onLeave a Comment on A stranger beside me on a flight asked, “Could you pretend you fell asleep on my shoulder?” I almost said no. I had just left Chicago with my five-year-old daughter, two suitcases, and a marriage that had fallen apart three days earlier. But I agreed. Two hours later, I woke up still leaning against him—and discovered the quiet man beside me was one of the country’s best-known billionaires. Then my phone reconnected, and a message from my ex-husband appeared: I KNOW YOU TOOK FIONA TO NEW YORK. 
“You seemed like you needed it.”
“Your arm must be dead.”
“I stopped feeling my left hand somewhere over Pennsylvania.”
I covered my face.
“I am so sorry.”
He laughed quietly.
It was the first time I had heard him laugh.
“You helped me. Consider us even.”
Fiona had fallen asleep too, curled against the window.
I looked at Luca.
“You really didn’t move?”
“I was afraid you’d wake up.”
Something about that nearly undid me.
Not because it was romantic.
It wasn’t.
It was simply considerate.
