Chapter 1: Pesawat, Pandangan Pertama yang Mematikan
The cabin lights were dimmed to a soft amber glow, casting long shadows across the leather seats and making the darkness beyond the small oval window feel absolute. The engines hummed their steady, deep-throated lullaby, a vibration that resonated through the floor and into the bones. Most passengers had surrendered to the monotony of international travel, their seats reclined, their eyes closed, their bodies slack with the peculiar exhaustion that comes from hurtling through the sky at impossible speeds.
Abbi was not most passengers.
She sat in 3A, her long legs crossed at the ankles, one manicured hand wrapped around a champagne flute that had been refilled more times than she cared to count. The bubbles tickled her nose with every sip, a small, pleasant distraction from the ache in her lower back and the way her shoulders had begun to protest the weight they carried everywhere. She shifted in her seat, the movement causing her chest to press against the confines of her silk blouse, the fabric straining in a way that had become so familiar she barely noticed it anymore.
Fifty-four L. The number was absurd. It sounded like a typo, a joke, something you'd find scrawled on a bathroom wall. But it was her reality, had been since she was sixteen years old and her body had decided to become a spectacle without consulting her first. She'd learned to dress for it, to move with it, to weaponize it when necessary and endure it when not. Tonight, she was just enduring.
The champagne was helping.
She reached for her glass again, her fingers brushing against the cool rim, and that's when the plane lurched.
It wasn't a dramatic jolt, not the kind that sent luggage tumbling from overhead bins or elicited gasps of terror from the cabin. Just a sudden, sharp dip that caught her mid-motion, her hand jerking sideways, the champagne sloshing over the edge of the flute and arcing through the air in a glistening ribbon of gold.
The liquid landed on the man seated beside her.
Abbi watched it happen in what felt like slow motion, the champagne splashing across the crisp white of his dress shirt, soaking into the fabric, spreading in an irregular pattern that looked almost deliberate. Her eyes traveled upward from the stain, past the open collar that revealed a hint of dark chest hair, past the strong line of his jaw, until they met his gaze.
He was looking at her.
Not with anger. Not with annoyance. Just... looking. His eyes were the color of aged whiskey, warm and deep and entirely too perceptive for a stranger on a plane. A slight smile played at the corner of his mouth, as if he found the whole situation genuinely amusing rather than irritating.
"I'm so sorry," Abbi said, already reaching for the napkin that had come with her drink. "The turbulence caught me off guard. Here, let me—"
She leaned across the armrest, her napkin dabbing at the wet fabric of his shirt. The angle was awkward, her body twisted in a way that pressed her chest against his arm, and she felt the heat of his skin through the thin layer of silk and cotton. He didn't pull away. Neither did she.
"It's just champagne," he said, his voice a low rumble that she felt more than heard. "Not the worst thing to be covered in."
Abbi paused, her hand still resting against his chest, the napkin growing soggy beneath her fingers. She looked up at him, really looked this time, and something shifted in her chest. A flicker of recognition, maybe, or the strange sensation of standing at the edge of a cliff and knowing, with absolute certainty, that you were about to jump.
"Still," she said, pulling back slowly, "I feel terrible. Let me buy you a drink to make up for it."
"You already did." He gestured to the champagne stain, now a darker, muted version of itself against the white fabric. "Though I think the shirt got more of it than I did."
Abbi laughed, the sound surprising her. It had been a long time since she'd laughed like that, easy and unguarded, without the careful modulation she usually applied to everything she did. "I'm Abbi, by the way. Abbi with an I, not a Y. My mother thought it would make me stand out."
"Did it work?"
"More than she intended."
He extended his hand, and she took it, noting the firmness of his grip, the way his palm engulfed hers without feeling threatening. "Zacky. With a Y. My mother just liked the letter."
"Zacky," she repeated, testing the name on her tongue. "That's unusual."
"So is Abbi."
