his sturdy frame as he kissed me, and I... kissed him back.
Too soon, he pulled back, and I was in no particular hurry to open my eyes. When I did, I found myself pinned by another one of those smiles.
Around us, people were hurrying to go wait, but neither of us moved, at least not for several moments. When he finally brought his hands away from my face to grab the handle of his bag, a little tingle of panic ran through my chest. There was finality in his movement as he took a half-step back, returning the personal space he’d borrowed for that kiss.
“I hope you have a great life, gorgeous,” he said, obviously committed to adding to the peculiarity of this moment. He inclined his head toward me again, kissing my forehead before he maneuvered around me, presumably to his gate to catch his flight.
Leaving me with nothing except the lingering sensation of his lips on my skin.
“Did that really happen?” I asked myself out loud, just before a toddler ran past me, wheeling a tiny unicorn-themed suitcase over my toes as she trailed behind her parents. That was exactly the return to reality I needed. I had to have imagined that, right? There was no way I’d been kissed by a stranger at the airport.
No way.
I made my way back to my seat, where luckily my things had gone untouched – no one was getting near the model chick, or whatever she was. I sat down and pulled out my cell phone, frowning as I caught my reflection on the darkened screen. I switched it on, frantically pulling up my camera. As the gate attendant announced boarding, I ran a finger along my bottom lip, smoothing my ruined lip gloss.
And then I got up and got on my plane.
#
Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.
Instead of joining the line of people who hopped up as soon as the seatbelt light went off, as if it would get them off the plane any quicker, I remained seated. I hadn’t been able to catch a seat near the front on this flight, so there was no point in me doing anything except turning off airplane mode on my phone and wait for the notifications to flood the screen.
When they did, I sighed.
Despite the fact that my career was essentially built on social media, I found it to be a double-edged sword. As much value as I found in the connection and community, it came with an equal measure of poison to be filtered out. Not even necessarily from people intending to be nasty, although that was certainly a part of it. These days, there was always an extrajudicial murder, cultural appropriation, bigotry, screwed up politics, something, lurking between the funny memes, waiting to snatch your joy.
On seeing that I had more notifications than usual, I braced myself.
Did something happen? Is there another hashtag?
Instead of going into social media, I went to my missed text messages first, knowing that the people who were close enough to have my personal cell number would be gentle with me.
Arizona: Biiiitch! You got something you want to tell me?! Call me as SOON as your ass gets off that plane!
I frowned. I was used to dramatics from my best friend, but she usually had a good reason. This time, I couldn’t place it – I had no idea what she was talking about.
But, right on cue, a picture came through in the text thread, a screenshot from a gossip blog. My eyes went immediately to the headline. Noah Houston Busted Tongue-Wrestling with Hottie at Airport. Underneath was the sub-heading: Popular online wellness advocate takes #selfcare to another level.
Granny is going to kill me.
That was the first thing that ran through my mind as I stared at the picture of me and whoever he was. Not only was my “business all in the streets”, but I wouldn’t even be able to tell her his name when she grilled me about the man I appeared to know quite intimately.
The second thought that ran through my mind?
Damn, this is a cute picture.
A quick perusal of the article – at least what was visible in the screenshot – said it was originally posted by another traveler, with the simple caption: #RelationshipGoals #BlackLove. That person probably hadn’t even recognized me, but after it had been shared the first thousand times, someone had realized, “Hey! That’s that Noah chick!”
At least you look cute though.
I pursed my lips, and nodded. There was, at least, that. The picture had been snapped at the beginning of the kiss – that first touch just before our eyes closed. With the way he was holding my face, the way he was looking at me through those sleepy lids... if I didn’t know better, we looked very much in love.
But I did know better. What I did not know was him, or where his mouth had been. I tried to work up some disgust with myself for letting some a strange – albeit fine – man kiss me “all up in the tonsils” as I knew my grandmother would say when she inevitably lit into me about this.
I couldn’t though. Couldn’t find a single thread of regret or disappointment for that surreal moment where I’d felt so strangely drawn to a person I’d never seen before, and likely never would again. In fact, seeing the picture restored a little of the giddy feeling I’d lost during the flight, as I played the scene over and over in my head. Not only that, but seeing it from this this vantage point, seeing the body language, added a whole new layer.
A layer that felt way more comfortable than it should.
#
“We’re out here busting slobs with randoms now, huh? That’s what part of the game you’re on now? You’re not worried about him messing up your little aura or nothing?”
I rolled my eyes at Arizona’s steady stream of conversation, which had started as soon as I hit the door of the apartment we shared. I hadn’t even put my bag down in my room before she was all over me, ready for details.
“I didn’t have time to worry about my aura, Z. Like I told you on the phone, he kissed me out of nowhere. We didn’t exactly negotiate first.”
