Looking into Briana’s eyes was like staring into a mirror, only someone had made my face smaller, browner, and prettier and had decorated me in a little girl’s outfit. Then she smiled at me.

SHIT! I was thinking. My chest felt like it was ready to explode. I didn’t feel like I was breathing correctly. I mean, I just wanted to reach down and lift that girl into the air and plant a thousand kisses on her face while spinning her around in crazy circles until we laughed with glee. But I probably would have scared her and made her cry if I did some shit like that. I was a stranger to her, so I had to keep my cool.

“Well, how are you doing?” I looked down and asked her.

She bashfully looked away. “Fi-i-ine,” she answered me.

It sounded like her first words to me lasted for an entire sentence, but it was only one word.

I told her, “I’m feeling fine, too. I just have to pop my ears.”

She looked up at my ears and smiled in wonder. “Pop your ears? You mean from the airplane?”

Whoa! I didn’t expect all of that. What exactly were three-year-olds capable of ?

“So, you’ve been on an airplane before, too?” I asked her.

She nodded to me. “Yeah.”

I could see her curly dark hair slipping out from under the edges of her hat. She had long sideburns like her mother.

“Was it scary?”

She shook her head. “No. Well, but only a little bit.”

“When we were landing, that first big hit on the ground startled her,” Michelle told me.

I was all into the girl. “Where were you flying to?” I asked her.

“La, umm…Louisiana.”

I could have stayed in that airport with her all day.

“How many bags do you have?” Michelle asked me.

“Just one.”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s black with wheels on it.”

I got the picture. It was time to get a move on and grab my luggage. Briana would be with us all day.

I stood up tall and straight and began to look for the baggage claim belt that my luggage would roll out on. Michelle beat me to it.

“It’s number three.”

“Thanks,” I told her.

When we walked over to baggage claim area three, I was itching to take Briana’s hand in mine, but I didn’t.

She pointed to the first black bag with wheels that she saw on the belt.

“Is that one it?”

I looked and smiled.

“No, that’s not it,” I told her.

She waited for the next black bag with wheels.

“Is that one it?”

I could see where that was going. She would ask me about every black bag with wheels until we found mine, and I would answer her every single time anyway, and spoil her, just because I was new.

I had checked my luggage so I could keep my hands free to think about things. I also wanted to stall at the airport to feel things out like we were doing before we left. I had planned it all that way on purpose. I figured I needed a slight buffer period before jumping in their car with them.