They held each other's gaze for a beat too long, the kind of pause that stretches into something meaningful, something that neither of them could pretend was casual. The plane shuddered again, another bump of turbulence rattling the cabin, and Abbi felt her body sway toward him, her shoulder brushing against his, her knee grazing his thigh.
Neither of them moved away.
"You fly often?" Zacky asked, settling back into his seat but angling his body toward her, his attention a warm weight she could feel pressing against her skin.
"Enough. Work takes me everywhere. I'm a model." She said it without apology, without the usual deflection she employed when people asked what she did for a living. It was just a fact, as unremarkable to her as the color of her hair or the length of her fingers.
"Ah," he said, something flickering in his expression. "That explains the..." He gestured vaguely toward her, a wave of his hand that somehow managed to encompass everything without being crude.
"The chest?" Abbi supplied, raising an eyebrow.
"I was going to say the confidence. But sure, the chest works too."
She laughed again, louder this time, and a woman two rows ahead turned to glare at them over her seatback. Abbi didn't care. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this light, this unburdened, this genuinely interested in a conversation with a stranger.
"What about you?"she asked. "What do you do when you're not getting champagne spilled on you by clumsy strangers?"
"I run a company. Import-export. Boring stuff, mostly. Lots of meetings, lots of numbers, lots of pretending to care about things I don't actually care about."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is." He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "But I'm good at it. And it pays for seats like this, so I can't complain too much."
The flight attendant appeared at their row, her smile professional but her eyes curious as she took in the champagne stain on Zacky's shirt and the way he and Abbi were leaning toward each other like plants seeking sunlight. "Can I get you anything else? More champagne, perhaps?"
"I think I've had enough champagne for one flight," Abbi said.
"Speak for yourself," Zacky replied, handing over his glass. "I'll take a whiskey. Neat. And whatever she's having."
"Just water," Abbi said. "I should probably sober up before we land."
The attendant nodded and disappeared, leaving them alone again in the dim, humming darkness of the cabin. Abbi could feel the warmth of Zacky's body beside her, the solid presence of him, and she found herself wondering what it would feel like to lean into that warmth completely, to let herself be held by someone who wasn't just interested in the surface of her.
"So," Zacky said, his voice casual but his eyes intent, "what's a woman like you doing flying alone? No boyfriend waiting at home? No husband tracking your flight status?"
Abbi took a breath, the question landing somewhere between small talk and something more serious. "No husband. No boyfriend. Just me and my carry-on and a schedule that doesn't leave much room for relationships."
"Been burned before?"
She looked at him sharply, surprised by the directness. Most people tiptoed around questions like that, afraid of prying too deep, of hitting a nerve. Zacky didn't seem to have that fear. Or maybe he just didn't care.
"Haven't we all?" she said, keeping her voice light.
"Some more than others." He was quiet for a moment, his gaze drifting to the dark window, his reflection faint in the glass. "I was engaged once. Three years ago. She left me two weeks before the wedding."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. She did me a favor." He turned back to her, and there was something raw in his expression, something unguarded that made her breath catch in her throat. "I was so focused on building my business, on proving I could be successful, that I forgot to be present. I forgot to actually see her. By the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late."
Abbi nodded slowly, understanding in a way that surprised her. "I know what that's like. Being so caught up in the image that you forget there's a person underneath."
"Is that what happened to you?"
"I've had my share of relationships that looked good on paper. The kind where you take the perfect photos, go to the perfect restaurants, smile the perfect smiles. And then you go home and realize you don't actually know the person sleeping next to you." She paused, her fingers tracing the rim of her water glass. "I've also had my share of relationships that were the opposite. The kind where someone only wanted me for one thing, and once they got it, they disappeared."
"That sounds lonely."
"It was." She met his eyes, and something passed between them, a recognition, a shared understanding of what it meant to be alone even when you were surrounded by people. "What about you? After your engagement ended?"
