Love at First Flight by Marie Force Page A

work. Check this out.” He
opened a door where three stairs led to a small bathroom with dark red walls
and the tiniest pedestal sink Juliana had ever seen.
    “It's so cute!” She did a double take. “Is
that a phone ?”
    Michael chuckled. “He put one in every
bathroom. You'll never miss a call in this house.” He led her to the kitchen
where cabinets were suspended from the ceiling over slate countertops.
    “Oh, wow! What a great kitchen.”
    “Isn't it?” He opened the stainless
steel fridge and peered inside. “I have beer, water, and beer.”
    “Urn, I'll have a beer.”
    “Good choice.”
    He opened two of them and handed one to
her. “Don't feel like you have to entertain me. I'm sure you want to get to
bed.”
    “I'm kind of keyed up, actually. Let's
go upstairs.” The stairs were in the living room. On the second floor, he
showed her to a guestroom with a bathroom. “The sheets are clean, and there're
towels in the bathroom.”
    She dropped her bag on the bed. “Thanks.”
    The second bedroom was a combination
home office and gym.
    “Do you use the Bowflex or does it
collect dust like ours does?”
    “I haven't used it much lately,” he
confessed. “Come see my view.”
    She followed him up another flight of
stairs to his bedroom on the top floor. The room and adjoining bathroom took up
the entire third floor. “This is beautiful.”
    “It's my favorite part of the house.” He
walked over to slide open the door to a deck and gestured for her to come out
with him.
    “You can see the whole city!”
    “It gets better.” He pointed to wooden
stairs and took her up to the roof deck.
    Gazing down at the lights of Fell's
Point and the Inner Harbor, she said, “What a view.”
    “Sometimes I still can't believe I live
here. I grew up in a tiny house crammed with people. I feel like I can breathe
here.” He stretched out on one of the lounge chairs and invited her to take the
other.
    She kicked off her shoes and sat down. “Having
some-thing like this to show for it must make all your hard work in law school
and now with your job worth it.”
    “Yes,” he said. “It does.” He took a
long drink from his beer. “Do you know what Paige said the first time she saw
this place?”
    “What?”
    “That the basement was smelly and the
carpet was ugly, but she could make it work if she had to.”
    “And you didn't smack her?”
    “She never would've seen it the way you
did, how having something like this makes all the hard work worth it.” He
picked at the label on his beer bottle. “She's never had to work for anything
in her life, so she doesn't appreciate anything. Sometimes I felt like I was
just another thing she had to have.”
    “Seems like you did the right thing
calling it off with her.”
    “I know I did. All day today I tried not
to think about what happened last night, but then it would come back to me with
this rush of pain. It's strange. She made me so mad, yet still it hurts so
much. Why do you suppose that is?”
    “Because you loved her, and she let you
down. You're probably disappointed more than anything.”
    “Probably.” He finished his beer in one
long swallow. “She hit me.”
    “ What? She hit you?”
    “After the party when she finally got
that I meant it when I said it was over between us.” He brushed a hand over his
face. “I can almost still feel it.”
    “Someone needs to smack her,” Juliana
said with indignation.
    “We're quite a pair, huh?”
    She laughed. “We're a two-person support
group for losers in love.”
    He rested his head back against the
lounge chair and smiled at her. “I'm glad you're here.”
    “I am, too.”

    ***

    Juliana woke up disoriented the next
morning in the strange bedroom with the blue walls and curtains—until the
events of the day before came rushing back to her. What am I doing here? I can't stay with a guy I met on an airplane! I
must've lost my mind while I was in Florida. She got up to make the bed,
straighten