Page 9 of Never Marry the Best Man (Whatever It Takes #4)

Tom

Tom stood at the gate, watching the boarding doors close as every drop of hope disappeared along with that fine, fine woman and her overstuffed tote. He’d thought he’d finally snagged that miracle last-minute seat to L.A. for his cousin’s bachelor party. He was so close.

Took some smooth charm and lots of grateful grins, but that woman - that very familiar, lovely, frustrating woman - had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and poached the seat from under his nose.

Technically it was her seat, but let's not split hairs.

So there he was, stuck in Miami, fumbling for his phone. He dialed his cousin’s assistant, Ciara, who answered on the second ring with the cheeriest “Hello, love!”

He practically shouted into the line. “Ciara, I need to get to Idaho.”

"You're scheduled for - "

"I'm stuck in Miami. Airline re-routing."

"Ah." He heard muted tapping sounds in the background, grateful that Charlie had such a stable executive assistant, for whom small talk and excessive explanations were unnecessary.

Inappropriate, even.

Ciara’s voice was calm, as though she routinely coordinated international hostage releases before breakfast, and Tom's nightmare situation was nothing in comparison.

“Tom, the only option is a private charter. FluffAir? Pet-friendly service, mind. They have an open seat, leaving in forty minutes. Think you can manage?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rabbits."

"Rabbits?"

"Rabbits. I am violently allergic to rabbits.”

"It's called FluffAir, not HopAir." She laughed at her own joke. “Low probability of bunny passengers,” she replied breezily. "Sending itinerary now."

Within seconds, he received instructions: Tarmac, runway three, FluffAir’s twelve-seater, seat 9B.

Ignoring the standard instructions about sedating pets and carrier sizes, he ran on adrenaline, grateful for Ciara, idly wondering as he jogged what it was like to have so many people managing every aspect of your life for you.

Charlie was typical royalty, accustomed to being organized externally by those around him, fueled by entourages and crowds.

Charlie’s branch of the family wasn’t just aristocratic; they were also titans of manufacturing.

During the nineteenth century, they had seen the potential of the industrial revolution and invested heavily in steel mills.

Thus their descendants, Charlie included, enjoyed benefits like personal assistants and social media managers.

Tom had lived a somewhat simpler life, though Ciara's organizational problem-solving appeal was growing on him. For a guy who still used a paper planner and a bullet journal, this was luxury.

He arrived at the tarmac thirty minutes later, blinking at a hulking Cessna plastered with cartoon pups in aviator goggles.

A perky attendant appeared and chirped, “Welcome aboard! Pets are in the cabin today—hope that’s okay? I see you're filling the empty seat and traveling alone? No pet companion?” She handed him a headset with a grin so saccharine it could rot teeth.

“Splendid,” he said, voice forced smooth. “No pets. And, for clarity…no bunnies on this flight, right?”

Her face turned to a pout, the kind that you see in sickly-sweet commercials. "No widdle bunnies dis time, I'm afwaid."

His brain spun a bit, just a split-second axis shift. How does one reply to baby talk that sounds like a Bugs Bunny cartoon line?

"Good. I'm - " He didn't need to tell her personal details about himself. Why explain his odd allergy? The assurance was enough. "I'm sure there are plenty of other adorable pets on board," he said, then cut off conversation, hoping to settle into 9B, put on headphones, and take a much-needed nap.

He squeezed past Miss Mildred Kensington, who wore a lanyard name tag printed in bold Comic Sans and cradled a diamond-studded poodle named Mr. Fifi.

After her came a sprightly septuagenarian in sequined leggings batting her eyelashes like Tom was a particularly chirpy canapé.

The cabin smelled of expensive perfume, dog shampoo, and something distinctly cat.

Tom coughed discreetly into his fist, chin high, shoulders back, determined to look dignified despite his nasal passages staging a coup. He counted down the minutes until Los Angeles, where his cousin’s private jet would rescue him from this tail-wagging circus.

"Single?" the woman in 9B asked as he began to slide his carryon under the seat before him.

The question was bold, and a bit terrifying, coming from a woman older than his mother, wearing large-framed eyeglasses with a design along the thick red plastic nothing but a repeat pattern of the same cat's face.

"Um, excuse me?"

"No pets?"

“Ah, no. I’m a last-minute addition.”

“Really? How does that work? I thought this flight company was for pet owners.”

“I don’t know how. Just trying to get to my cousin’s stag party… er, bachelor weekend - and got lucky.”

She sized him up, the words “got lucky” hanging in the air like a cloud of awkwardness. Americans were so chatty in general, which seemed to make him chattier than he wanted to be.

“Getting lucky is always a good thing,” she replied with a wide smile.

Tom stifled the internal groan and pretended he didn’t hear it as he focused with great detail on clipping his seatbelt.

Fortunately, the flight attendant appeared, checking every one of the twelve humans and their pet companions, and once all was secure, takeoff ensued.

Once they’d reached cruising altitude, she came through with a small tray filled with drinks, starting at the front.

Ms. Get Lucky ignored him, now chatting with a woman across the aisle about breeders in Northern Wisconsin.

He glanced at his phone again. Ciara’s instructions for the private plane in L.A.

were clear, and if this went well, he’d have enough time in L.A.

to grab an actual meal before finally making his way to a stag party he didn’t care for, but was going to out of obligation.

It wasn’t that he didn’t get along with Charlie.

They were old mates, and it would be good to see him for a long weekend, fishing and drinking.

It was his friends Tom didn’t much care for.

