So Now You're Back by Heidi Rice

socket.
    â€˜You can’t stay here.’ The in-flight trauma of taking off was bad enough, she did not need the one man capable ofgiving her a nervous breakdown when she had both feet on terra firma as a witness to her humiliation.
    â€˜Try me.’
    â€˜But doesn’t travelling in first go against everything you ever stood for? I distinctly remember you telling me once that the premium seats in Holloway Odeon were an exploitation of the working classes.’
    â€˜I’ve mellowed.’
    â€˜You mean you’ve sold out for a lie-flat bed and some complimentary champagne?’ Why did it even surprise her? Luke had never had the courage of his convictions.
    â€˜There’s complimentary champagne?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Damn, if I’d known that, I would have sold out sooner.’
    The flight attendant returned with Halle’s iced water.
    â€˜Hi there, Debbie,’ he said, reading the woman’s name badge. ‘Is it true you get complimentary champagne in first?’
    â€˜Certainly, sir, would you like a glass?’
    â€˜You might as well bring the bottle. It’s a ten-hour flight and I plan to get my money’s worth.’
    The attendant hesitated. ‘We’re only allowed to serve it by the glass I’m afraid, sir.’
    â€˜And it’s ten o’clock in the morning,’ Halle butted in. ‘Drinking at altitude will get you pissed. You’re supposed to be driving us to the resort when we get off this flying death trap. I refuse to get in a car with you if you’re over the limit.’ Hadn’t the man grown up at all in sixteen years?
    â€˜I guess that’s me told.’ He flashed a sheepish smile at the attendant, whose cheeks shone pink beneath the ten layers of foundation. ‘I guess I’ll have to pass. I’ll have what she’s having,’ he finished, indicating Halle’s glass.
    The purser’s amplified voice filled the cabin giving thema rundown of the in-flight services as the stewardess headed off to do Luke’s bidding.
    Halle gulped down the chilled water, but it did nothing to ease the rawness in her throat.
    Shit, shit, shit.
    She rolled the icy glass across her forehead, then bent to retrieve her bag.
    â€˜Why did you call it a “flying death trap”?’
    She ignored Luke’s question as she waged war with the child-safety lid on the Xanax bottle. Only to have the bottle whipped out of her hands.
    â€˜What are these for?’
    â€˜Give me those.’ She made a grab for the bottle as he read the label, only to have him hike it out of reach.
    â€˜Heavy-duty happy pills. When did you start popping these?’
    â€˜It’s not Ecstasy. It’s a mild drug to help with anxiety. And it’s none of your business what pills I pop.’
    â€˜Mild, my arse. This stuff can kill you if you take too much of it.’
    â€˜You
are
joking?’ She skewered him with her best give-me-a-bloody-break look. ‘This from the guy who once had so much E he ran down Green Lanes naked declaring to the whole of Hackney he was Sonic the Hedgehog.’
    â€˜I was seventeen,’ he protested. ‘It was Super Mario and I was only half naked, don’t exaggerate.’
    â€˜Nope, it was definitely Sonic. I remember because I was sober.’ Or soberish. ‘And all you had on was a baseball cap!’
    â€˜Well, then I had all the essential stuff covered, didn’t I?’ He threw her the challenging grin again, daring her to deny it.
    â€˜Essential stuff? What, like your brain, you mean? Thatcertainly didn’t qualify as essential at the time, given it wasn’t the organ you did your thinking with.’
    His eyes sharpened and she relished the hit. But then the captain’s monotone tenor came over the public address system with a rundown of their flying time and their altitude over the Atlantic, and the brief surge of triumph was