Without a Hitch(66)

Tilly gasps. “That cannot be true.”

“Why not?” The way she stares at me makes my spine tingle, so I reach over to the table at my side. Five tiny candy bowls house my pre-separated treats, and I take my time pulling one from each.

“Skittles? Again?” She’s amused. I’m embarrassed. Not many people in my life know about this slightly compulsive habit of mine.

“I like them.”

Of course, she doesn’t drop it. Standing, she inspects the candy. “You’re very…organized.”

It’s not a question, so I don’t reply.

“You like things a certain way.”

Again, not a question. Instead, I watch her as she tries to understand my quirks.

“Is it a control thing? You take one of each, but never more? Do you have a favorite?”

“Yes. I take one of each. I like the green ones.”

“So, you never just take a handful of green?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because then I’d be left with a bowl of yellows. And yellows are my least favorite.”

“It’s about being fair…to the Skittles?”

“It’s about taking what you need and not overindulging.”

I watch as she moves closer to the table. She reaches in and grabs a few green candies with her gaze on me, but drops them into the red bowl. My eye spasms, but I say nothing. It’s just candy. She takes a few oranges and eats them. I make a mental note to add more orange to keep it even.

Then, like a literal kid in a candy store, she darts to the bowls and mixes them all up so much like Nova that I almost laugh. The entire incident takes just a few seconds.

She sits back down with a huge, satisfied smile.

Even though my hands fidget with the need to sort the candy, I have more self-control than that today. Is she the reason why?

“So, your flights are silent, then?” she asks as if she didn’t just throw a temper tantrum with my candy.

“I’m usually working.” My cheek aches with the effort of not following her gaze to the candy bowls.

She plays on her phone, and then a beat starts, stops, and starts again. I lift a brow but say nothing.

She stands up and sings along.

“‘Good Riddance’ by Green Day?” Her arms move in a strange pattern that makes me smile.

“I don’t know what that means.”

Her eyes widen in shock. “This song doesn’t evoke any memories?”

I listen to the words, but they’re just that. Words. “No.”

“This was my high school graduation song. We marched out of the gym to it.”

“That’s… Okay.”

She changes the music and dances in front of me to something new.

“‘Semi-Charmed Life,’ Third Eye Blind.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I find my flight staff smirking. What is happening?

“This song reminds me of my high school job at the gas station. I probably listened to it a hundred times when we had no customers. That was my mantra. I wanted something else— something more than what I was born into.”

She presses a button on her phone, and the volume increases as the nonsense continues. Tilly’s arms flail as she spits words like she’s rapping about Chinese chickens. The words fly from her mouth so fast I don’t understand a single one.

“‘One Week’ by Barenaked Ladies. My first bonfire party. My friend was in a band and only listened to music of the nineties and it rubbed off on me.” Tilly shrugs like she was caught in a memory. “I got so drunk.” She laughs, and I feel it in my chest. “I was convinced I knew all the words to this song, but no one remembers all the words. Especially not intoxicated.” She twirls as a flight attendant I don’t know walks past.

“This song came out when I was in college,” the attendant says, smiling fondly at Tilly.

What in the actual hell is happening right now?

The song doesn’t finish because she’s jumped to a new one again, and a woman’s voice echoes eerily. The lyrics are angry, jilted, but Tilly sings right along, her voice a stark contrast to the words.

“Alanis Morrisette’s ‘You Oughta Know’ is the breakup anthem every woman belts out at least once in her lifetime.”

“What are you doing?” I’m so confused that laughter escapes as I observe her like a circus animal.

She doesn’t answer. Just touches her phone screen. “After you’re done being angry about a breakup, you play The Cranberries’ ‘I Can’t Be With You’ to have a good cry.”

A sad, heart-wrenching voice filters into the air, and I shiver.

With the next button press, a heavy beat vibrates throughout my plane. Before Tilly can even say anything, my pilot chimes in, “This song played on a loop in my fraternity house for three years.”

“‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ by The Notorious B.I.G.,” Tilly supplies.

Tilly’s absurdity keeps one chuckle rolling into the next until my side aches. “What is the point of this, Pepper?”

The song changes again. This time they sing about stealing someone’s sunshine, and something pounds against my chest. Regardless of what happens, I don’t want to be the one to steal Tilly’s sunshine.