Around the World in 80 Men (9 page)

Half hour later, Morgan had ultimately
decided on trashing every piece of her past, all but one night
shirt that she couldn't bear to part with. She had had the shirt
since she was sixteen, and it showed its age. It hung to her knees,
and was a baby yellow color, with sunflowers and bumble bees
scattered about haphazardly. Her grandmother had given it to her
before she passed away, and at the time, Morgan hated the shirt,
even telling her grandmother that it was embarrassing. It wasn't
until she died that summer that Morgan first wore it and realized
it was the most comfortable damn night shirt in the world.

She gave the shirt a fold in
half, then rolled it tightly and stuck it in the sock compartment
of her suitcase, knowing she wouldn't be seen wearing it anytime
soon. She giggled to herself again, imagining walking out of a
fancy bathroom, donned in her sunflower shirt for Finlay.
I bet that would turn him on.

A hot bath ran as Morgan made her final
adjustments to her suitcase and another bag filled with her new
shoes and accessories. She set the two bags by the front door and
made her way back to the bathroom.

She soaked in the tub until her fingers and
toes turned to raisins and her feet were relieved of the damage the
new pumps had caused. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll be in Scotland,
tomorrow,” she sang to herself, blowing a handful of bubbles from
her hands. The hot bath had been the perfect remedy to relax her
nerves and she was back to wearing a giddy smile as she climbed out
of the tub.

*****

“Morgan, darling, your flight leaves in less
than two hours, are you ready?” Julianne called through the
bathroom door.

“Just...about....there,” the girl replied,
holding locks of hair between her lips as she gave her hair a few
final touches of the flat iron.

Julianne opened the unlocked door and
propped herself against the wall, staring at the young girl. She
anxiously looked down at her watch, then back up at Morgan. Even
with two hours until the flight, Julianne hated to cut anything
close, and for the first job of her new apprentice, there was no
room for error.

“Look...look at this!” Julianne laughed as
she pointed to all of the beauty paraphernalia that was still lying
about the bathroom counter. She grabbed Morgan's beauty bag, and
with a sweep of her arm, she knocked an assortment of blushes,
bronzers, lipsticks and eyelash curlers into the bag.

“Hey!” Morgan protested, retrieving her
lipgloss from the bag, “I need this!” Morgan smiled at her, gave
her hair one last pass of the straightener and unplugged the
device. She wrapped it in a heat protection sleeve and stuck it
into the floral beauty bag and pushed her lipgloss deep into her
back pocket and slid her sunglasses over her hair, acting as a
headband more than UV protection.

“Okay, I'm ready, how do I look?” Morgan
excitedly did a spin for Julianne, showing off her travel
attire.

“Like a trillion bucks, now let's go,”
Julianne seemed less than amused. Morgan slung her beauty bag over
her shoulder and reached for her suitcase, Julianne stopped her.
“Have we not learned anything, child?” With the push of a button, a
hotel attendant arrived at their door, grabbing the bags before
Morgan could even ask.

“Ladies need not to carry luggage,” Julianne
answered Morgan's questioning look.

What
are
we allowed to do?
Morgan thought. Right on cue, Julianne seemed to
have read her thoughts again, although, this time, Morgan figured
the look on her face may have given it away.

“You just be beautiful, and provide
excellent companionship, my dear. That's it. You don't worry that
pretty little face. Just remember all that we've talked about and
you'll be perfect,” Julianne assured her.

This time, Morgan was sure
her look gave it away, Julianne continued, “oh, it's not
that
much to remember.
You make them open doors and carry things for you! It's not that
hard.”

They continued their argument all the way
down the elevator and out to the limo. Morgan enjoyed giving her a
hard time. In all truth, the whole process had gone more smoothly
than she could have even imagined and more so, it really wasn't
that hard.

“Okay, your flight leaves at 10:36, you'll
be flying for about six and a half hours, but you'll get there
right around noon. Got it? Finlay will be waiting for you, so keep
a look out when you get there. I'll send you a picture of him so
you can remember exactly what he looks like,” Julianne continued
her speech.

