Silver Lining | Grooms #3

II. Flight Buddies

-Present-

Esha boarded her plane wearing a pair of sunglasses to shield her eyes from the blinding sunrise. The flight had been delayed an hour, not that she could complain as it meant she wasn't going to miss it. She had had to rush to her room once she had gotten out of his, only too relieved that they were in the same hotel, making it easy for her to just get on the elevator, instead of having to leave the place, find out where she was, and then find a cab to take her to the hotel she was staying at.

She sent a quick text to her friends, letting them know she was headed to the airport. They were staying back a couple more days, since they could afford it. Esha couldn't. She was starting a new job, and she needed to report to work. She couldn't very well tell them that one of her friends had turned twenty-one so they were going to Vegas and she needed them to push back the dates of her orientation and training period.

Right now, however, she wished she had listened to Arjun and stayed in New York. But no. She just had to insist she wanted to move away from NYC so she wouldn't have to hear her parents nagging her for her decision made one month ago and how the Indian community there kept gossiping about it as if they had nothing better to do in life. She was not one to live in a negative environment and she knew it would only get worse for her if she stayed and talked back to those people making her life difficult.

She would never understand why everyone was so quick to blame the females for the slightest err concerning marriage but not a single word to the males or even acknowledge their error. It was always the girls who had to bear the brunt of any failed relationship regardless of whose fault it was and that mentality irritated her to the core.

She deemed it best to just leave, start a new job now that she had graduated from college and focus on her career. She was hoping that with some time, her parents would move on from the topic as well... but after last night and what she had done...

She was about to lift her handbag to put it in the space above, when all blood rushed to her brain, making her wince. She looked around and finding one of the hostess, she called him over, "Hi, I'm sorry, but do you mind? It's a bit heavy for me." She lied, not willing to give away the fact that she was hungover.

"Ofcourse, ma'am." He answered and lifted it. The bag was light as feather. He gazed at her and thankful to her sunglasses, she pretended she hadn't seen it. She went in to her window seat and settled in. He held back a smile, shaking his head, and moved on to return to his place, welcoming other guests inside the aircraft.

She buckled in, and closed her eyes, ready to sleep. She didn't care to wait for the flight to be in air.

Her wish, however, was unfulfilled for she felt a shadow. She opened her eyes to see a man putting his bags up. When his face came in view, she observed he must be atleast a decade older than her.

He grinned at her, making her cringe internally, "Hey, what's your pretty name?"

Esha didn't offer it, in no mood to be polite towards the person she was going to have sit next to for the next seven hours.

"Ah, playing hard to get, huh?" He smirked, sitting down and purposely brushing his shoulder to her.

She inched away, rolling her eyes and trying to go to sleep. He didn't say anything, so she believed he'd leave her alone. That's not how it worked though.

He moved, brushing his leg to her. She glared at him through the glasses, not that he could see. He had the nerve to smile, and play innocent. "Sorry, you know the crammed space in economy."

That's how the next hour went, until he got up to use the restroom. If she wasn't hung over and wanted to avoid the yelling that would exacerbate her headache, she would have given him a piece of her mind already. The aircraft was well up in the air, and the pilot had turned off the seatbelt sign.