"I threw myself into work even harder. For a while." Zacky's jaw tightened, a muscle flexing beneath the tanned skin. "And then I realized I was just running from myself. So I stopped. Took a step back. Started trying to figure out what I actually wanted, instead of just chasing the next achievement."
"And what did you figure out?"
"That I want something real. Something that doesn't feel like a performance." He smiled, a self-deprecating twist of his lips. "Cheesy, I know."
"No," Abbi said softly. "Not cheesy. Just...honest."
The plane hit another patch of turbulence, harder this time, the cabin shuddering around them like a living thing. Abbi's water glass slid across her tray table, and she grabbed for it instinctively, her body twisting toward Zacky. His hand shot out at the same moment, covering hers, steadying the glass before it could topple.
Their fingers tangled together, his warmth seeping into her skin, and neither of them pulled away. The turbulence continued, the plane bucking and swaying, and Abbi felt her body press against his with each jolt, her shoulder against his chest, her thigh against his hip. The contact was innocent enough on the surface, but there was nothing innocent about the way her pulse quickened, or the way his breath caught when her hair brushed against his neck.
"Sorry," she murmured, not moving.
"Don't be." His voice was rough, lower than before. "I'm not complaining."
She looked up at him, and the space between them seemed to shrink, the dim cabin fading to a blur of amber light and shadow. His face was close now, close enough that she could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight unevenness of his stubble, the way his lips parted just slightly as he looked at her.
"We should probably..." Abbi started, not sure what she was going to say. We should probably stop? We should probably be more careful? We should probably acknowledge that this is insane, that we're strangers on a plane, that nothing good can come from whatever this is?
But she didn't finish the sentence. She didn't want to.
"We should probably have dinner when we land," Zacky said, finishing it for her. "Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we can actually hear each other without shouting over engines."
"Dinner," Abbi repeated, as if testing the word. "You don't even know where I'm staying."
"I'll figure it out." He smiled, and it was a good smile, the kind that crinkled his eyes and made him look younger, less guarded. "I'm very resourceful."
"I bet you are."
The turbulence eased, the plane settling back into its steady rhythm, but neither of them moved away from each other. They stayed like that, close and warm and connected, as the flight attendant returned with their drinks, as the cabin lights dimmed further, as the hours stretched on and the sky outside the window began to lighten with the first hints of dawn.
Abbi didn't sleep. Neither did Zacky. They talked instead, their voices low and intimate, sharing stories about their childhoods, their failures, their secret hopes for the future. She told him about the small town she'd grown up in, the way she'd escaped to the city as soon as she could, the loneliness of being beautiful in a way that made people forget she was also human. He told her about the pressure of running a company, the weight of responsibility, the way success had become a cage rather than a freedom.
And somewhere over the Atlantic, with the engines humming and the stars wheeling past the window, something shifted between them. Something that felt less like chance and more like inevitability.
"We're going to get breakfast," Zacky said as the plane began its descent, the seatbelt sign chiming overhead. "You're not going to argue with me about it."
"Am I that predictable?"
"You're that stubborn. There's a difference." He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture so casual and intimate that Abbi felt her chest constrict. "I want to know more about you. The real you. Not the model, not the image. Just Abbi."
She caught his hand before he could pull away, pressing his palm against her cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin against hers. "Okay," she said. "Breakfast."
The plane touched down with a gentle bump, the wheels screeching against the tarmac, the cabin erupting into the familiar chaos of arrival. Passengers surged to their feet, grabbing bags from overhead bins, eager to escape the confines of the aircraft after hours in the air. Abbi stayed in her seat, watching Zacky as he stood and stretched, his shirt still stained with champagne, his hair slightly disheveled, his eyes never leaving hers.
He offered her his hand.
She took it.
And as they walked off the plane together, their fingers still intertwined, Abbi felt the weight of her old life—the solitude, the wariness, the careful distance she kept from everyone—begin to slip from her shoulders, replaced by something new. Something terrifying. Something that felt remarkably like hope.