The Suite Adult Life

November (15.1)

Bailey

Nervous and excited energy rushed through Bailey. She agonized over every little piece of clothing she needed to pack. She had created an itinerary down to the quarter hour of everything that they might need to get to do. She hadn't been to Rome since high school when they were still on a tight leash by their chaperones. There were the catacombs, watching the sunset (or sunrise) on a rooftop, and soaking up the energy by walking through the piazzas and seeing ancient landmarks lit up at night. Every night she agonized over every little detail with either London or Jackson. Both told her to just relax. It wasn't like she wasn't already well-traveled. They both downplayed that she was going with Cody. It was like they were all transported back to being juniors again and the peak cringe that her high school relationship was to everyone else.

Andrew was incredibly accommodating. Most of their work was sorting and accepting various clients. Nothing that a paralegal couldn't fill in for. Any courtroom appearances could be done by him alone. But, the night before their trip found her in the office burning the midnight oil. She shouldn't have come in at all. But her guilt of taking a full week off after just starting the venture weighed heavily on her shoulders. That guilt carried through to when their taxi dropped Cody off at her apartment. His arm around her shoulders as they rode the subway to the terminal only agitated her. Her knee bounced a thousand times a minute as she analyzed every little possibility of anything going wrong. What she couldn't figure out was how he was so calm.

The terminal only exacerbated her mood. He navigated Terminal 4 with ease while never letting go of her hand. The realization of how much he had changed was starting to crush her like a ton of bricks. Everything was laissez-faire with him. Gate and TSA agents knew him by name even though it'd been a year since he'd last traveled through that terminal. For a moment, while going through security, she thought she had forgotten her passport. With a look of concern, Cody pulled it deftly out of her carry-on bag. She knew the TSA agent was trying to be considerate when she asked if it was her first time flying out of the country; but, to Bailey, it came off as condescending. She had to bite her tongue from causing an incident. It also didn't help that she didn't have Pre-Check and her bag was practically dissected in the assembly line of passengers.

Still, Cody was the portrait of ease as he leaned against the wall playing on his phone as he waited for her. His smile was easy when she was finally through and without hesitation he took her hand again leading her through the busy terminal. What she couldn't figure out was why he was so calm. The boy she knew was anal retentive with a pathological need to control every detail of one of their many excursions.

Boy... Bailey stopped in her tracks, making her high school sweetheart stop a few paces away. She let herself dive into her mind. She just called Cody a 'boy'. She was still thinking of him as who he once was. He wasn't a boy anymore and they didn't live and go to school on a cruise ship that took them around the world. They were adults with jobs and hobbies and lives that were separate from each other. And here she was, standing in the middle of John F. Kennedy Airport about to board a plane to Rome with him. They couldn't even be classified as dating and she was going away with him? Was she nuts? That had to be the only explanation for how this past year had gone. She couldn't even see his inquisitive look and his questions sounded like they were coming from outside an aquarium.

What had her life become? She broke up with her fiance, moved to a completely different state, started at one firm only to leave it because she had a crisis of faith to put all of her eggs into one basket for a co-work that she barely knew and yet somehow dated?! And now she was hooking up with her high school boyfriend like they had never broken up! A more dramatic person would have fainted. "I need a drink..." was all she said.

~*~

Cody

Traveling was second nature to the photographer. He could tell a thousand stories of layovers in some of the most luxurious airports around the world or traveling on donkeys because cars couldn't go where he needed to be. Nothing about traveling phased him anymore. He had an answer for every little issue that could arise. Even when Bailey went rigid at his touch. From the moment he arrived at her place, he could tell something about her was off. She didn't want to walk the few blocks to the subway or even take the train to the airport. But, it really was the most efficient and reliable way to get there.

His mind was bursting with anxiety over what could be bothering her. Usually when he traveled with others, he was complimented for his level-headedness and how prepared he was. Whenever any new photographers or journalists had to travel, they would appear in the door of his office for the latest 'tips and tricks'. He even wrote a Buzzfeed 'listicle' about the best way to troubleshoot traveling. Any attempts to try and start a conversation about their long weekend together was abruptly stopped with her stilted answers until he decided to just stay quiet. Being a strong physical presence seemed to not set her off so he was fine being resigned to an easy smile and a strong hand hold.

Cody thought that striking up an easy conversation with the agents would put her at ease. Let her follow his lead. But, it just seemed to exacerbate the ball of tension continuing to grow within her. It was in the Pre-Check line when he was asked about who his traveling companion was that made panic start to rise in his own throat. As soon as he got his phone back he was texting his brother-in-law. He would have preferred to talk to his brother, but Zack was currently on air. Asshole...

The advice was basic and unhelpful and he didn't have enough time to reach out to London, though it was a good deduction that Bailey had already been talking to her so better not to cross-contaminate that text wall. Staying true to just being a stalwart presence, he didn't catch that she stopped until he almost lost her hand in the throng of people. He ignored the dirty looks of the passengers as they all filtered around them like a school of fish around a rock. Cody watched as Bailey's eyes glazed over and her breathing turned shallow. He watched her look at him helplessly and for the first time in a decade he saw the girl she used to be. Afraid, excited, and who ran up to the edge of a cliff ready to fly.