The Seat They Never Saved and the Offer I Finally Took novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Fifth Blanket
Stranded at a Denver gate, Lena gets no blanket and loses her sandwich, so she stands up and takes Tobias's offer of the passenger seat.
The airline canceled our flight home at eleven that night, and by midnight all five of us were sitting on the floor of Gate B31 in Denver.
Rain hammered the windows so hard the planes outside disappeared.
I was twenty-eight years old, soaked to the knees, and I had been dragging everybody's luggage through the terminal for an hour.
My boyfriend, Connor Ames, told us to stay put while he fixed it.
He stood in the service desk line for almost forty minutes.
When he came back, he was carrying four gray blankets and wearing his best rescuer smile.
He shook out two of them and tucked them around Lacey Quint, my best friend of ten years, who was curled up against her duffel bag.
"There you go, Lace. You get cold so easily."
The other two went to Tobias Kell and his little sister, Ivy.
Tobias was my oldest friend and Connor's roommate from college, and he'd come along to the wedding for the free dinner.
He looked at the blanket in his hands.
Then he looked at me.
Connor sat down next to me with nothing at all.
"They ran out before I got to you, babe," he said. "You never get sick anyway. You can handle one night."
I was shivering so hard my teeth clicked.
"Connor, my jacket is wet through."
"So hug your bag." He patted my knee. "You know I take care of you, Len. I always do."
Lacey gave me a small, sorry smile over the edge of her blanket.
"He's just like that," she whispered. "He can't help looking after the weak ones."
I had no idea what to do with that, so I did nothing.
At three in the morning, Lacey sat up and said her blood sugar was dropping.
Connor looked at Tobias.
Tobias got up without a word and walked to the vending machine at the end of the concourse.
He came back with four sandwiches in plastic wrap and gave one to Ivy, one to Lacey and one to Connor.
The last one he held out to me.
I hadn't eaten since the wedding lunch at noon.
My hand was already reaching for it.
Connor leaned across me and plucked it right out of Tobias's fingers.
"Perfect. Lace, take this one too. You need to keep your levels up."
He dropped it into her lap.
"Len can wait for breakfast," he said. "She's fine."
Lacey said, "Oh, I couldn't," and already had the wrapper open.
An older woman sitting on the floor across from us had been watching the whole night.
She lowered her paperback and said, very clearly, "Well, that's something."
Nobody answered her.
Ivy had stopped chewing.
Tobias just stood there with his empty hands, looking at Connor.
I looked at Connor too.
Three years.
I had paid half the rent on his apartment for three years, and I'd put his name on my phone plan.
I had never once asked him for a blanket.
I thought about every dinner where Lacey's order came first.
I thought about the birthday where he'd left early to drive her home.
I had been calling all of it kindness.
"Connor," I said.
"Mm?" He was already chewing his own sandwich.
"Did the desk really run out of blankets?"
He swallowed.
"What? Yes. I told you."
"Did you ask for five?"
His smile held. "Babe. It's three in the morning. Don't make this weird."
Lacey made a little hurt sound. "Lena, he's trying. Please don't pick a fight over a sandwich."
I realized I had stopped shaking.
I wasn't cold anymore.
So I stood up.
I picked up my bag and slung it over my wet shoulder.
"I'm going home," I said.
Connor laughed, a short bright laugh for the audience.
"Home to what? Our flight leaves at nine. Sit down, Len."
"I'm not getting on that plane with you."
"Because of a blanket?"
"Because of all of them."
His face changed then, just a little.
"You're embarrassing me," he said, low. "People are looking."
"Good," I said.
The woman with the paperback nodded once, slowly.
I turned toward the exit.
Tobias was already beside me, dangling a set of car keys from two fingers.
His voice was quiet enough that only I could hear it.
"I rented a car at midnight. It's in the lot. It's fifteen hours to Minneapolis."
I stared at the keys.
I remembered a September night at Connor's birthday party, Tobias by the coat rack, his eyes on the floor.
If you ever want out, my offer stands. There's a seat.
I had laughed and told him he was being dramatic.
"The passenger side is empty," Tobias said now. "It has been all night."
I looked back once.
Connor had pulled Lacey's blanket higher over her shoulders and wasn't watching me at all.
I took the keys out of Tobias's hand.
"Okay," I said. "I'll take the seat."
Behind us, Ivy shoved her sandwich at the older woman, grabbed her backpack and caught up in the middle of the concourse.
She pushed her own dry sweatshirt into my arms.
"Don't let him tell you he couldn't have known," she muttered. "At eleven-thirty my brother went to a gift shop and bought you a blanket."
I looked at Tobias.
He kept his eyes straight ahead, ears turning red.
"It's in the car," he said. "I bought it before Connor ever came back with his four."
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