“Just passing through the airport—I have a connecting flight to Marseille.”

“Okay.” He smiled. “So what are you doing in Marseille?”

“I’m actually going on… a boat trip.” She hesitated before allowing herself the thrill of continuing. “A yacht trip. All around the Mediterranean, then to a wedding. It’s actually kind of crazy.”

“A yacht trip?” he asked, placing his hands on the bar and leaning forward slightly. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Well, a yacht is just a big boat, and you can rent them for whatever you want. They come with their own crew and everything.” She grabbed her phone, scrolling to pull up some photos of the yacht in question from the group chat. “So people rent them to go on vacations, and my best friend is renting one for a little bachelor trip before his wedding in Cyprus. Here, this is us.” It was hard not to be a little pedantic when talking about something so obscenely luxurious.

“Holy shit.” The words sounded knocked out of him, and he took her phone to bring the photos in for closer inspection. “That is a ship.”

His eyes flicked upward to meet hers, and she instinctively blushed, as much from the flirtatious atmosphere as from the details of her travels. It was the first time she was describing this trip to a stranger in honest terms, let alone showing them photos. She had been intentionally vague with her colleagues and friends back home, but in the safe space of an airport bar, she felt comfortable sharing the extravagant details, this alternate reality she got to enter every so often through Paul.

She smiled, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip from her drink. “It’s apparently on the larger side, about 170 feet.”

“Well.” The bartender handed her phone back. “That sounds pretty cool. I think you got a message, by the way.”

She looked down, tapping open her emails. An update from the airline: her flight had been delayed another three hours, basically guaranteeing she would miss her connecting flight to Marseille. Holding her breath, she navigated to the French railway website she’d bookmarked—her Plan B—and absorbed the day’s train schedule like several slaps to the face: SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT.

She knew she had to text the group to develop a Plan C, but the familiar feeling of being a burden—the poor one who couldn’t just make solutions appear out of thin air—gave her pause. Alex had never coveted designer bags or five-star hotels, but she envied the ease with which her college friends could turn logistical nightmares into minor inconveniences. It was like the rich lived in an alternate universe, where they could resolve a setback that would financially devastate her with just a few irritating minutes on the phone—and even that task could be outsourced.