Godfuckingdammit. I'd given Tina one responsibility and she'd managed to fuck that up. We were due to go to a fintech convention in a couple of days and I'd found out that that woman had conveniently forgotten to book our tickets and our hotel rooms. Just fucking amazing.
"How could you forget," I emphasised the word as I clenched my teeth in irritation, "something as important as this, Tina? You know how much is riding on this convention for the company. I'm a guest speaker there for fuck's sake!" I ran a frustrated hand through my hair as I tried to sort things out. I'd emailed Tina a few days back to check in, and she'd said that she'd been on it. And now, five minutes ago, when I'd approached her and asked her to send our booking confirmation, she'd dropped this bomb on me.
First things first though. I needed to book flight tickets. Stat.
"Sorry, Neil. Like I said, the workload has been a bit too much these days. It just slipped my mind." Tina shrugged nonchalantly as if she didn't have a care in the world. Because of course she didn't. I was this close to firing her at this point. But I wasn't that kind of boss. I liked to think that I was patient and gave chances to people - no matter how much of a homewrecking cunt they were. My personal and professional life was separate and I had no intention of changing that, especially now. So I'd keep my wits about me and hopefully manage to not sack her sorry ass right the fuck now.
"That's a bullshit excuse and you know it too Tina." I muttered as I simultaneously scrolled the screen, huffing out an annoyed breath as I saw that all the upcoming flights to Denver were full. I was ever ready to compromise and fly Delta - that's how desperate I was. But unfortunately, life wasn't on my side and thought of this as some cruel joke. "Fuck!" I cursed as my head fell back.
"Well, let me know if there's anything I can do to help." Tina muttered before a clacking sound echoed in the room and the door to my office closed. Thank fuck that she'd left when she did because I probably would have wrung her neck for the words she'd just said.
"Hey Neil I -
My head snapped forward as a confused looking Aaliya stood in my doorway. "Is everything alright?"
"Not really." I sighed. "Remember that fintech convention we have to be at? Yeah, Tina from HR forgot to book our tickets for it and now all the flights are full."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously." I replied as she took a seat in the chair in front of me, her brows furrowed in concentration.
"Maybe I could help."
"Short of magically making all those bookings disappear, I don't think there's anything you could do, Aaliya." I laughed dryly as I stretched back in my chair. "Seems like I'm going to have to email the organisers and let them know we won't be able to make it."
"No, Neil. Listen." Aaliya leaned forward, a glimmer in her eye. "I could really help. I've got a contact in the airline industry that could help us out. Well, technically he's my friend's contact. But I'm sure that some bookings might open up due to cancellations."
"Really?" I brightened up. "Could you do that? That would be wonderful."
"I'll get right on it."
"Amazing! Keep me in the loop and let me know what happens, okay?"
"Will do." She responded, her phone clutched in her hand as she lifted it to her ear before strutting out. God, I hope this worked out.
***
Here I was, two days later, sitting in an uncomfortable seat and flying economy in Delta. But I had no room to complain. Thanks to some last minute cancellations, Aaliya had managed to get the two of us seats on this airline, flying directly from Seattle to Denver. The rest of our colleagues would be joining us tomorrow. For now, Aaliya and I were the only ones attending the finance convention. A giggle from my left caught my attention as I turned to look at Aaliya, an amused expression on her face.
"You really are uncomfortable, aren't you?"
I grunted in response as I adjusted in my seat for what felt like the millionth time. These seats seemed so miniscule that I honest to god felt trapped in them. Add to that the minimal leg room and almost three hour journey and I was doomed.
"God," Aaliya laughed from beside me, covering her mouth with her hand. "How does it feel for the great Mr Neil Miller to be flying economy?"
"Terrible, so far." I said grumpily.
"You're such a drama queen, jesus." More of those little giggles as her body shook with them. What wouldn't I do to keep hearing her laugh like that? I would even continue being grumpy for her.
"I'm not a drama queen." I huffed as I shifted in my seat. "I'm just uncomfortable. That's it."
"Sure sure." A snort followed the roll of her eyes as she looked out of the window. "I'm sure you're used to flying private, hence why the whole uncomfortable thing." She said the words with air quotes as I turned fully to face her.
"I'll have you know that I do noy, in fact, fly private. I know how much environmental damage it causes."
"Oh?" Her eyebrow quirked in amusement. "An environmentally conscious CEO? Well, that's a first."
"Don't act surprised, Aaliya. You already know how much CSR we do."
"That's true." She murmured softly as her hands landed on the armrest beside me.
"Stop hogging the armrest. I have only one as it is." I leaned down to speak in her ear as the pilot's voice sounded from the system. The armrest on my other side was currently occupied by an elderly man who was dozing off with his mouth open. Great.
"I'm not hogging it!" Aaliya's voice raised a pitch as she frowned at me. "I just need space to rest my hands, okay?"
"You're annoying." I muttered, though I wasn't annoyed with her. More like I was annoyed with our situation. If Tina hadn't fucked up the way she did, we would have been sitting comfortable in first class. But I guess beggars couldn't be choosers.
"I'm annoying? Really, Neil? Who's the one whining like a kid right now?"
"I'm not whining." My lips curled up in amusement as Aaliya's lips pursed.
"Oh, I get it now. You're just trying to annoy me so that you'll get some free entertainment."