Achoo.

The sneeze caught him off guard, a full-body tremor that didn’t so much involve his nose as it did his entire nervous system.

It was the kind of involuntary body experience that reminded you that humans are nothing but bundles of nerves connected to muscle, bone, and blood, running around thinking we’re in control.

“There are tissues in the console of your armrest,” the flight attendant helpfully told him. Grateful, he retrieved the small packet and opened one, hoping that was a one-off.

It was not.

Three sneezes in a row left his eyes watering, the back of his throat a bit ticklish. He cleared it just as the flight attendant appeared in the aisle next to him, forcing his seatmate to stop her talk.

“Mr. Phillips? Drink?”

“Yes, anything. I – ” He sneezed again, loud and fierce. A dog in the front of the plane barked sharply in response.

“Hot tea?”

“God, no.” The American version of “tea” was one of the few things he and his mother agreed on. Ghastly stuff. “A coffee would be fine. Black. And a water, please.” Feeling a new sneeze come on, he turned away, using the tissue.

“Hmmm, allergic to cats?” his seatmate asked, craning her neck to look about. “I see three of them on the plane.”

“No, not cats.”

“Dogs?”

He shook his head and sniffed as the attendant handed him his drinks, which he put into one of the four drink holders around him. Private jets were miles apart from commercial flying. “No. Dogs are fine.”

“Perhaps there’s hidden mold in the air system.” Alarm crept across the woman’s face as the flight attendant moved on, finishing with the last row. “My naturopath tells me it’s everywhere. Causes horrible disruptions to the organs’ rhythms.”

He had no idea what to say in response, so he simply made a noncommittal sound and sipped his coffee. His eyes began to water a bit, then itch. This trip just got better and better.

If only that woman had missed her flight. He’d be in economy, squeezed in like a sardine, but there would be no animals, or at least, no rabbits.

That woman. He could see her face, smiled slightly at the thought of her. How odd to run into her in Miami, so far from Boston.

“Benadryl?” The old woman was holding a small prescription bottle, a smattering of pills of various colors and shapes in her dry, wrinkled palm.

“Excuse me?”

“Or a Klonopin?” She winked. “I’ve got it all in here. Need an Ambien? Gabapentin? Trazadone?” She pointed to each pill as she said the names.

“I – that’s, um – ”

“It’s all for her.”

“Her?”

The woman’s large cream-colored leather bag on the floor suddenly became animated, a little Pomeranian looking up at Tom with rather glassy eyes.

“Yes. My Phoebe.”

Phoebe has a traveling pharmacy? He almost blurted out the question, but instead simply said, “What a beautiful dog.”

“Of course! She’s a star. Perhaps you know her work?”

“Her work?”

“Phoebe is an actor.”

“An… actor?”

“Of course.” The woman sniffed, as if offended. “I’m her manager. I keep ten percent.”

“Ten percent.” He was starting to feel like a mina bird, which was fitting on this flight.

“Oh, yes. I do everything by the book. We’re headed back to L.A. for taping. She’s been signed for a fourth season of Blended Family Blues .”

All he could do was stare blankly.

“The television show?”

He gave an apologetic look as another sneeze rose up inside him.

“It’s a top ten show. On CBS. Two blues singers marry and blend their family. Phoebe plays one of the family pets.”

“Ah! Good for you.”

The flight attendant appeared, raising her eyebrows at the pill display in the woman’s hand. “Mr. Phillips, I am very sorry. There are no rabbits on board, but we have learned that there is a snake that is fed baby rabbits, and it’s possible there is hair residue in her cage.”

“Rabbits!” Phoebe’s owner declared. “How can anyone be allergic to rabbits ?” She had the audacity to glare at him, as if he’d chosen to react to the cute little fuzzy things. “How bizarre.”

Great. Now he was bizarre. Sneezing, bizarre, and on a flight with crappy American tea.

“If there’s anything I can do, Mr. Phillips, please let me know,” the attendant said as his seatmate shook her head and dumped her pills back into her bottle. Phoebe’s collection of pills looked like an addict’s dream.

With a resigned sigh, Tom settled in his seat.

If he survived without sneezing himself into oblivion, he’d have the perfect stag-do tale: “Gentlemen, let me tell you about the rabbit-eating snake that turned my flight miserable.” And with any luck, he’d make it to Idaho with all his allergies and dignity intact.

“Who feeds baby rabbits to another animal?” his seatmate said loudly. That triggered a ripple of murmurs, until someone in the front row shouted back, “Dead rabbits! Frozen baby rabbits! I would never feed a live rabbit to Noose!”

Noose?

A collective gasp turned the plane into a lung.

“BABY RABBITS! FROZEN? THE POOR THINGS!” someone from the front shouted, a sob piercing the air. Tom watched as the flight attendant closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

He sniffed.

“I refuse to sit next to a rabbit killer!” the person sitting next to the presumed snake owner announced, standing. “And what kind of pet name is Noose?”

“He looks like a noose when he’s looped just right.” That’s when Tom caught the twang and sat up a couple of inches. Cowboy hat on Noose’s owner’s head.

Oh, dear.

“Ladies, ladies, we have assigned seats, and no one can move,” the attendant said smoothly. “I’m sure we can all agree that no one wants the pilot to have to abort and return to Miami.”

Rabbit advocacy suddenly died down.

Seats were taken. Murmurs were made. Feelings were processed.

Tom sipped his coffee and fought a sneeze.

If only he hadn’t been bumped off that other flight...