Morgan smiled at her and even if it wasn't
ladylike, she quickly wrapped her arms around Julianne and quietly
thanked her and told her that she would do her best to make her
proud.

Julianne patted the young girl on the back,
“you've already made me proud, dear. Now go, on with you!”

With that, Morgan climbed into the limo and
Julianne shut the door behind her. With a last little wave, the car
pulled out of the lot and headed toward the airport.

*****

As Morgan stepped into the Akron/Canton
Regional Airport, she instantly felt as if she had been dunked into
a pool tied to cement bricks. For the first time in days, she
didn't think about sex, food, shopping, Scotland, or even Finlay.
She was going to have to fly, and not just fly, she had to fly over
the ocean.

After a few long moments, she finally
mustered the courage to go to the counter, check in her bags, scan
her ticket, go through security and ask for directions to the right
terminal. As she paced around the the lobby, she applied another
thick coat of lipgloss, smacking her lips together loudly, causing
a nearby woman to look at her. Morgan put her hand up in front of
her and shrugged her shoulders in apology.

As she walked away from the bothered woman,
she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Morgan pulled it out and
stuck her lipgloss in its place, as she sat down on the edge of a
tattered ,blue cushioned, chair.

She pressed the blinking icon, revealing a
picture of the most gorgeous man she had ever laid her eyes
upon.

“Finlay.....I'll see you soon ya big hunk of
man meat.” Before she was done talking to her phone, as there was
much more to say to the picture, she heard the announcement that
her flight was boarding. “See ya on the plane.” Morgan smiled at
his face, because she knew that it would need more attention when
she was safely boarded.

The picture, however, had to wait. Morgan
was far too nervous to look at anything beyond her clenched hands
that she had pushed down on her lap. Take off had scared the hell
out of the girl, and she prayed that she would survive it, and
another prayer that the sound of the engines didn't drive her
insane.

Once in the air, she started
to relax her hands, and take a few deep breaths. Flying wasn't
going to be something that she would ever get used to, and she
banished the creeping thought that she would have to fly regularly
in her new life.
I'll think about that
some other time.

Morgan began to look around
her, and scan her fellow passengers. She found herself sizing them
up, playing a game with herself as to why each person was heading
to Scotland.
Mr. Bald and Sours there is
probably a golfer. Yeah, he looks way too grumpy to do anything
beside hit a ball as hard as he can.
Then
she looked further up the aisle.
Hmmm
they're probably going to walk through old castles, take a million
pictures, then post them online for their less fortunate friends to
see.
She knew the type, the couple that had
probably been married for five years, that liked to rub their lives
into the noses of everyone around them.

Morgan then looked to her
left, and as she was about to size up whoever she saw, she had to
divert her eyes from a man who had been staring right at
her.
How long has he been staring at me?
Awkward! Don't look at him, don't look at him.
She looked at him. He was still staring. Morgan smiled weakly,
and turned her head to the front again.

The man was cute, but he was
no Finlay. He was, as Morgan thought,
boy
next door.
As the words floated through her
mind, she immediately thought of Dennis. Oh, Dennis. Those were
sweet memories, and she felt the heat rise in her neck at the
images that her mind displayed.
The things
that man did with his tongue..

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit with you?”
Boy next door was hunching over the empty chair beside her when she
turned in his direction.

“Oh, uh, I was actually just about to take a
nap. So..” She smiled instead of finishing her sentence.

He smiled in return, “alright, I won't
bother you. I just wanted to say that..well..I know this is
forward...but I'd love to have drinks or dinner with you when we
land.” He waited, his shyness was endearing. But Morgan couldn't
have any distractions.

“Oh, thank you. I'm...meeting someone when
we land. But I appreciate the offer.” She smiled again, and hoped
that she didn't sound too rude. He nodded in reply, and raised his
hands as if to say, 'I tried.'

