Harmony was blessed her uncle was a pilot. On the other hand, she was tired of being on a plane and unfortunately the bird she rode the second time around wasn't private. She was in the economy because that's the only seat her uncle could secure for her during his layover in Denver. The girl of plans didn't plan what she did after a simple shopping trip with Ariel.

     Harmony planned to spend the entire day in the cozy confines of The Voss winter house. She was going to unpack her bags, take a quick shower, throw on her favorite pair of leggings and hide under a hoodie as she caught up on her novel reading next to a blazing fire. Then Ariel's eyes caught sight of the Jaguar coupe in the driveway. She was a decent driver but Harmony still clung to the seatbelt as Ariel pushed the car passed sixty. 

Shopping. That's what they went to do. Nothing caught Ariel's eyes as she drug Harmony along the slick shoveled sidewalk. They finally settled on a little boutique at the end of a row of luxury name store. Harmony thought it was the lights that were brighter than the snow heaped up next to the street that drew Ariel in like a moth to a flame.

    "I'm getting fat!" Ariel squawked looking at her lean figure in the floor length mirror.

     "You're not fat." Harmony said with a little laugh. It was funny but then she stopped. She didn't know Ariel that much and the girl could really have a problem—anorexia maybe. She thought about asking but then again they weren't that close. "How can you be fat?" She unwrapped the scarf from her neck. "It this because of the pie you ate on Thanksgiving?"

     "I didn't mean to eat the whole thing." Ariel dropped her head letting out a whimper. "Damn, it was good. Better than my mom's. Don't tell her, though." She twisted in the mirror rubbing her hands down her small hips.

     "Maybe you're pregnant." A woman blurted. She was wrapped in a mink coat that made Harmony think of Yogi Bear, holding too many bags around her wrist that was turning purple.

   "Maybe I'm pregnant," Ariel said horrified as she looked at Harmony.

     "You're not pregnant!" Harmony couldn't believe Ariel was trusting the comments of a random stranger. She didn't know her sister was so impressionable. "Mind your business." She ordered the woman.

     Ariel stopped rubbing her flat stomach through her turtleneck and collapsed on the display stand. "I don't see anything I want." She blew a breath of surrender blowing a shock of red hair hanging in her face.

     "Then, let's go." Harmony pushed Ariel off the stack of yellow sweaters.

     Ariel snapped, pointing at something behind Harmony. "You should get that."

     Harmony swiveled around to see a gold sequin bodycon dress. "I don't think so." Her nose crinkled. She couldn't see herself in something so revealing. She knew she had curves and she wasn't going to put them on display for the whole world to see.

     A wicked smile formed on Ariel's freckled face, "Cairo would love to see you in that." She tsked. "Too bad he isn't here. Damn!"

     "Okay." Harmony stopped fixing the clothes on the display like she was a sale's girl. "It's time to go." She walked off leaving Ariel.

     Harmony knew where the conversation was going. It was the same thing her girls told her, Cairo wasn't going to Aspen with them because she picked Wes over him. For one she didn't pick anyone. She didn't even know it was a competition. She was dating Wes. He was her boyfriend. 

Cairo wasn't thinking about her. So, she responded to their comments by saying I love him. The three-word rebuttal ended the conversation with Safiya, Alyssa, and Lela. So, on the sidewalk, as she waited for Ariel to unlock the car door she thought the same response would shout down her pesky little sister. She wasn't ready for Ariel's reply. 

It was one word, three letters and it froze Harmony's mine faster than the ice that was forming on the road. Who? Her brain and her heart spoke different names; Wes sounded from her brain and her heart sung Cairo.

      Ariel didn't feel like going back to the house and Harmony was stuck in her racing thought so the redhead just drove. Wes reminded her of her dad, a protective football player with a strong work ethic. Cairo's work ethic was good, too. He was a deejay for the club and various parties that paid for his service. On the other hand, her father didn't like Cairo's line of work or his life's dream. He said it wasn't realistic to be a music producer. Harmony remembered the heated debate Cairo and her dad got into when they first met—three years ago. But Cairo centered her. He had the special gift of pulling her out of her head, live in the here and now. Wes was aligned with her plan for life, graduate college, go to law school, get a job then, married once the paychecks start rolling in. The car stopped and Harmony ejected from her head.

     "Where are we?" Harmony bewilderedly looked out the window. Surrounded by a sea of cars, a glass-walled building, and swarms of people moving around with luggage taking over their shadows she quickly realized the answer to her own question. "Why are we at the airport."

      "Tell him how you feel, Harmony." Ariel shifted the gear to park so, she could face her sister. "You only live once. Don't settle. Love should not be mediocre."

      The wise words of her kid sister made her get out of the car. Harmony called her pilot aunt and uncle to see if they could get her a seat on a flight to Atlanta. To her surprise, her uncle was waiting for her plane to be refueled so he could guide a load of people to Georgia's capital. Harmony threw caution to the wind as she boarded the 5:30 evening flight although she still tried to compose a speech in her mind. But all she thought about was their first conversation in her dorm room while watching Sister, Sister. She remembered the tingles she felt, the smile that wouldn't fade from her face, and the way his lips felt against hers.

       Once the flight landed she took a taxi to Cairo's house. She'd been there a couple of times even spent a week during the summer there. She could've have driven herself but she didn't have enough money, her uncle gave her a hundred dollar bill for the taxi and that was it. She knocked on the door with vigor only to be told that Cairo was out and they didn't know when he'd be back. She waiting in the living room as the evening news played sandwiched on the couch between Cairo's handsy uncle and rambling cousin. Discovering from Cairo's mom that he was skating at the Atlantic Station, she called an Uber and prayed the fare wouldn't be more than $54.32.

     $37.12, she counted out the money and stuffed the rest back in her purse. She ran. She actually ran. Harmony couldn't stop herself. She could remove the Kool-Aid smile off her face or stop running, even as sweat started to roll down her back. She hadn't changed and the wool sweater she had on in Aspen was too much for the cool breeze of an Atlanta winter. Families, kids, couples; she bobbed and weaved all the clusters pumping her snow boots en route to the ice rink. She stopped at the rink's rim, catching her breath as she leaned against the plastic perimeter. She scanned the faces looking for the one that captivated her mind since she was eighteen. Around the curve, his smile attracted her eyes like the light from a lighthouse. He laughed looking over at something. She followed her eyes and her smile fall like a lump of coal.

   "Heaven Stevens." She whispered to herself feeling all the energy from her body draining away. She ducked behind a man that could probably play a mall Santa as Cairo glided pass her holding Heaven's hand. "Too little too late, Harmony." She muttered to herself as tears burned in the wells of her eyes.  She walked away, "Too little, too late." 

Thanks for riding on this roller coaster ride! 

You don't have to say goodbye, the girls will be back for the Spring Semester.