Free The Scenic Route by Devan Sipher

leave?” Austin suspected saying “me” wasn’t going to have the desired effect.
    The gate agent waited for a response, and Austin racked his brain to come up with one. It wasn’t that he had believed the ploy was going to succeed, but there was nothing he wouldn’t have done to see Naomi again.
    If he didn’t know better, he might have thought he was in love.

CHAPTER SIX
    N aomi didn’t know what to make of Austin’s kiss good-bye. It wasn’t even a kiss. It was more like a peck. As if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. Had she entirely misread him?
    He had been so attentive and tender all morning, and he had listened to her. Really listened to her. He disagreed with half of what she said, but he did so in a way that showed her opinions were truly being heard. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt a man had really
heard
what she was saying.
    Maybe she should be happy with the time they had together. Maybe for once she should be content with what she had rather than wishing for something more. But she did want more. And she was almost sure they wanted the same thing.
    She decided there was only one explanation for Austin’s abrupt departure: he was coming back. He probably had a very specific plan. It was so clear that he was someone who always had a plan.
    He was going to come back to the gate with a goofy gift like a Dodgers T-shirt or an LA snow globe. And she was going to ask him to be her New Year’s date. That was the line she’d come up with. And she thought it was pretty clever. She was looking forward to seeing theexpression on his face when she said it. And she was going to say it as soon as he showed up. She was absolutely certain Austin was going to show up.
    Right until they announced the final boarding for her flight.
    She reluctantly got in line. She couldn’t believe she had been so wrong. About Austin. About their connection. Maybe he was intimidated by her. She wouldn’t want to be with a man who was intimidated by her. But she seriously doubted that she could intimidate anyone. In culinary school she’d been steered toward pastry work when it became clear she didn’t have the bravado necessary to run an entire kitchen.
    She wanted to go back to the way things were before they’d gotten to the airport. Something had shifted around the time they had pulled into the car rental lot. There was a nervousness or a distractedness that hadn’t been there earlier. Things had felt so easy and effortless. There was a moment when they were driving along the crest of the Santa Rosa foothills with the Pacific laid out like a carpet and their fingers intertwined, and what Naomi recalled feeling was complete serenity. Just a sense of being exactly where she belonged. She rarely felt like she was where she belonged, and it took so much effort pretending.
    She wished there had been some way to stay in that moment. But moments end. Roads turn. She remembered Austin turning onto the highway. She remembered having the urge to stop him. “Keep going,” she had wanted to say. Keep driving. Just the two of them and the road and the sunshine. Like Thelma and Louise. But without the canyon and the suicide. Or Brad Pitt. So it wasn’t really like Thelma and Louise at all.
    But the point was she hadn’t told Austin to keep going. And she regretted it. She regretted it the moment they turned north on Route 73. And she regretted it even more as she took her window seat on the plane.
    She should have told Austin how she felt about him. She’d just assumed there would be plenty of time later. It seemed impossible that she had found Austin Gittleman after all these years. And lost him so quickly.

    Naomi emptied her crayon box onto her drawing table. She drew one letter in each color. First magenta, because it was her favorite. Then periwinkle blue, because it was her second favorite. Burnt orange was last, because it