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“She’s going to settle in, Linds. She’s gonna be fine,” Kelley says leaning into Lindsey’s shoulder with a nudge to get her attention, to try to distract her from her thoughts, from wherever her mind is going. Because judging by the pained expression on Lindsey's face, it's certainly not going to a good place at the moment.
They’re sitting in the airport in Salt Lake City – Kelley’s final destination after their last National Team game in the SheBelieves Cup, and Lindsey's layover stop on her way back to the Thorns in Portland. They've got a month to re-integrate with their clubs for pre-season before they'll meet up again, right here, for a friendly against Australia.
Kelley could leave, she should leave. She’s exhausted from the tournament. She just wants to get back into her apartment - her apartment that she hasn't seen since October - and sleep and then work on getting everything set up the way she likes it for the start of pre-season. But Lindsey has this damn layover. And Lindsey doesn’t look quite capable of handling said layover all by herself at the moment, at least in Kelley’s opinion. So while her luggage is probably rounding the carousel over and over, and probably going to end up in United’s lost and found, Kelley has decided to wait out Lindsey’s layover with her. Because if friends aren’t for that, then what are they for?
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know,” Lindsey hurries out, trying to sound like she really does know that Sonny's going to be ok, even if she doesn't actually know. “I just wish we could have helped her move into her apartment in Orlando. I wish she was headed there instead of back to Atlanta. We could have helped her, Kell. That was the plan. We were supposed to help her.”
“We would have, but she’s not ready to be there yet. And Marc told her to take some time, see her family. She’ll get there. And we’ll go visit her. She’s going to be fine. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s a big girl. And she’s got her big girl panties on,” Kelley tries to reassure Lindsey, but it’s mostly pointless. The fact that Sonny seems to be handling it better than Lindsey is, well, it's unexpected.
Kelley can’t help but wonder how much of Lindsey’s anxiety is not about knowing if Sonny will be fine in Orlando, but rather not knowing if she will be fine in Portland without her best friend. Kelley had watched the two of them go through the stages of grief over the past couple of months. Lindsey clearly hadn't made it to the acceptance stage yet. That “No” she typed as a reply to Sonnett’s Pride post was more than enough for Kelley to figure out the truth. Sonnett was broken up about the trade, but Lindsey was absolutely crushed. Kelley had almost gone after Lindsey for that one-word response. Like it wasn’t hard enough on Sonny already; she didn’t need Lindsey to make her feel worse about it, not when Sonny was finally coming to terms with it. But then she realized how much Lindsey was hurting. It was her way of acting out. Her way of screaming to the world about how unfair it all was. Her way of dealing with the hurt. So Kelley let her be.
“Crazy 8’s or Speed?” Kelley asks, reaching into the front pocket of her carry-on. Lindsey just stares at her blankly. “If I’m going to be stuck here with you for the next hour, we’re going to have to do something.”
“Oh, you can go. I’m sorry, Kell. You don’t have to stay with me. Go home. You’re probably tired.”
Kelley is. She’s really fucking tired. She’s not game fit and the back-to-back-to-back trainings and games, between January camp and CONCACAF and SheBelieves, took a lot out of her. She feels like she could just chill for a week, at least. Hard chill. Tobin style. Even though that's not like her at all. She already knows that she’s probably going to pull the National Team card with the new coach at their first meeting in a couple of days. This would be so much easier if it were Laura…
“Nope. You’re stuck with me until you get on that plane, kid. Let’s play Speed. I’ll kick your ass at that, too.”
“Too?” Lindsey laughs, indignant. “What have you ever kicked my ass at?”
"I kick your ass on the field every session," Kelley reminds her, happy that Lindsey’s focus seems to have shifted away from Orlando, at least temporarily. She gets up and finds a spot on the floor by the windows so they have a good surface to play on. “Let’s fucking go,” she grins, shuffling the cards like a pro.
Forty-five minutes and a break for Starbucks later, Lindsey has yet to win a game, and with all of Kelley’s ribbing, she hasn’t thought about Sonnett in… well, in forty-five minutes. The announcement for boarding breaks up their fun. Kelley starts to get up. “Safe trip, Horan. It was nice wiping the floor with ya! See ya in a few weeks."
Lindsey tugs her back down. “We cannot end like this. I haven’t beaten you once. I’m not getting on the plane til I win a game.”
“It’s not going to happen. And it’s not in my nature to let you win. You’re in the first boarding group. Get a move on!” Kelley laughs, thinking it’s a joke.
It’s not a joke.
"I'll catch the next flight if I have to. I'm sure there's another this afternoon or tonight," Lindsey insists.
"Um... it's not like you're going to be able to voluntarily give up your seat for credit. Look around. This airport's half empty. People are afraid to fly.” And to emphasize what she means, Kelley nods towards a couple in masks and gloves. “Besides, I don’t think you can miss your flight when you’re like, already in the airport because of a layover. Your bag’s on there. They’re not going to take off without you if your bag’s on there. 9/11. Remember? Oh wait, you were a baby. You don’t remember.” Kelley can’t resist the chance to poke fun at her teammate again.
But Lindsey doesn’t budge.
“Fine. One game of Crazy 8’s. If you win, you get on the plane,” Kelley acquiesces. "And if you lose, you still get on the damn plane," she adds for good measure.
Lindsey doesn’t win that game either.
Before Kelley knows it, they’re paging one Lindsey Horan over the intercom and Lindsey’s up at the counter arguing with them about not getting on the plane, and telling them to either send her luggage through or deplane it, and she’s insisting that if they won’t re-book her on a later flight, she’ll just do it herself and pay the new fare.
