It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least within select social circles, that Benjamin Taylor and Beatrice Malone loath each other.

Neither can tell you why, exactly, outside of a sweeping statement about her holier-than-thou-attitude and his stupid, smug face and there is no specific event that sparked this decade long feud. As far as Beatrice or Ben know, their hatred is as much a constant as reruns of Law & Order  in the early afternoon, or telephone scams involving seniors.

They dislike each other the way some people dislike the word "moist"– something about it is just bad.

And this is what makes this particular New Years Eve so irritating.

Imagine, if you will, taking an 8 hour flight with your mortal enemy.  You're way to attend a week of wedding festivities, and you're both part of the wedding party. This flight, this was the last chance to relax before having to play nice with them for a whole week. And you've been sworn to niceness - not just by the bride and groom, but by the mother of the bride and Chad, the groomsman.

Now, imagine that you're flying on New Year Eve, through one of the worst predicated blizzards of the decade. It was probably a bad sign when the flight attendants seemed nervous when boarding. 

 And imagine still that, by some stroke of misfortune, your plane is forced to land in a small town in Northern Quebec – a town, that's worth noting, speaks limited English and has limited hotel space. 

The cherry on top of all this?

There's exactly one room left. 

In the hallway of the hotel, Beatrice is on the phone.

"Anna," she says, pacing up and down the carpeted hallway, "I know it's your wedding and and you're the bride and I want you to be happy." She pauses then, to take in the uninspired landscape portraits on the wall.  

"But if I kill Ben, do you think Claude will forgive me?"

Ben flops down onto a creaking hotel bed, phone tucked into the crook of his neck. The concierge has promised to bring a cot in the room, and Ben is hoping to claim the bed now. "If I don't make it to this wedding, Claude, I promise it's because Beatrice did me in."

In a modest bed and breakfast in London England, Anna and Claude laugh. For years they had contemplated locking Bea and Ben in a room and letting the pair sort things out; they'd never imagined fate would do it for them. 

There is nothing to do at the hotel. No bars. No pool. Only a 23-year-old concierge who looks overwhelmed by the arrival of around 60 guests from a rerouted United Airlines flight. In an effort to avoid speaking with Ben, Bea stalks the halls of the hotel for some time, but soon even that grows tiresome, and with irritation she returns to her room.

A cot has been delivered, propped lazily against the closet door. 

"Ah!" Ben says, reclined on the bed in a way Bea would describe as dickish.  "The witch has returned." His grin is smug and humorless. 

"I mean this in the worst way possible, Ben, but you're marginally more interesting than a painting of the St. Lawrence River." Bea's tone is acidic, dripping with an amount of disdain that could only come from 5 hours on a plane with nothing but a bag of peanuts and a complimentary wine. 

"Careful, Bea." Ben waves the insult away airily.  "This is the closest you've come to understanding sentimentality. Don't hurt yourself."

Bea scoffs. "It hardly pains me to insult you. You're an easy target."

"Does it ever exhaust you? Being so absolutely miserable all the time?"

And this is it, the moment where it gets heated. Because this is how it always goes. Ben is foolish and Bea is grumpy, and round and around they go. Old arguments get rehashed; theCanada Day Barbecue of 2014 (which ended in an upturned pool tableand a permanent ban from the local Denny's), or New Years Eve Y2K(which ended in Ben spitefully adopting a cat), and countless other minuscule interactions and irrationals. 

"You're insufferable," He says, rising from the bed to point a finger at Beatrice.

"You're irrational," She says, stepping closer to Ben to jab a finger into his chest. 

It occurs to both of them at roughly the same time that they've never really been this close - and alone - before. Their fights were a thing of public spectacle. They were hour long verbal debates and pranks gone awry, but always with an audience. 

Now, it's just the two of them, and hell, that's weird.

Ben notices the freckles dusting Bea's nose, and the stubborn set of her jaw, and the way she bites her lip when she's frustrated. Bea, in turn, notices Ben staring at her lips and finds herself  not as repulsed by this as she thought she would be. And then she finds herself wondering how she'd never noticed just how tall he is.

They look at each other and the tension, suddenly, shifts. 

"You-" Ben starts, but then he swallows. He isn't sure where he's trying to go with this.

"I-" Bea, too, seems bewildered by the change in atmosphere. Bea flattens her palm against Ben's chest. His heart beats rapidly against her hand.

Ben steps closer, hand dropping to rest on Bea's waist, and Bea leans into his touch. 

Later, neither would be able to tell you exactly who started this. Bea will blame Ben, and Ben will blame Bea, but the end result is very much the same - they're kissing. Like the burst of a dam, the pair is on each. Bea's hands find their way around Ben's waist, pulling at the fabric of his shirt, and Ben makes quick work of the buttons on Bea's blouse.  Both move quickly - impatiently. There are too many layers of clothing, too many distractions and not enough of whatever Ben is doing with his mouth. 

Then, suddenly, Ben stops. He steps back, expression concerned. 

"Is this-" he starts. Bea's made an absolute mess of his hair, and he looks positively ragged.  Bea doesn't dwell on how much this delights her. 

"A bad idea?" Bea finishes, breathless. She doesn't have a good answer, so she shrugs. 

"Probably." 

And then she kisses him again.

They won't be needing the cot. 

The tension shifts again after, when they're lying naked in bed. Neither is speaking, because neither knows what to say, because what do you say?

They could dismiss it as a bad night and nothing more, and they could agree to never speak of it again and that would be it. 

But, then, what if it's not a mistake?

Really, so far as sex goes, it hadn't been bad. 

In fact, if they were being generous, it could even be called good. 

And Ben had made Bea laugh (genuinely) too, a feat that had not happened since 1997. 

So they probably had to talk about it. 

Bea inhales deeply, searching for the words. Ben scratches at his chin. 

Then, the hotel phone rings. 

All 67 passengers on United Airlines flight YWG to LHR arrive, bleary-eyed, at the small airport within the hour. The blizzard has officially died down, leaving only a coating of fresh snow on the runaway.  Bea and Ben board the plane in silence - because this is not a conversation to have at an over-capacity airport at 3 a.m. - and they take their separate seats. 

Bea shifts. She sighs. And then she finds her way to Ben's seat. She has to bribe the man next to Ben with free Bud Light for the rest of the flight just to get the seat, but she does. 

He grunts, in greeting, as Bea sits down. 

Instinctively, she makes a comment about being uncivilized that is snide in hindsight, and Ben fires back a remark about being judgmental, and in the long pause after Bea finds a sudden fascination in the safety instructions tucked into the side of her seat. 

"It occurs to me," she says, pretending to read about oxygen tank inhalers.  "That we've never actually tried to get along."

"Why would we?" Ben asks. His voice is a low, sleepy mumble, though he's cracked open an eye to watch Beatrice. "We hated each other."

"And what if we didn't? Just for a week."

Ben hums thoughtfully. "A trial run." He straightens, quickly, in his seat. "You, me, 7 days where we don't try and kill each other?"

"Something like that." Bea agrees with a smile and a shrug. "Shake on it?"

They do.

They put on Casablanca for the in-flight movie.

This is the start of a beautiful...something. 

FIN