"Now why would you think that?" I fluttered my eyelashes dramatically at her as I pushed her arm off and placed my elbow on the armrest between us, placing my face in my hand.
"Do you get some sort of weird kick out of annoying the shit out of me?"
"Tsk, tsk. Language Ms Joshi." My reprimand fell on deaf ears as the pilot announced the flight would be taking off in a few minutes.
Within moments, I could feel the vibration beneath our seats as the plane took off. Aaliya's hand clutched mine as her jaw clenched tight. I turned to look at her curiously before squeezing her hand once.
"I hate this part." She softly, so softly that I probably wouldn't have heard it had I not been this close to her.
"You hate flying?"
"Not necessarily..." She started but then broke off. "Well, I guess yeah. I've never really been a huge fan of it."
"But then how did you manage when you first came here for undergrad?" I asked, trying to distract her.
"I didn't really have a choice then." She laughed bitterly, her face scrunching up, as if lost in memory. "It was either brave the journey and come to the States or rot for the rest of my life in Mumbai. It wasn't really a tough decision."
"That bad, huh?" I muttered, running my thumb across the back of her palm.
"That bad." There was a slight pause before she spoke again. "We're always running away from something, aren't we?" Her face was soft and there was a hint of a wistful smile as she looked at me.
"Now would you look at that?" I changed the topic, sensing that it wasn't something she wasn't ready to delve deep into now. Aaliya turned to look out of the window at my words, her eyebrows raising in surprise. "We're already in the air."
"Yeah we are." Now there was a full blown grin as she leaned back in her seat, stretching out her legs in front of her. "We'll be landing again in no time then."
"We will." I sighed, looking forward to getting this part over with and reaching our hotel room.
Speaking of, I had successfully managed to book two separate rooms at a hotel five minutes away from the convention. It had been a bit difficult in the beginning - thanks to the extremely uptight concierge - but after a bit of name dropping and the promise of paying almost double per night for the stay, two room bookings had surprisingly been cancelled. I couldn't wait to get there.
***
"Jesus fuck." Aaliya cursed from beside me, shivering in the cold winter of Denver. "My tits are going to freeze off." She muttered as her teeth chattered.
"Seems like the cold has gone to your head." I remarked, chuckling at the crude words that had come out of her mouth.
She was a dichotomy to me honestly. Some times, she was all prim and proper and other times, you wouldn't even know what type of crass shit would come out of her mouth. I loved the contrast.
"Shut up." Her little body was still shivering, despite me giving her my coat. Thank god that I'd had the hindsight to bring an extra one, knowing how terrible the weather could get here, at this time of the month. Miss smartass, on the other hand, had been stubborn and had only gotten a lightweight coat because apparently the weather forecast said that temperatures wouldn't drop lower than 15 degrees. It was currently five degrees in November in Denver. "And don't even say anything."
"I was right." I shrugged my shoulders as we waited for our designated driver to come pick us up from the airport. Landing, thankfully, had been smooth and baggage claim had been pretty quick as well. The only thing that had pissed me off was the food selection in the flight. I mean, bags of crisps and coke. That's what was supposed to sustain us in the air? I'd ended up eating some of the parathas that Aaliya had brought. There was just something about eating Indian food during a flight, no? "You have to admit it. You're just so stubborn and never want to listen."
"I am not stubborn." She said hotly. "It's not my fault that the weather prediction was wrong!" Her hands flew up in the air as the extra coat on her shoulder fell off. We both bent down to pick it up, our heads bumping in the process before I draped it back on her again.
"A thank you for the coat, Neil and you were right should suffice." I teased, bumping her hip with mine as she glared at me. "Alright, calm down. I was just joking." I raised my hands in surrender, pretending that I was afraid of her.
She didn't say anything else for the next few minutes, but her body was still shaking, despite the double warmth. I stepped closer to her, opening my arms as if I was going to hug her.
"What are you doing?" She asked cautiously, as I waited in the same position, waiting for her to give in.
"Trying to keep you warm. Come on now." I jerked my head at her form as she contemplated what to do for a few seconds. As if accepting my help was going to kill her and not the cold here. She stepped into my arms without a fight, thank god, as I pulled her closer, eliminating any space between us. And yes, maybe that move was a little selfish but sue me, I really did miss having another warm body beside me. A woman that I could wake up to and be entangled with in the morning. Not that I wanted that to happen with Aaliya, per se, but I was just saying that a little human contact was nice. God knows that I didn't get enough of it. The last time I'd had any sort of skin on skin contact was with the woman currently in my arms and I hadn't even entertained the thought of with anyone else. Even the idea of it made the parathas in my stomach want to come up.
Aaliya snuggled into me, sighing as she leaned her head on my chest.
"Just so you know, I'm not used to this weather. I'm a tropical baby." She muttered as she looked up at me. "I thought I should clear it up."
"Okay." That was all I said to her with a huge smile on my face before she cuddled into me again.
Fortunately, we didn't have to wait for too long as the hired car pulled up near the curb. I gestured for her to get in first, helping the driver pile the luggage in the trunk before following behind her. This was going to be quite the trip, based on how it had started off, it seemed.
♡♡♡
Hope y'all enjoyed today's chapter! I feel like we're at a point where Aaliya is finally letting Neil in, bit by bit. What do we think? Lmk in the comments xx
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