AIRPORT BEAUTY

ANNA

Check-in was quick. Security was slower but manageable. By the time she reached her gate, she had forty minutes until board. She found a seat near the window and sat and watched planes take off and land and told herself she still wasn't scanning the crowd.

She pulled out her phone and opened her notes' app. The list she'd started on Saturday night, drunk and heartbroken on her bathroom floor. It was stupid and petty and exactly what she needed.

Beautiful men she intended to date.

She scrolled through the names of her old friends and acquaintances and felt the absurdity of it. This was ridiculous, she thought. But just the right amount of ridiculousness she needed. 

The list was supposed to be honest. That was the whole point. She was done being practical about men, done pretending she didn't want what she wanted. If what she wanted was a man she couldn't have, a man who was her cousin, then the list should reflect that.

She saved the entry and put the phone away.

The gate area was filling up now. Families with children, business travelers on laptops, couples holding hands and leaning into each other. Anna watched them with clinical detachment. She decided that love was something other people did, and she was taking a sabbatical from participating.

Then she saw him.

He was walking toward the gate with ease. He walked like someone who knew exactly how he looked and had made peace with it years ago. Tall, in a dark suit that fit like it had been made for him specifically. A face that she registered as beautiful before she could stop herself.

He sat two rows away and pulled out a book.

Anna looked at him. She looked away, then looked back. 

He was beautiful. Objectively, undeniably, annoyingly beautiful. The beauty made you understand why people write poetry about strangers. He was reading something literary, she could tell by the cover design, and he had absolutely no idea she was staring at him.

She compared him to Enoch before she could stop herself.

It was involuntary and completely unacceptable. He was beautiful, yes. He was exactly the kind of man who belonged on a list like hers. But Enoch's beauty was different. No one could top him in her book. She sighed, eyed him one last time and closed her notes' app.

Boarding started. First class, which meant Anna was in the first group. She stood, gathered her carry-on, and walked toward the gate.

The beautiful man was also in first class.

He boarded ahead of her, and she lost sight of him in the chaos of finding seats and stowing luggage. Her seat was 2A, window, plenty of legroom, the kind of seat that made flying almost pleasant. She settled in and pulled out her phone for one last check before takeoff.

Three texts from Maya.

You're doing great.

If you see Jack at the airport, I will personally come back and kill him.

Text me when you land. I love you.

One text from an unknown number.

Safe flight, Anna. I'll be at arrivals. —E

She stared at the text for longer than necessary before she typed back: 

Okay, See you soon.

Then she put the phone on airplane mode and leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes.

The man in 3A was the beautiful one she had spied earlier.

She discovered this during the safety demonstration. When she glanced back for no reason, she was willing to examine him and found him watching the flight attendant with polite attention. His profile was even better than his full face. Strong nose. Good jaw. Eyebrows that suggested he took himself exactly seriously enough.

He caught her looking.

She looked away immediately, face warm, and spent the next ten minutes staring very determinedly at the seat in front of her. This was fine. This was normal. She was a single woman on a plane looking at an attractive man, which was exactly what single women on planes were allowed to do. It didn't mean anything.

It didn't mean anything that she'd compared him to Enoch.

It didn't mean anything that Enoch had won.

The plane took off and Anna watched the city shrink beneath her. The streets and buildings and five years of her life getting smaller and smaller until they were nothing but shapes on a map. She watched until there was nothing left to see but clouds, and then she closed the window shade.

The flight was seven hours. She had time to catch up on the sleep she had missed.

The last hour of the flight she spent in the bathroom fixing her face.

It was laughable but she couldn't help herself. She reapplied concealer. She fixed her hair. She changed into the fresh clothes she'd packed in her carry-on—a dress she'd bought in a moment of optimism last year and never worn, soft blue, simple lines.

The seatbelt sign came on as she returned to her seat. The captain's voice announced their descent into London. Anna pressed her face to the window and watched the city appear below her. She felt hope. The possibility of it.

The plane landed with a bump and a roar and the sudden press of deceleration. People around her reached for phones, stretched, gathered belongings. Anna sat very still and watched the world outside slow to taxiing speed and thought about the man waiting at arrivals.

She hadn't seen him in six years. What if it was strange now? What if she'd built him up in her head and the real Enoch couldn't compete with the version she'd created?

The plane stopped at the gate. The seatbelt sign chimed off. People stood, reached for luggage, began the slow shuffle toward the door.

Anna stood.

She gathered her carry-on, checked that she had everything, and followed the line of passengers off the plane. Through the jet bridge. Into the terminal. Signs pointing toward baggage claim, toward arrivals, toward whatever came next.

She walked through the airport with her head up and her shoulders back and the dress moving around her knees, and she told herself she was ready for whatever she was about to find.

She turned the corner into the arrivals hall and saw him immediately because he was standing where she could find him with his hands in his pockets and his eyes scanning the crowd.

Enoch was taller than she remembered and broader and somehow more solid, the six years since she'd seen him had filled in edges she hadn't known were there. He was wearing a dark coat over a sweater, and his hair was the same, neat, exactly as she remembered.

Their eyes met.

She watched his serious countenance change into a smile that was warm.

"Anna."

He said her name the way he'd said it on the phone, and she crossed the last few feet between them and let him pull her into a hug that was comfortable and appropriate. Exactly what cousins did when they hadn't seen each other in two years.

She pulled back and looked at him and gave him the smile she'd been practicing. "Hello."

"Welcome to Home," he said. "Let's get your luggage."

She was home. That was the thought she held onto as they walked toward baggage claim with a careful distance between them. 

Dearest cousin, she thought. What am I going to do with you?