And that’s when Kelley gets it. When she finally realizes just how much Lindsey doesn’t want to go back to Portland alone. How real it’s finally becoming for Lindsey, going back there for the start of pre-season, without the person she never thought she'd be separated from. Because without Sonny, Portland doesn’t feel like home to her anymore. It was never about the card games. As competitive as Horan is, Kelley should have seen right through that. Playing a few more games, hanging out with Lindsey in the stupid Salt Lake City airport, is the least Kelley can do for her right now.
“Hey,” Kelley’s voice from behind Lindsey is soft. When Lindsey turns, Kelley steps closer and rests her hand on Lindsey’s back. “Just re-book your flight. We’ll keep playing. It’s ok.” The airline employee looks downright annoyed verging on angry, as Kelley shrugs and gives him an apologetic look, but she leads Lindsey by the arm to their spot on the floor, with the airline employee calling out behind them that they’ll be removing Lindsey’s luggage from the plane.
By the time they sit down, Lindsey is already fumbling with the airline app, but she's not doing a very good job of hiding the tears in her eyes. Kelley scoots closer to her, throwing an arm over Lindsey’s shoulder, and gently taking the phone from her hands.
“Here,” she says after a minute as she holds the phone out so Lindsey can see it. There’s another flight to Portland at 6:15. Want me to book it for you?” Lindsey nods. “Or you wanna stay with me and catch this one tomorrow morning?" Lindsey shakes her head. "Ok. Easy peasy. We got some time. How ‘bout we continue our card game at the bar over there?” Kelley suggests.
A couple of cape codders later, Lindsey’s won a few games and is insisting on trying her hand at Speed again. Kelley, relishing the opportunity to go back to destroying Lindsey, happily obliges and begins dealing the cards. It takes a moment for them to notice that the bar, and the entire wing of the airport, has gone silent. The music is off, the conversations have stopped, the mindless background noise of boarding announcements and gate changes has ceased. People are staring at their phones and at the closed captioning on the nearby TVs. And then a voice comes over the intercom.
“Attention. May I have your attention please. Due to COVID-19, and by Executive Order, the President of the United States has declared a moratorium on air travel from and within the country. All flights currently en route will be allowed to land, but effective immediately, no new flights will take off for a period to be determined. If you are a citizen of another country, please see a gate agent for options that may be available to you, or contact your embassy. If you are a citizen or resident of the United States, please do not approach airline counters, as we will not be able to re-book you on a flight at this time. Your airline should be reaching out to you at the contact number or email you provided with further details as they become available. If you checked baggage, it will be on one of our carousels on the lower level. Please check monitors for carousel number. If you do not have checked baggage, please make your way to the exit in an orderly fashion.”
Lindsey and Kelley look at each other, and slightly drunk Lindsey bursts out laughing, which makes Kelley laugh, too. “Wait, what?” Lindsey asks, the information not fully sinking in yet, even though the message is being repeated. “I can’t go back to Portland?”
Kelley shrugs. “Um.. no?”
“What. The. Actual. Fuck.” Lindsey drops her head into her hands, still chuckling. How ironic – she did everything to draw out going back to Portland, to avoid that painful return, and now that she's finally distracted enough and buzzed enough to face going back to Portland alone, she can't go back to Portland. “Fuck. I need a hotel,” she takes out her phone. “And a rental so I can drive back tomorrow and – ”
“Hey. Hey!” Kelley taps Lindsey’s arm to get her attention. “You can stay with me, loser. And don’t even bother with a car right now. There’s going to be a mad rush. Give it a few days, people are going to be renting and dropping off one-way all over the country. Let things settle down. Besides,” Kelley adds, "if flights are cancelled, you can't be expected back at training, right? We got time.”
“Kell, I can’t stay with you…” Lindsey protests.
“Because why?” Kelley looks up from her phone. “According to the internet, everything’s shutting down. Schools. Stores. Governor’s are enacting stay home orders as we speak. They’re talking about deploying the National Guard. What are you going to do? Hang out by yourself at a hotel until this all blows over?”
“I mean, yeah? I know you like your alone time. We’ll drive each other crazy. One of us will end up dead or seriously injured and the other in prison. Besides, if we’re really not going to be able to train for awhile, I’m sure you’ll want to spend this time with your girlfriend…” Lindsey trails off.
“Yeah? How’s she going to get to me? Drive all the way across the country?” Kelley leaves out the part about her girlfriend breaking up with her six weeks ago, tired of the distance, tired of the time apart, tired of Kelley’s refusal to put in for a trade to the Spirit so they could live together. Kelley sighs, not at Lindsey, but at the memory of being called selfish, of being told she didn’t know how to actually love anyone but herself, of being accused of not wanting to settle down, when the truth was, Kelley wanted nothing more than to settle down and build a life with her girlfriend. But she wasn’t going to finish out her career playing for Richie Burke, not when she had so few years left in her, and not when those years were so precious.
“I don’t know… I guess – I guess – ” Lindsey stammers.
“Shut it, Horan. You’re my lockdown buddy until you can back to Portland. How long can this possibly last, right? We won’t kill each other. Probably.”
“Are you sure?” Lindsey sounds anything but sure.
“Yeah. I can’t imagine your lonely ass all by yourself in a hotel room. No kitchen. Having to order all your food in. Crying over your drink at the hotel bar. Weird dudes hitting on you. Besides, you can rent a car in a few days and drive back. No worries.”
“Yeah, ok, I guess,” Lindsey mumbles, thankful that she doesn’t have to go stay alone. In a hotel. In a city that's not hers. On lockdown. Even if it is just for a few days.
"Glad they got pissed and gave you your bag already," Kelley adds. "Let's go find mine and get an Uber outta here before things get really crazy. And for real, Linds, be super glad Sonny's not in Florida already. At least she gets to hang out with her family for a little bit longer. She'll be happy about that. We'll FaceTime her. This won't be too bad."