Lifetime Guarantee ➪ Josh Dylan

three

Cassandra steps out of the gate, utterly exhausted after her eleven hour flight from London to LAX, her hair in a loose bun and her makeup almost completely rubbed off. She gets on the escalator and heads to baggage claim to get one of the suitcases that they forced her to check in. She is one of the first people from her flight to get to the claim, so she entertains herself by staring at the spinning baggage carousel.

As soon as the track soothes her into a hypnotic state, someone taps on her shoulder, kicking her back to reality.

"Cassandra," the voice asks softly. She whips her head around to meet face-to-face with her older brother.

"Jeremy!" She drops her carry-on and pulls him into a big hug. "I almost didn't recognize you with all that shit on your face," she chuckles against him. They pull away and he laughs with her.

"Ah c'mon, Cas! It took me weeks to grow it and it finally looks decent," he puts his hands on his cheeks and jawline, scratching his scruff. Cas swats at his hand and laughs. When it grew silent, Jeremy cleared his throat.

"Oh, also, this is my friend Josh! We were hanging out before I had to come pick you up so I just brought him along," Jeremy steps out of the way so Cassandra could meet his friend. She smiled at the boy, reaching out to shake his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Cas. I've heard great things about you," he said with a delicate grin.

"That's crazy because I've heard almost nothing about you," she says through gritted teeth, her head turning towards her brother as she shakes the cute fellow's hand. Jeremy returns her comment with a shrug. "But, still, pleasure to meet you," she meets eyes with Josh again. She quickly glances at the bag carousel and see's her neon name tag. Jeremy rushes over, recognizing the bright color tag and grabs the bag. He wheels the suitcase back to his sister, handing it to her.

"So you're just staying in a hotel while you're here?" Josh asks.

"Yeah, well. More like a motel, it's all I could afford in Los Angeles without having to completely trash my savings," she shrugs.

"We can get you a room at the hotel we've been staying at," Jeremy adds. "We're leaving soon to film our new movie. We don't have too much information on it yet but we'll still be with you for a while," he smiles.

"No, no, it's alright guys. Thank you though-,"

"I'm paying for it," Jeremy responds.

"Alrighty, let's go!" Cas returns the smile to the two boys. They all laugh and walk out to Jeremy's car. "I call shotgun!" Cas yells as she runs towards the front seat.

"Ah, you got me there," Josh chuckles, hopping in the backseat as the other two get in, as well.

"You gotta be quicker than that," Cas responds, turning to smile at the man in the backseat. When he smiled back, butterflies exploded in her gut. Such a sweet face, she thought to herself.

Cute faces and kind hearts were always Cas's type...