Escaping to Ireland

Liam

Liam:

This morning had not gone ideal.

My routine was the same every time I stayed in Chicago. Awake, workout, shower, grab breakfast, and catch a ride to the airport: pretty straightforward.

The schedule would have worked if my hotel had a gym and a restaurant; they had neither.

My assistant had booked the wrong Hilton in Chicago.

Pet peeve number one of mine is when people have a question and are too afraid to ask it.

Pet peeve number two is when they are too dense to know they should have a question.

If Chloe had been on this trip with me, she would have made a fuss the whole time about not being close enough to the stores. I would have told her to "take a cab," she then would have thrown her typical icy glare in my direction, leading to her not talking to me for a few hours. She had her own routines that she would take her cues from.

Her lovely ice-cold demeanor made it that much easier to call the wedding off.

"What happened" My dearest mother squabbled into the phone when I called to let her know of the news. The wedding was only six months away at that time.

None of the more significant purchases had been made, but I would have paid double not to go through with the wedding.

When I had proposed, it seemed like a grand idea. And somewhere from the proposal to two months ago, I realized I had made a dire mistake.

"It is not going to work." I told mother more annoyed with having to talk to her about Miss Chloe Dearest, whom my mother loved dearly as if she was her own daughter; she had mentioned on multiple occasions, "that Chloe felt like her daughter."

"Oh..." She was stumped a rarity. "Why?" She asked, recovering from the shock that I would no longer be marrying Chloe.

"It will not work," I said, not wanting to explain it anymore, the conversation over.

I was free from Chloe as of two months ago, and it was the best decision I had ever made.

"Darn," I said now, seeing the window seat in my row was taken. 4B was my seat number; I had already known this morning I would not be getting a window seat. I would have to talk to my assistant about this mistake or fire him.

"Excuse me?" The woman said, taking offense to my comment; she had not looked up from the tangled mess her headphones had become.

Jerking her head up to glare at me, a red curl gets trapped in the cords.

"Dammit," she scuffed softly as if she did not want people to hear her swear. She yanks her hair free to scowl up at me.

She was not expecting me to be staring down at her.

"I'm a window seat kind of guy," I said as she looked down quickly and busied herself with unpeeling the wrapper of her cheeseburger, the smell surrounding everyone in first class.

She apparently did not need a proper breakfast when she could have a greasy American cheeseburger for one last time; she must have read our meat was worse than America.

The four-leaf clover shirt she was wearing under her purple zip-up sweatshirt was a dead giveaway; she was a tourist.

Her first time flying to Ireland, I assumed; how endearing.