Disconnected | Luke Hemmings

chapter thirty two

Flying made me nervous, but not because I hadn't done it before. In fact, I had taken a trip with my mom to visit my grandmother just a couple years prior. This was my first time flying without parental guidance, however, and I was full of jitters. Not to mention, of course, the fact that I would be seeing Luke so soon. The total flight time would be around twenty-one hours, which meant that we had a layover before we would board our second plane that would take us straight to London. Amy and I had hardly slept, though, because of the weird hours between the flights. It almost made me feel like booking a hotel room wasn't even worth spending the money, but it was nice to have a place to crash for a bit before we had to get up and head to the airport again.

We were on the last stretch of the flight—we'd be landing in London in about an hour—and the fact that I was running on about a two-day total of eight hours of sleep didn't seem to phase me anymore. I was fueled by the energy drink I had consumed before the flight, but even more so, I was fueled by the knowledge that I was so close to Luke. The fact that I was going to surprise him made me incredibly giddy, and I kept fidgeting in my seat because I just couldn't seem to sit still. I glanced over at Amy and saw that she seemed to be having the same problem, which made me smile. Catching the look on my face, she returned the look.

"What?" she asked.

I grinned. "Nothing. I'm just...excited. I can't wait to see the look on Luke's face. And Michael's! He's going to be doubly surprised."

I had been texting Michael with updates about the surprise plan, which made it seem even harder to keep the surprise from him than it was to keep it from Luke. Of course, once everything was finalized on my end, Michael had begged Amy to fly out with me and come for a visit, too. It had practically killed her to do it with a straight face, but Amy had told Michael that her mom was going out of town this weekend, and that she had no choice but to stay home and look after her younger brother. Naturally, it was all a ruse. It seemed that surprising each other was a common occurrence in all of our lives.

Amy beamed back at me. "I can't wait. Like, I'm sitting here just wanting to get out of my seat already. I should be exhausted, but I'm not."

I nodded in agreement. For the rest of the plane ride, we both tried to concentrate on the movie that was playing on the little television screens in front of us, but even so it seemed that time was passing with painful slowness. It was the longest hour of my life, but finally it ended. We began to descend to the ground, seatbelts fastened and carry-on bags stowed snugly in the compartments above our heads. As we touched down, I looked out the window to see the beautiful expanse of the city stretching out before us. I hadn't seen anything like it before, and it made the excitement swell in my chest, ready to explode and burst from me at any moment.

Amy clutched my arm frantically. "Oh my God. We're here. We're actually, really here."

All I could do was nod vigorously in response.

Slowly but surely, we left the plane amid the other passengers and made our way to the luggage pick up. We found our bags within about ten minutes and were shortly on our way. Amy hailed a cab while I sent a quick text to Michael, grinning mischievously the entire time as I typed.

Just landed, going to our hotel room. Don't let Luke go out in the city!!

This, of course, was a two-part necessity. Michael had to keep Luke away from adventuring in case he happened to run into us on the street, but that would also occupy Michael, so as not to spoil his surprise, either.