Long Way Home

5: Heavy delay

I drove for another 30 minutes, passing places I'd never seen before. Carter had immediately fallen asleep even with the loud music I started playing to drown out his snores. I took this time to study his features more as he slept. His messy black hair matched his thick eyebrows and long lashes. Even with his mouth hanging slightly open, he was a pretty good looking guy.

'Your destination is on the right in .3 miles', Siri calls out over the car speaker. Carter's eyes shoot open at the sound and I can't help but laugh as I look over at him.

"Well, good morning sunshine," I joke. "We're almost to the airport now."

He yawned while stretching his arms, "Finally! I can't wait, I'm so ready to get back to North Carolina now."

When he said this I almost felt a pang of sadness inside for some reason. It may sound weird but I've had more fun in the past few hours then I have in a while. I know I just met this guy though so it's not like it was gonna last forever. "And I'm soo ready for you to go back to North Carolina," I say back sarcastically.

Carter puts his hands over his heart and gasps as if I just stabbed it. "Wow! And here I thought we were actually becoming friends." He shakes his head.

I play along with him and chuckle, "no that friendship was only valid for today." We're now pulling into the drop off area at the airport. "Should I just park and let you out up here?" I ask him pointing to a parking spot closer to the entrance.

"Yeah, that'd be fine," he nods. "Thank you for the ride.. even though you got my car towed in the first place. But I did have some fun today.. even though it didn't go quite as planned. Wow I don't know if I should thank you or not."

I start to laugh, "hey I don't blame you. I do apologize for how everything went today, but uh- yea- I had some fun today too." I smile catching his eye then quickly looking down, not knowing what to do. He didn't say anything back, just looked back at me with a smile. Fuck, I think it's awkward now.

"Okay, well I guess this is my stop." He speaks up, taking me away from my thoughts. "Thanks again." Carter opens his door and starts climbing out. Right before he walks through the airport entrance door, he looks back at me one more time. As he waves bye me, I return it with a smile.

When he's officially out of sight I turn forward in my seat and sigh deeply. Wow, that was weird. It's hard to comprehend everything that's even happened today. I look down for my phone now, I haven't checked it in a while. Of course it's dead, dang it! I don't know where the heck I'm going to get back home, I've never been to the airport or this far from home actually. I plugged my phone into the car charger then sit there for a while as I give it time to turn on and gain some power. I get lost in thought as I replay my whole day in my head.

BOOM!
I hear a pound right next to my ear against the window, "Ahh!" I scream while looking around frantically, confused where the pounding was from.

"Ahahahaha," I hear a familiar laughing from outside the car. I open my driver door and it stops once it hits a body curled up on the ground. I immediately can tell it's Carter, apparently dying from laughter. "Haha, damn that hurt. How many times are you gonna hit me with a car door today!?" He says while still laughing.

"As many times as I need to," I say back. "Don't ever scare me like that again! What are you even doing out here, you're supposed to be getting on a plane."

"It's 'heavily delayed'," Carter tells me using air quotes and shaking his head. "They said the next one won't be until 8am! But I'm honestly surprised you were even still here, I for sure thought you'd be zooming home by now."

"I would've been but my phone died and I don't know the way home. I've been waiting for it to turn on so I can follow the maps," I laugh and look down at my phone testing the power button. It turns on now, showing the time of 1:37am. There's about 6 hours until his plane comes. I raise my eyebrows at him, "well, what should we do during this heavy delay?"