Page 70 of Every Broken Piece

Sophie

T ap tap tap

Tap tap

Tap

Taptaptaptaptap

As much as I enjoy a good drumbeat, the middle of a crowded airport, two hours into a delayed flight is not the time nor the place.

I really want to glare at the finger tapper guy sitting across from me.

Maybe say something witty that’ll get him to stop, but witty eludes me as it usually does in these types of situations.

Instead, I settle for a glare at the offending fingers—not at his face, of course—rapping a beat on the plastic arm of the airport chair. He’s been doing this for hours.

Literally.

I kid you not.

At first, I tuned it out. Now, not so much. It’s making me grind my teeth and that’s giving me a headache.

We’re packed shoulder to shoulder in the waiting area of our gate, waiting for a plane that seems like it’s never going to arrive. I’m tired. I’m heartsick. My head hurts. I just want to go home.

He—the offending finger tapper—has a book on his lap. A thick, textbook-like-book.

Dude is covered in tattoos, a black t-shirt, Cincinnati Reds ball cap on backwards, legs encased in ripped jeans, well-worn, black Chucks on feet that are crossed at the ankles and blocking the space between chairs, making him pull them in every time someone wants to squeeze past.

Rude much?

He shifts, manspreading those legs and giving me a better view of the spine of his book.

Theoretical Physics .

Huh.

Kinda makes me want to slowly slide my own book into my backpack. To be fair I’m reading it for school and even though it’s a book for middle schoolers, it’s pretty damn good. Better than Theoretical Physics .

Tap tap tap. Taptaptaptap. Tap.

Gah. For the love of God, stop !

I flick my gaze up and our eyes lock. Brown. No...chocolate. Milk chocolate eyes stare back at me. He grins and I want to groan. Of course , he has a crease in his cheek. Not a dimple. A crease . Why is a crease sexier than a dimple?

“Sorry.” His fingers curl into a fist that he places in his lap before he returns to Theoretical Physics .

His leg starts bouncing like he physically can’t sit still. It’s better than the tapping, but now I feel bad for making him self-conscious.

We’re all stuck in Dallas/Ft. Worth airport on Memorial Day with no departure time in sight. We’re all tired and short tempered.

I shift in the hard seat, trying to ignore my aching butt, and turn the page of my own book.

Tap tap tap tap

Oh, for craps sake.

My back teeth come together. Really, I should move but where am I going to go? There are no open seats because everyone at this gate is waiting for the plane to arrive.

Drummer Boy stops mid-tap. With a gusty sigh he flicks a page of the hefty book, then feathers the remaining pages. There are a lot of remaining pages.

He has thick, silver rings on his pointer fingers and ring fingers. A half dozen chorded bracelets are stacked on each wrist. Wrists covered in tattoos that march up his arms and disappear under his plain, black t-shirt sleeves.

I’ve never been drawn to tattoos but I can’t stop looking at the way the colorful and detailed ink ripples as he moves. They had to have cost a small fortune. But they’re also beautiful in a weird way.

“Book not interesting?”

Our gazes collide again, his as surprised as mine probably is. I’m not one to engage in conversation first. Sure, I’ll talk if you initiate but if I don’t know you, I keep to myself. It’s the introvert in me. So I’m triple surprised that I said something to him. At least it was polite-ish.

He drops his gaze and turns the book to look at the spine, as if he’s forgotten what he’s reading. “It’s boring.”

“Then read something else.”

Those dark eyes crinkle as he wrinkles his nose. Can he get any more adorable? Sheesh.

Enough, Sophia.

“I don’t have anything else to read. Besides, I have an exam next week.”

An exam? “You’re studying to be a physicist?”

Another gusty sigh. “It seems so.”

Okay, weird answer. “You don’t appear convinced of that.”

He shuts the book with a solid thud. “Like I said, it’s boring.” He lifts his chin to my book. “What’re you reading?”

“Nothing as deep as Theoretical Physics .”

He grins and that crease...

I hold the book up so he can read the title and bite back a smile at his confusion.

“ Out Of My Mind .” He reads the title out loud. “Never heard of it.”

“I wouldn’t think so unless you read middle school books.”

“Uh, no.”

“It’s actually pretty good.”

He doesn’t look convinced. The conversation peters out, so I open my book and try to ignore the fact that his knees are inches from mine and that his Chuck’s shod foot is tapping a silent beat.

“I’m Danny.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Sophie.”

“Sophie,” he repeats, then nods. I have no idea what the nod means so I go back to my book.

But it’s hard to read when someone’s watching you so intently and Drummer Boy is watching me with those chocolate eyes.

I shut my book and look at him, waiting for whatever it is he wants to say because he clearly wants to say something.

My taste in men lies in the buttoned up, corporate type. Although that really hasn’t worked out for me. I gotta say the backwards baseball hat, ripped jeans and tats are kinda doing it for me right now.

“Where you headed?” He’s now tapping the cover of the book with a beringed finger.

“Cincinnati. You?”

“Same.” The knee starts bouncing.

“Do you ever sit still?”

He grins again. I really wish he’d stop doing that because it does weird things to my pulse.

“My mom says I drummed in the womb.”

“Are you a drummer then as well as a physicist?”

He hesitates. The finger stills. The knee stops bouncing. “I’m not a physicist.”

“A student of physics, then?”

“I guess.”

Again, I get the impression that he doesn’t seem too convinced of his goal. A tattooed, grin-with-a-crease, shiftless soul. Yeah, I need to run from this fast.

Red flag! Red Flag! Airport stranger, Sophie, remember that.

My phone chimes at the same time his chimes too. We both reach for our phones and read the text message. I sigh. Delayed another hour on top of the two hours we’ve already been delayed. That will get me into Cincinnati around eleven tonight and I have to be at school at six forty tomorrow morning.

“Damn,” Danny says. “What do you think the holdup is?”

“I heard our plane’s stuck in Ft. Lauderdale. Storms.”

“You’d think they could find another plane.”

“I’m sure they don’t have extra planes just sitting around.”

“Yeah, probably not.” He bends to slide his book into his backpack. “You want to get something to eat?”

I freeze, totally unprepared for this. I mean, I don’t know the guy and every warning my dad has ever lectured me concerning strangers goes through my mind. But we’re in an airport full of people. So it can’t be that dangerous, right?

And then I surprise the hell out of myself. “Sure.”