One For The Road ✔ | A short novella |

6. Miami - Austin

Chapter Six

Miami - Austin

→ ♥ →

"I'd like to stop thinking of the present as some minor, insignificant preamble to something else." Dazed and Confused - Ellis

Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood Airport, 9am - August 11th 

Ellis

"Gross," Jessie says, for the third time this morning since packing and leaving the hotel. We're now at the airport, waiting to board and she's checking her reflection in the screen of her phone. "I look like a sixth season zombie."

"You look like someone who forget that we had a flight to catch this morning and who spent her last night drinking and dancing too much with virtual strangers." I don't mean for it to come out so angrily but it does. 

Jessie frowns and then shrugs. "I was just making my last night in Miami memorable."

This morning I'd woken up to find her hand outstretched like a zombie reaching for my back. Her hair everywhere. Bed sheets pulled off. Her legs hanging off the bed, snoring like a trooper.

I flip through my passport and keep watch on the departures board for our 3 hour flight to Austin, Texas. A stop over schedule so Jessie can take in a 2-day music festival that begins in t-minus 24 hours, which she's been banging on about for months. 

"You sure did."

"Do you want coffee?" She asks, nudging my shoulder. "I think it will make me feel less gross, you in?"

I tilt my head and scan her face. Her cheeks are lightly flushed and she's not got a lick of make up on but she is by no means gross. Jessie couldn't be less gross if she tried. 

"Yes, I'd love some and you shouldn't talk about yourself like that. You are not gross. Far from it," I say, as her eyes scan mine like she's looking for any hint that I'm lying. 

"You have to say that, because you still have to spend the next two and a half weeks with me!" She stands and starts to laugh. "But, what the hell - thank you. Wait, am I supposed to compliment you now?"

"If you're feeling charitable."

Jessie wiggles her eyebrows and sighs, "I am liking this stubble- no shaving thing you've got going on." She strokes her own jaw. "And I am forever jealous of your tan, so..."

"Thanks," I say as she pulls down her sunglasses, before sauntering off with her purse in hand. 

I hate the way her denim shorts hug her hips as she does and the fact that she's decided to forgo hard wired bras for those flimsy sports ones. I hate how she can yank and twist her hair into a bun with minimal fuss and look beautiful. 

Jessie's effortlessness - in most things she does in life and in her self, makes me sit up and take notice. Not that it's the first time I've watched her walk away and admired how she can make heads turn and pulses rise. 

I've been sat upright for some time now. It's just her whose never noticed. 

→ ♥ →

Austin, Texas, Zilker Park, 3.50pm - August 11th

Jessie is in her element, with pink heart shaped sunglasses on  that she got from the airport, which I thought were a bit naff but actually (unsurprisingly) look great on her.