LAX Games

LAX.  Sunday Night.  10:55pm.

It was hot in the Hawaiian Airlines baggage claim area.  Beth had scored a spot at the bottom of the eject chute.  Sweat beads drizzled down her tanned canyon of cleavage to an unknown pool below.  Kaanapali had been good to her libido, as well as her psyche.  She was focused on texting her Lyft driver to tell him or her that she had arrived.

She failed to notice a tall, good looking guy stepping off the escalator.  At six foot five, Dave was a head taller than most of the people pouring in from his flight.  Scouting the weary crowd in the baggage claim area, his piercing blue eyes hunted for Beth, his next victim.

Dave spotted her across the packed hall.

“Hey, Beth,” he called to the athletic blonde who head was buried in her cell phone at the luggage down chute.

She lifted her head sharply at his voice and saw him wave.  “Hi…Dave?” Beth said, her forehead crinkled in confusion.  I think that’s his name, she thought.  We slept together, what, two nights ago?  He was pretty good in bed, but I’m going for the gold.

Dave elbowed his way through the pack like a marathoner until he stood next to Beth at the carousel.  He reached out his hand, feigning an attempt to shake hers.  Now she remembered: Hands the size of a catcher’s mitt.  They settled for an awkward embrace.

“Hey, babe,” he said with a wink.  “What’s happenin’?”

“Just got in from Maui,” she said.  “I didn’t see you on the flight.”

This was Dave’s favorite event.  The hunt before the kill.

“I didn’t see you either,” he lied.

Dave had a bulge in his pants.  Hidden deep in his pocket was a polycarbonate, hardened plastic Bowie knife that he had slipped past security.

Beth noticed his jeans and smiled.  Maybe runner up isn’t so bad, she thought.

“Wanna play tonight?” he asked.

“Let me think,” she said with a girlish giggle. “Maybe I’ll slip into something slinky, and later we’ll work up a sweat.” She lowered her eyes, then looked at him through veiled lashes. “You like that?”

Dave smiled as he touched her shoulder.

“Tag,” he said.  “You’re it.”