Lonely and Tired

Close Encounters

It was a jolt back to reality the next day as we passed through LAX airport. I was never a huge fan of LAX and this time it was even worse. Although Brian and I had managed to get on the same flight we'd not managed to get seats together. My ticket in cattle class had been purchased weeks earlier because I just couldn't see the point in paying for a ticket up the pointy end for such a short flight. Of course Brian's last minute ticket purchase had managed to snag him the last ticket in first, he'd tried to upgrade me at the airport but there weren't any seats available.

As we waited at the baggage carousel for our luggage, we'd left our ski gear back up at Tahoe at Chris and Angie's place, I noticed more than one person looking at us and a couple even had their phones out snapping pictures. I was pretty certain the picture snappers weren't fans of mine. A couple of young guys approached Brian with stars in their eyes and look of awe at meeting the guy who was clearly their favourite guitarist.

As he chatted with them and posed for photos I caught a glimpse of our bags, when we'd checked in although I'd not been able to upgrade they'd let us check in together and priority tagged both our bags. I'd just grabbed mine and dragged it from the carousel and was just reaching for Brian's bag that followed a couple of bags later when I felt a solid shove between my shoulder blades that sent me sprawling over my own bag as Brian's landed half on top of me. I lay winded and gasping, twisted into an awkward angle with one of my arms trapped under Brian's bag. Tears sprang to my eyes and I closed them for a moment mentally assessing the damage. When I was certain the only problem was a few bruises and the pretty serious blow to my pride I opened them again and tried to blink away the tears. No major damage, but fuck that didn't mean the bruises didn't hurt! A woman, maybe a year or two younger than me with luridly rainbow coloured hair that would have done Starlite from Rainbow Brite proud, sneered down at me one hand propped on her hip.

"Ooops. Sorry," she said in a voice that let me know that, no, she wasn't actually sorry at all.

I looked up at her in confusion. I'd never seen her before in my life, why the hell had she just tried to assassinate me via baggage carousel? As I watched she turned to the friend at her side whose hair was as black as hers was bright and said with a shrug of her shoulders, "What a stupid bitch?" Dark hair girl was actually filming me with her phone.

What the what?

I winced as I tried to shift the bag on my arm. The colour twins just stared down at me with matching sneers. It all happened so fast that it must have been less than a minute before other passengers gathered around me to try and help me free myself.

"Steph!" I heard Brian cry out and suddenly he was pushing his way through the crowd of people who'd begun to surround me. He helped me to my feet and ran a careful hand up and down my limbs obviously checking for damage. I flinched as his hand smoothed over my hip. I was going to have a massive bruise there. He lifted his sunglasses to look me in the eye his face a picture of concern, "Are you okay?"

"Nothing broken," I forced a trembling smile. Shock and mortification had left me feeling vulnerable. My hair was hanging in my face, my clothes were absolutely filthy covered in floor grime and the kind of grotty dust that always seemed to cover your bags after a trip through check in counters, cargo holds and baggage carousels. I was a mess. Far removed from my eccentrically hair coloured, edgily polished attackers who were now eying Brian up as if he were the limpy gazelle to their hungry lionesses.

Brian's and my bags appeared at our sides and I turned to see one of Brian's fan boys smiling at me. "Thank-you so much," I returned his smile just as the colour twins pounced, one on each side. Dark hair hip checked me out of the road and I stumbled again. Fan boy helped me stay upright as the bitter sisters cooed, "Synyster Gates!" in unison.