After telling the lie about planning to
sleep, Morgan suddenly thought that it was the best way to get
through the agonizing flight. She waved down a flight attendant,
and asked for a drink.

Twenty minutes and three drinks later,
Morgan felt her eyes grow heavy, and found a semi-comfortable
position. She was asleep within minutes.

A terrible pain in her neck eventually woke
her. She had slept with her head off to the side of her seat, and
as she rubbed the stiffness from the area, she wondered how long
she had been out. She blinked her eyes hard several times to rid
herself from the just-woke-up-and-can't-see state.

Her eyes finally focused, and she checked
her watch. “Oh my God, we're almost there!” Several people around
turned to look at her, and boy next door was one of them. His laugh
was more friendly than the others, but it didn't make it any better
that she had embarrassed herself.

She looked down at her
hands, and the pain in her neck returned.
This sucks! I need some serious aspirin, or a drink. A
drink!
She waved over the attendant, and
ordered another. As she sipped the vodka and Seven-up, the alcohol
slightly soothed the pain as it made its way through her body. One
more, and she would be good as new.

Morgan wasn't one to indulge too heavily
when it came to drinking. She enjoyed a glass of wine with a good
meal, or on a date. But the hard stuff, any liquor, wasn't
something that she was used to. She could drink two glasses of wine
and the most that would happen was a warming sensation mixed with
relaxation. But two glasses of liquor, and three a few hours prior,
was more than her small frame was used to.

When the plane landed, Morgan laughed in the
face of fear that she had left behind. The noise, the jarring, none
of it bothered her. She also made a mental note that she would
never again fly without the assistance of alcohol. Not ever.

As she waited for her luggage to make its
turn in front of her, she looked around the airport for any signs
of her Highlander. She pulled out her phone again, just to make
sure she would recognize him. She also regretted not spending more
time with the image while on her flight, he would have been a
wonderful distraction. When she looked at her phone, she saw that
she had a missed call from Julianne.

With luggage in tow, she smiled at herself
at what Julianne would say about her lugging bags across the
airport without the help of a strong man. But Morgan didn't have a
strong man, not any man, because everyone was far too busy greeting
each other around her. Everyone but her, that is. Besides, she was
still tipsy and in a mood to handle things herself.

She found a seat close to
the main doors, and decided to park herself there until Finlay
arrived. She also took her phone out again, and started to return
Julianne's call. “Damn!” Her phone was dead.
Where's my charger? Did I remember to bring it? Oh
shit!
She dug through her carry on, then
her purse. Nothing.

Morgan hated to do it, but she opened her
large suitcase right there in the lobby, and proceeded to dig
through its contents. She blindly felt around the entire case, and
never found it. “Shit, shit, shit.” While it was open, she also
looked for her new black jacket, since she was fool enough to not
leave it out. She was in Scotland after all, it wasn't the tropics.
That wasn't there either. “I'm going to freeze to death, and right
before I die, I won't be able to call anyone to tell them that I'm
freezing to death!” She yelled at her suitcase while sitting on the
floor beside it.

Just as she was about to get much more
colorful in her rant, she saw a pair of shoes park themselves right
in front of her. She looked up to see Boy Next Door from the
plane.

“Seems you've been stranded here. Do you
need a ride?” He put his hand out to help her to her feet.

Morgan stood and removed her hand from his.
“No, thank you. I'm sure my friend will be here anytime.” She
smiled, and looked back at her suitcase.

The man leaned in, he smelled nice. She
looked into his eyes, and noticed the bright yellow flakes floating
in the sea of chocolate. His brown hair matched his eyes perfectly,
and was cut short on the sides. The top was a bit longer, and stuck
straight up in small spikes. Oh, he was cute, but she wouldn't let
him know that.

“Well, if you need anything, I'll be happy
to help you. But,” and he leaned in even closer, almost touching
her hair with his lips, “I'll expect payment in return.”