Chapter Fifteen
Eventually, both Brian and Stephanie had gone to sleep. And they had slept soundly. They were still sleeping when Kevin came knocking on the door to wake them up.
"Why's he always have to get up so daggone early?" Brian woke up complaining.
"What's goin' on?" Stephanie mumbled groggily as she rubbed her eyes. She opened her eyes to see Brian watching her. "Mornin'" she cheerfully greeted him and kissed him quickly on the lips.
"Great! Another morning person" he grumbled.
"Cheer up! I don't want to have to be sad until I have to leave" Stephanie told him as she flung aside the covers and stretched.
"I don't want you to go" he whispered.
"I don't want to go. I've only first gotten to know you! Dagblamit on the 'rents!" she groused. She turned to face Brian. He rotated himself until he could place his head in her lap. Stephanie started playing with his hair, thinking. Looking up at the clock, she noticed that it was 8 o'clock. She cursed under her breath.
"What?" Brian asked, looking up at her.
"If we're gonna get us to the airport by 9:30, we've got to get moving now" she told him. Brian sat up so that Stephanie could leave. Blowing him a kiss, she went into her room and shut the door. Stephanie quickly washed up and dressed in her new dress. Her parents had always insisted that she dress nicely when traveling by plane. She quickly packed by dropping all her new stuff into her shopping bag from yesterday. Having accomplished that, she knocked on Brian's door.
Brian had immediately begun dressing when Stephanie left. So when the knock at the door came, he had already begun packing. Which, essentially for Brian, was tossing everything into the suitcase and trying to shut it. "Come in" he called.
Stephanie walked in and noted with horror the way he was packing. "Brian!" she wailed.
He looked up. "What?" he asked puzzled when she pointed at his suitcase.
Stephanie dropped her shopping bag and her borrowed clothes on Brian's bed. She put her hands on her hips and informed him "That is not how you pack!"
"Brian started laughing. "I guess not, but I'm a messy person-"
"I noticed" she said dryly.
"So I just throw everything in" he finished.
"Tell you what. I'll fold and sort, you pack" she told him.
Brian just shrugged his shoulders as she knelt down by his suitcase and began pulling everything out and sorting them into piles. Yet another reason why she should be staying, not leaving, he thought.
Eventually, Stephanie got it all sorted, folded, and stacked. Brian picked up the neat piles and began to load them in. The suitcase was soon packed, and to Brian's surprise, there was a lot more room. When he told Stephanie, she laughed and told him "I told you so!"
Brian had already zipped up the suitcase when Stephanie remembered the shirt and shorts that he had lent her. "Here" she said, holding them out.
"Nah. You keep them. My present to you" he told her.
"You know I'm gonna sleep in that shirt every night!" she told him as she put them in her bag.
"Good. And when it wears out, tell me and I'll give you another one" Brian told her as he sat on the bed next to her to wait for Kevin to come get them. "You know what? I need your phone number" he remembered.
"You have a piece of paper?" Brian looked around the now clean room.
"Nope. But I do have money!"
Stephanie looked at him as he handed her a $5 and a Sharpie pen. She shrugged her shoulders and wrote down her area code and phone number. She handed them back to Brian. He promptly put the money in a separate part of his wallet.
"First, 'cause it's a safe place, and second, so I won't accidentally spend it" he told her. She smiled. And then they could hear Kevin making his way down the hall to call everyone out of their rooms. Before he could even knock, Brian had the door open. Kevin stood there open-mouthed and staring at his cousin. "What?" Brian asked, noticing his stare.
"This is the first time you've ever been ready to go on time" Kevin gaped. Stephanie giggled. "Man, if she could get you out in time......" he trailed off. Kevin shook his head to clear his thoughts. "All I can say is you better not loose this one!" Kevin smiled at Stephanie and she smiled back, standing up and picking up her things. Brian grabbed his suitcase and bookbag and was ready to go.
Everyone straggled down to the buses and packed their stuff on. Everyone was quiet on the was to the Charlotte airport. When they got there, only the Boys, the bodyguards, and Stephanie and her friends got off. At the ticket counter, they bought the tickets. They quickly made their way to the gate because they were told it was about to start boarding.
"Last call for passengers boarding the 10:08 flight to Savannah" they heard as they approached the gate. Stephanie burst into tears.
"I don't want to go!" she wailed, hugging Brian, who was having a hard time not crying himself.
"You got to, baby. Now give me one last kiss and hug the others good-bye and get your butt on that plane like a good girl" he whispered in her ear hoarsely. She kissed him, hugged the others, returned for one last kiss and hug before running to the gate and giving the attendant her ticket.
Stephanie turned around one last time to blow Brian a kiss before she fled down the ramp in tears.
