In An Aeroplane Over The Sea

What were you and Rian up to?

Was what the piece of paper said that lay lifeless on my seat when I returned after picking out a necklace for Rian’s girlfriend.

Shopping for his girlfriend.

I scrawled before handing it to a now awake Zack.

Buy anything nice?

I nodded when I read it, before realizing that Zack was behind me, and couldn’t see my response unless I had written it out.

Yep. A really pretty necklace.

It didn’t take long for Zack to hand me back the paper.

Come sit with me. You promised.

I chuckled before getting up and seeing that Zack had already moved his legs out into the aisle so I could crawl into the window seat. Like with Matt, Rian and Jack, Zack had lifted up the metal divider. I rested my back against the wall of the plane and folded my legs in front of me. “So,” I said, smiling softly. Was it just me, or did he get really good looking all of a sudden?

“So,” he responded, crossing his legs in front of him like I had done. “We still have five more hours…”

“That’s a long time,” I mused softly, adjusting my hands in my lap.

“Yeah,” mumbled Zack. We were silent for a few seconds, and I could feel Zack’s eyes on me. “Want to play cards?” He suddenly asked, and I smiled.

“Definitely.”

For the next half an hour or so we played with the black and blue deck of cards Zack had in his bag. Though we tried to stick to a set of rules, but the end, both of us had cheated on numerous occasions.

“I win,” I said happily, playing down my last card, a seven of hearts.

“No you don’t,” Zack replied with a grin, setting down his two of diamonds, “Two beats seven.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, loser,” I muttered as Zack picked up the cards and began to shuffle. I yawned, leaning back against the window. I’m not exactly sure how my body moved, but in an effort to get more comfortable, I found my head resting gently on his thigh. I swallowed hard in preparation to get up, but Zack’s hand pressed down on my shoulder, allowing my head to continue lying on his leg. After a few seconds of silence, Zack shifted his position so my head was completely in his lap. He stared down at me with an expressionless look on his face, and I looked back at him with the same. “I don’t think we can play cards anymore,” I finally said softly, resting my hands on my stomach.

“Why not?” He whispered, his fingers gently toying with a strand of my brown hair.

“Because you’ll be able to see them,” I answered, and he smirked.

“Look at Paisley Thomas, cracking joke after joke,” he teased. I rolled my eyes and swatted his hand away from my hair in punishment, but just as soon as I pushed his hand away, I felt his fingers twisting themselves in my hair yet again. This time, I didn’t say anything about it. Time went quickly by, and eventually I had trouble keeping my eyes open. Zack had turned the television in front of his seat on, flipping through all of his movie options. He had offered me one of his headphones to watch with him, but I declined, content to have my head in his lap and his fingers in my hair.

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I awoke with a start, the plane jolting slightly. In my sleepy haze, I looked up to see that Zack’s head was tilted to the side, his eyes closed, and the TV in front of him was shut off. I tilted the silver watch on his wrist and sighed when I saw that there was still another three hours before we landed in England. Sitting back up and arching my back, I could see through the cracks of the seats that Jack and Rian were still awake, though Matt was not. I waved to the two of them, though Jack was the only one who saw before waving eagerly back. I blinked away the last bit of sleep from my eyes before looking back at Jack. He waved his hand towards him, motioning for me to come and sit with him and Rian.

Careful to not wake up Zack or the people around him, I scampered back to where Rian and Jack were sitting. I took a seat in between the two of them, noting Jack’s computer that was open to myspace. He pushed the computer towards me. “I can’t find you on myspace. What’s your name?”

“I don’t have one,” I mumbled, scrolling down Jack’s page and noting the number of comments he had acquired over the past few minutes.

“You don’t have one!” He nearly screeched, and Rian chuckled. Jack ripped the laptop from my grip and, with lightening fast fingers, opened up a page that I assumed was necessary to create one.

“Really, Jack,” I said, trying to pry his wrists away from the computer, but to no avail. “I don’t have time for myspace or facebook or anything like that.”

“What’s your middle name?” He asked, disregarding my previous statement.

“Anne?” I responded, but it came out like more of a question.

Rian snickered, “PAT.”

“Lame, isn’t it?” I commented, and glanced back down at the computer. Jack’s fingers were working furiously, filling out sections and clicking on boxes.

“Smile!” He exclaimed, and the computer snapped a picture of the two of us. When it came out, Jack was grinning goofily, but I was just staring at him with a confused look on my face. “Perfect,” he added proudly.

“Wait!” I tried, but it was no use. Jack pushed the computer towards me, showing off my new profile, awkward picture and all. I sighed.

“Now we just have to get you some friends,” he muttered, turning the computer back to him and continuing to work. “It’s a good thing I know all of our passwords, isn’t it, Rian?” Jack added cheekily.

Now it was Rian’s turn to be confused. “What’re you talking about?” He questioned, but it was too late. Jack had already added all of the All Time Low boys as my friends, and was in the process of logging on to their individual accounts and replacing some poor, innocent person on their top friends with me. “What’re you doing?” Rian pressed, reaching over me and trying to grab the computer from Jack.

“Do you think Kara will be mad if I switch her off your top friends for Paise?” Jack asked with a girlish giggle, and I could tell Rian was fuming.

“Don’t you dare, Jack!” He threatened, reaching over me and attempting to grab the computer from Jack.

“Too late!” He exclaimed with another giggle. Rian breathed heavily before pulling out his own computer.

“Fucking hate you,” he murmured under his breath.

“Look!” Jack exclaimed suddenly, “you already have a comment on your page.”

“I do?” I repeated, turning his computer towards me. Had someone from my school found me already? “Wait,” I said, reading the comment again, “I have no idea who that is.”

“Creepy, isn’t it?” Jack added, poking a sleeping Matt in the side.

“What does it say?” Rian asked, still fixing his myspace.

“’How do you know ATL?’ It’s from some girl,” I read, before leaning back. “Should I respond?” I asked, biting my thumb.

Rian shook his head, “No, nothing good ever happens when you talk to fans on myspace.”

“Jack,” I whined, holding out the ‘a’ in his name. “I don’t want to look like some freak whose entire top friends are the guys in All Time Low! Plus, I look terrible in that picture.”

“But I look fantastic,” he reasoned, and I sighed. After refreshing the page, I saw that yet another person had posted on my myspace, this time with a ‘???’.

Trust me, I was thinking the same thing.

“I’m going to go back to my seat,” I muttered, shutting the top of Jack’s laptop.

“Are you going back to your seat, or Zack’s seat?” Rian teased, and I blushed.

“It’s alright,” Jack added, “you two were adorable, all cuddled together. Rian and I wanted to cuddle, too, but the flight attendant kept looking at us.” I chuckled before standing up.

“I’ll come back later,” I said, disregarding what Rian and Jack had been saying. Though, as I walked back to my seat, I secretly hoped I’d be able to go back to my position with my head in Zack’s lap.