Moments later, the agent confirmed that Alesha had indeed been on the plane. I wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad news. At my conflicted expression, the agent offered a suggestion, “I can’t let you past the security checkpoints to look for her, but if you’d like I can make an announcement over the PA system to have her report to the customer service desk.”
I wanted to leap over the counter and hug her. “That would be amazing!”
After the announcement went out across the airport, I stepped aside to let the next person in line take my place at the counter. I kept my eyes trained on the gates where Alesha should have been coming from and waited. Half a minute later, I spotted her making a beeline for the customer service desk. It had only been nine months since I put her on a plane back to Phoenix after her previous summer’s stay. But her appearance had changed quite dramatically in that time. Last summer her honey blonde hair had been waist length, free flowing and wild. Now, it was chopped off, up to her jawline in an angular bob that was flat-iron straight. Her sense of fashion had taken a dramatic turn as well. What had been ripped jeans and crop top tanks were now replaced by sharp black cigarette pants, a fitted top, and a three-quarter length black blazer that matched the pants.
I didn’t have too much time to psychoanalyze the sudden change because my eye went from her to the middle-aged man that had an arm draped over her shoulders.
“Fuck.” I stiffened and crossed my arms tightly. I needed to brace myself for whatever bullshit was about to happen.
When Alesha spotted me at the counter, her steps noticeably slowed, and the man attached to her whispered something in her ear, a look of concern on his face.
I marched the ten paces to close the gap. “Where the hell have you been? Your plane landed almost an hour ago,” I demanded, shifting my angry narrowed eyes from her to her companion. “And who the hell are you?”
The man untangled himself from Alesha and extended a hand in my direction. I ignored it and his smarmy smile drooped. “You must be Carly. My name is Jake Fisher. Alesha and I met on the plane.” He glanced adoringly at Alesha. How was it that in a three-hour flight she’d managed to sucker this man into thinking there was some kind of relationship potential?
“Charming.” I uncrossed my arms and instead planted my fists on my hips.
“She mentioned you’d be here to pick her up.” He smiled like he still didn’t have a clue that I was not in a good mood.
He shifted his smile to Alesha, who was somewhere between amused and panicked as she stared at me. Jake continued, “We’d love for you to come out with us. There’s a little cantina up the road from here. Best margarita you’ll ever have. I told Alesha that she just has to try it.”
If I hadn’t been so furious, I might’ve laughed at his total obliviousness.
I smiled sweetly at him. “Well, unless you’re planning on meeting up in another three years, I’m afraid those margaritas will have to wait. I don’t know what my sister has told you, Jake, but she’s seventeen years old. So, I’d suggest you move along and go have that margarita, alone.”
Alesha narrowed her eyes at me and gave a haughty sigh. Her game was officially over. Beside her, Jake leaped away from her as though she’d suddenly lit on fire, his expression shifting in a colorful array from obliviousness to confusion to sheer horror. He took one more long look at Alesha, darted his gaze back to me, mumbled something about it all being a big misunderstanding, and took off in the opposite direction so fast that the wheels of his rolling suitcase lifted off the ground and slapped into the back of his ankles. I heard him grunt at the impact but he didn’t slow down or stop.
With one problem out of the way, I reached forward and pinched my fingers around Alesha’s bony upper arm. “Alesha Jade Roberts, consider this your official warning. Pull one more trick and you’re going to find yourself with a one-way ticket to New Hampshire.”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “New Hampshire?”
“Yeah, Dad and I decided that sending you on a three-month vacation to Greece wasn’t exactly an appropriate punishment. So instead, we decided that if you can’t behave yourself here with me—under my roof—you’ll be going to spend the rest of the summer with Grandma in New Hampshire.”
Alisha’s bottom lip protruded in a pout that I’m sure could’ve worked on a variety of suckers. Unfortunately for her—I wasn’t one of them.
“So get it together, or the highlight of your summer will be Friday night Scrabble tournaments where the most exotic thing on the menu is green Jell-O.”