Again, But Better(76)

I feel crappy about the lying, but I need to take advantage of this Babe-and Sahra-less time to discuss our current predicament. Thirty seconds later, I flop into the aisle seat next to Pilot with my backpack. Up ahead, the nice middle-aged lady scoots in past Tweedledee and Tweedledrunk to my window seat.

“What the hell was that?” Pilot asks.

Hmm, how to begin? I angle myself sideways so I can see him more easily. Hi, Pies, so I’m not so sure about this reset button thing.

I cluck my tongue and loose a sigh. “Pies, we haven’t done shawarma yet.”

This is valid.

“What?” His eyebrows furrow.

“We didn’t. Get. Shawarma this week,” I try to enunciate, but my words bleed a bit more than I’d like. Am I tipsy from that baby wine?

He swishes his head from left to right. “So…”

Where am I going with this?

“So … we should have gotten shawarma.”

“Did you switch seats to get this very important message to me before we landed? Do you need shawarma when we land?” he asks blandly.

My head tilts slightly to the left as I consider this. I burst out laughing.

“Shane?” he asks calmly.

I compose myself. “I came over here because I wanted to talk to you.”

“About shawarma,” Pilot says, eyebrows raised.

I choke on another laugh. “You remember in Avengers—you saw Avengers, right?”

He nods.

“Remember when Iron Man was like, Let’s get shawarma, and then they did get shawarma?”

“Yeah.” His lips turn up.

“Yeah, all I could think about when that happened was the amazing shawarma we had here.”

“Shwenesdays,” Pilot confirms nostalgically.

“And now it’s all mainstream, you know. Everyone’s all, Yeah, shawarma like in The Avengers, and I’m all like, No, I knew about shawarma before it was cool.”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You know, you’re completely right. How dare the Avengers want shawarma; we invented that.”

I keel forward, cackling at the angst in his voice. “Yes! Totally ripped us off. But, there ain’t no shawarma like Beirut Express shawarma! Because Beirut Express shawarma is da best!” I sing-talk.

Pilot’s expression flatlines as he executes a dramatic blink: “Did you just make a random S Club 7 reference?”

My eyes ignite. “Did you just pick up on an S Club 7 reference?”

He squints, grinning now. “Touché.”

I smile. “Have you had good shawarma since London?”

“Are we back to this?” he asks the seat in front of him.

“I’ve had okay shawarma, but not excellent shawarma, and I’ve tried like five different shawarma places.”

He twists to face me. “You’ve said the word shawarma at least fifty times since you’ve sat down, and you’ve been here for like three minutes.”

I smother another bout of laughter. “Well, I just wanted to say that we should have gotten shawarma.”

“Sorry, so to clarify, you made a woman switch seats so we could discuss shawarma.”

“Well, I came over so we could chat because we’re about to go on some ridiculous mission through a foreign country to find a button to reset ourselves forward in time, and we haven’t really thought out a plan.”

“I tried to suggest a plan, and you said we could just”—he raises his hands to do air quotes—“‘figure it out.’”

I lean forward. “Well, I was still kind of reeling from the whole we’re-back-in-time reveal. I needed time to process.”

“What is this conversation?” He scoffs in disbelief.

“What do you think we should do about the button?”

“We’re going to find the button, and use it, so we can go back to our normal lives.”

I click my tongue playfully. “But how will we find it? I’m assuming it’s going to be somewhere we went the first time around.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Do you think she left clues maybe?” I widen my eyes dramatically.

His forehead scrunches up. “No?”

“If there were clues, this would like be just like The Da Vinci Code!” I beam. Pilot laughs toward the ceiling and I deflate. “Oh yeah, I forgot you haven’t read that one.”

His lips twitch. “Actually, I did read it a few years ago.”

“What?” My heart does a little jig.

“Yeah, I’ve read all his books now.” Color floods his cheeks. “You raved about them enough while we were here.”

“Oh, man.” I look at the seat in front of me while I process this. “Okay, come on, don’t lie, the prospect of a baby Da Vinci Code is kinda exciting.” I grin. He smirks back.

We fall into silence after theorizing a bit more about the mysterious button. I’m hoping it looks like one of those Staples Easy buttons. That would be nice and clear. But what if it looks like something else—like a random sewing button on the ground or if it’s camouflaged to look like its surroundings? She wouldn’t do that, right? That’s too complicated.

I lose myself in button-centric thoughts, and then we’re landing. I’m treated to a new swell of dread in my gut as we descend.