“Don’t bother.” I say to him getting close enough so only he could hear through my gritted teeth.

“Come on Tina, don’t be that way.” He adds grabbing my arm. “Don’t pick a fight with me as soon as we get here.” He shouts through the cabin. If anyone was ignoring our arguing before, they couldn’t help by notice our discourse now. Anyway it’s too late. I’ve made my way to the back of the plane where the vertically challenged man was still having a bit of trouble carrying his last bag.

“Hi, can I get that last bag for you?”

“No thank you, I can manage.” He answered.

“Well I really don’t have anything to carry at the moment. You see my boyfriend seems to want to play the macho role. I’m really not used to that at all.

“Oh you mean that young man holding all those bags and staring back here?” I look up at the front, and sure enough there he is, starting to sweat from holding all those bags. But he did managed to stay in full pissed off mode. Whatever.

“Yep that would be him.” I smile politely towards Eric and give him a small wave. As soon as he turned to walk out of the plane, my wave turned into a flip of the bird.

“Well I thought I heard some brief shouting up at the front. I just assumed that it was another passenger shouting on their mobiles. Those things are so damned useless, don’t you agree?”

“Well life is a little more complicated with them, I must admit.” I answered.

“Derrick” He said extending his hand. ” And here take this little one and be a dear and grab that last one up there. That way you have a reason to be walking and talking to an old man instead of with your boyfriend.” I gave him a smile and hoisted the tiny travel bags over my shoulder.

“I’m Tina and it’s great to meet you Derrick.”

“You’re not from LA are you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re nice and polite.”

“But lots of people from LA are nice Derrick” I answer, a bit shocked.

“Don’t argue with an old man dear.” He simply said. After a moment of tension and me thinking another word would have him hitting me upside the head with his cane, he broke into a hysterical laugh. “Just a small joke dear heart. No need to look so petrified.” I breathe I sigh of relief and joined him in his laughter. It felt good to finally let loose and just laugh. I often felt like days had gone by before I had a really good laugh. Thank God for Derrick, I could feel my tension melting away just by being in his presence.