She propped a hand on her hip, flipping a handful of long braids over her shoulder. “You were serious with that? That nigga forreal walked up and kissed you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, kind of. I mean he didn’t approach me, not really. Somebody bumped into him and made him drop his stuff. I got up and helped.”
“So it was a thank you kiss or something?”
Stopping in front of the bed, I unzipped my suitcase and started unpacking. It had to be done before I could shower and settle in. “No, I don’t think. He apologized, actually.”
Arizona chuckled. “Oh, so he’s a gentleman then. You got his number or something, right?”
I emptied the clothes I’d worn on my short trip into the laundry hamper beside my door, then grabbed my shoes to return to the closet. “No. He told me to have a great life, went to catch his flight, and I went to catch mine. Didn’t I already explain all this?”
“Well bitch I’m gonna need to hear it a couple more times, because this is nuts. You understand that right, that this is nuts? The shit doesn’t sound right.”
I grinned at her assessment – it was pretty accurate. “I don’t know what to tell you, Z. It happened the way it happened.”
“So, you help this dude pick up his stuff. You’re looking at him, he’s looking at you, and he just decides, boom, I’ma kiss her?” Arizona recapped, for about the third time, punctuating each point with a hand gesture.
With my makeup bag in one hand, hair product bag in the other, I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “You’re definitely fine enough for something like that to happen to you.”
I laughed as I stepped into the bathroom to stow the bags under the counter. “Girl, if you say so.”
“You know the internet found him already, right?” Arizona called, and I froze in my squatted position in front of the sink. I’d been operating under a – probably ridiculous, in this day and age – assumption he would remain a stranger to me, and our interaction would be interesting blog post fodder.
“Not interested,” I yelled back, standing up.
A stranger is what he would be if it weren’t for some bored nosy person in the airport, and a stranger I wanted him to remain.
Maybe.
“Oh girl, bye. We’ll see how long that lasts,” Arizona quipped, on her way out of my room. “I have to go to this Pixie thing tonight, let me go put some damn clothes on.”
She went on her way, humming along to music in her head, and I finished unpacking my suitcase. Once that was done, I took a long shower and ignored my phone. Then made myself a smoothie, and ignored my phone. Then lit my candles and snuggled into my bed with something fresh on my e-reader.
But the damned phone wouldn’t leave me alone.
Muting the social media notifications was easy. I’d get to those when I got to them, but texts and phone calls weren’t so easy to ignore. I picked up my cell phone while it was ringing, staring at the name on the screen until it stopped. Almost immediately, it started up again, and I sighed before I moved my thumb to the green button that would answer the call.
I didn’t press it.
Instead, once it stopped ringing again, I opened the existing thread and started a new text message.
I told you to stop calling me.
Sam: And I told you I was sorry. Are you still pissed?
I’ll always be pissed. Forever.
Sam: Let me make it up to you. I just want to see your face, Noah. Please? Are you home? I can pick you up.
Seriously? Are you slow? There’s no “make it up to me” Sam. You’re a liar. And I don’t do liars. On any level.
Sam: Is this because of your new friend?
Excuse me?
Sam: The guy from the airport. You’re taking trips with this dude or something?
Oh.
That’s what this suddenly renewed interest was about.
In lieu of indulging the conversation further, I blocked his number – what I should have done in the first place. But the damage was already done – I’d given him room to bother me, and now, I was, well, bothered.
I intended to go to social media as a distraction, but as soon as I opened the first app, it nearly froze from the amount of notifications. After a deep, cleansing sigh, I clicked on the first gossip article about me I saw – from a publication more rooted in “yaaas, sis!” type of news than messiness.
Of course, there was the picture again. And as Arizona had already warned, not only was I named in it, so was he.
Emotional wellness guru @NoahKnows was spotted sharing an intimate goodbye moment with indie filmmaker Nick Davison. The relationship has (obviously) flown under the radar, but it seems the lovebirds couldn’t keep it under wraps any longer. Don’t they look good together? #relationshipgoals in more ways than one!
I shook my head. It was ridiculous – and a little bit scary – how the internet was running with this story. Prior to our airport run-in, I’d never seen or heard of this man before. But now, apparently, we were “lovebirds”
Goddamned “relationship goals”.
There was no regard for the impact on my life, personal or professional. While before, I’d thought it was kind of romantic, now I was feeling a little different.
A little angry.
I went back to the article to see if any contact information was listed for “Nick”, and a little flame ignited in my chest when I saw there was. Just his Instagram handle - @lifeonfilm – but it was enough. Determined, I opened my own app and searched his name. When his profile came up in the results, I tapped it, then tapped the icon to send him a message that only required a single line.
Why the hell did you kiss me?