SONG : BTS - SERENDIPITY

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I had pictured this moment many times before. A lot more than I would care to admit, I had thought about what would happened when Jace talked to me, or when we finally were forced into a situation where we had to talk to one another.

Almost half of those thought up scenarios, I would slap him across the face for what he had said back then. It usually ended with me flipping him the bird or dumping hot coffee on him before I stomped off to the cheering of bystanders.

Sometimes those scenarios ended with me professing my love for him and telling him how I forgave him and all that bull, while the rest of the times it ended with me acting as civil as I usually did at one of dad's white tie events. In other words, I would hide my feelings, and shove down all the things I wished I could do to Have, like sock him in the face.

However, in none of those scenarios did I ever think of what I did next as Jace watched me, looking me straight in the eyes and waited for my reaction. None of it prepared me for what I did next.

Without saying a word, none at all, I took the icepack from Jace and pressed it against Owen's face.

Silence echoed in the airplane. Granted it was approximately six or seven in the morning and most of the passengers were dead to the world, but the silence was so loud.

Yet I didn't even dare to remedy it. It felt like my lips were glued together and no prying in the world can get it to open up.

I felt him watching me as I grabbed Owen's hands and wrapped it around the icepack before I resumed with my ruffling around my bag looking for the pain relief cream, whilst acting like I didn't feel the eyes burning into me.

"Thanks bro," I heard Owen direct at Jace who then have him a curt nod.

"Glad I could be of help," his voice still caused shivers to run down my spine and I had to force myself to keep from looking at him or from melting on the spot.

I didn't like the way I was reacting to his close proximity or even the sound of his voice. I didn't like that despite the four years since I'd last seen him, he still had the power to make me feel like the young school girl who was experiencing her first crush.

I wrote it all of to me being caught off-guard. I decided that that was it. That this was all because I wasn't expecting to run into him, and that the sight of him just brought back all those emotions that I had long since locked away years ago.

I decided that this wasn't me still having that pathetic crush on him. I would eventually get over it, when I finally calmed down from whatever this shock that I was currently experiencing was.

I finally found the pain relief cream and started to open it up when Owen grabbed it from me.

"What are you doing?" I asked him, my eyes focused solely on him and not on the guy that was under the delusion that his presence was still required. It got to the point where I involuntarily ended up glaring at Owen.

Owen a little bit taken aback smiled sheepishly as he handed me the icepack. "I'll take care of it, Ms Holden. You don't have to do this."

I grabbed the cream from him and handed him back the icepack. "Of course I have to."

Owen made to grab the cream back but I pushed him back and gave him the look that usually stopped people in their tracks. "Just sit back and relax while I do this."

"But-"

"I was the one who gave you the fucking bruise in the first place," I snapped earning a few groans from the cabin and a harsh glare from the businessman sitting across the aisle that wasreading through some documents.

Owen put his hands up in a surrender pose and leaned back as I applied the pain relief cream on the bruised part of his face.

A couple of seconds later, I realized that maybe I shouldn't have offered to do it. I had applied too much and his face had cream caked on it like it was makeup.

Just before I could grab a tissue to wipe the excess off,  I heard Jace snort as he tried not to laugh.

I turned to glare at him when Owen asked him what happened.

"Mate, you look like a flock of birds pooped on your face."

Owen, without missing a beat, got up from his seat and rushed towards the toilet as if he was just told that he had acid on his face.

Just before I could either follow after him or turn to the offender and give him a piece of my mind, said offender decided to sit in the chair, right next to me.

I stiffened instantly as if I had a ravenous lion sitting next to me and I was trying not to make any sudden movements.

In some ways,  Jace was a lion to me and I was the pathetic prey whose existence depended on the whims of said lion.

It was tensed and silent for a couple of minutes until he turned his head and faced me. I felt him watching me even as I tried so hard to act like I was pondering on what time of leather they used on the seats.

"Relax, Phillipa," his voice was as calm and collected as I remained. The low timbre in his voice that always made me strain my ears to listen was still the same. "I won't bite."

At that moment, I decided to take control of the situation. I decided that I couldn't continue going on like this and that I shouldn't be letting him have the upper hand of whatever this messed up situation was.

I cleared my throat and turned to face him, his metallic silver eyes met my green ones and I almost lost my resolution and drive.

"What are you doing here?"

He didn't miss a beat with his reply. "Doing here as on this plane or doing here as in in this particular seat, right now?"

I sighed in frustration. "Both."

He smiled the playful smile he always had when he knew Douglas was planning something evil for him, but something about it was twisted.

I realized fully only then how much he had changed over the course of the past four years.

Something about him seemed more darker, dangerous and nothing like the Jace that had stitched my Teddy bear back together when we were eight because Douglas and Dylan had torn in apart when they were pretending to be pirates.

"For the first," he began, "I'm on my way back home for a job interview and this was the only flight available on short notice and for the second..." he smiled innocently enough, although there was something devious about it. "I thought I would come over and help a guy out before you beat the shit out of him again."

I didn't believe him. There was something off about the way he decided to come right then.

I nodded anyways, before I pushed the recline button and my seat started to lean back to make a bed. "When I wake up, you better not be here anymore."

Jace smiled. "Nice thing to say to a friend you haven't seen in four years."

I turned away, facing towards the window before I said the words that I had held close to my heart for the past four years. "You are not my friend."

***

I escaped into a dreamless sleep. One which I hadn't been able to get since my mom's passing three years ago.

I usually woke up after feeling like I was literally burnt alive, just as I had before which resulted in Owen's bruised face. The dreams, nightmares to be exact usually like to vary most of the times.

Sometimes I saw my mom suffocating in the aftermath of the bomb, sometimes I saw her being torn apart and other times I dreamt about being there with them, sensing the uneasiness in the air and hearing the bomb go off before I felt like my body was being ripped apart. This of course didn't kill me. In some twisted way, I always manage to survive my injuries.

The dreams always ended the same way though. It always did. At the end, I was always there to see the light leaving my mother's eyes.

However, as soon as I said those words to Jace, I drifted off into a sleep so dreamless and vacant that I lost myself in its dark depths.

This dreamless sleep, I had discovered over the years, I could only attain after downing enough liquor to fill a bathtub. I first discovered that when I was eighteen and I spent moms first death anniversary alone while dad buried himself in a business deal that would get him hundreds of millions.

After finding out how effective the alcohol was to providing me the escape I needed, I continued to do it, over and over again.

Dad didn't understand. He never understood. He wrote it off to my attempt at getting his attention.

"Ms Holden, Ms Holden," I felt strong hands shaking me awake. "Ms Holden, wake up please. We're about to land."

Feeling more invigorated then I expected after sleeping on a plane, I sat up and stretched.

"We're landing in thirty minutes," Bruce said as he pressed the button to pull the chair back into a seat.

I nodded until I realized that someone else had been sitting where he now sat. I looked around the cabin for the familiar blonde but came up empty.

"Looking for someone?" Bruce arched a brow as he followed my gaze.

I thought to ask him where Jace was but bit back the desire.

Bruce had known the Frosts,  but after years of seeing neither, I don't think he would even remember Jace and I didn't want to bring him up.

Everything was messy enough with the whole situation happening right now and I didn't want to have to answer more questions, especially from Bruce who treated every guy as a threat to both my safety and virtue.

"Nothing," I shook my head before I leaned back against my seat and waited for the descent, my thoughts lingering on the fact that I was almost positive that that wouldn't be the last I would be seeing Jace Frost.

What do you think of this chapter?
Do you think they'll meet soon?

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(Curious to know where my readers are from) 😊😊❤