For a second, I thought he’d say something more—something reckless, something binding or sentimental. But he just clicked his tongue against his teeth and signaled for the exit.
“So that’s it?” I asked.
“You go home.” His voice was as flat as the road beneath us. “You get on with your life.” He steered the car into the departure loop. “You meet someone who fits into it better than I do.”
The car rolled to a stop at the curb. The orange glow of the terminal’s overhang washed his face in colorless light, flattening every line and shadow. He got out without a word, circled around to the trunk, and lifted my suitcase onto the pavement. It landed with a thud.
Then he stood there—fists buried deep in his coat pockets, gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.
I forced myself out, my body registering every bruise, every welt, every place he’d left his mark. The cold hit like a slap after the car’s stale heat, and my breath fogged in uneven bursts. I shut the door with a crack too loud for the predawn hush.
He handed me my suitcase with exaggerated care, as if it were a bomb that might go off if he jostled it too hard.
The air was wet and electric, close to rain. I stood, clutching the handle of my suitcase, waiting for him to say something—anything—that would make this feel less like a severed artery and more like a scraped knee.
“I—” The word barely left my mouth before he was on me, cupping my chin, his mouth crashing down over mine.
I tasted his coffee, the mineral tang of blood where I’d bitten him hours ago, the distant echo of all the things we hadn’t said. His heart hammered through his jacket, hard enough that my pulse stumbled and chased after it.
Then he pulled back.
He shoved his hands back into his pockets.
“If you’re ever in London again,” he said, voice steady as steel, “you know how to find me.”
And with that, he slid back into the car.
Taxi doors slammed. Families clustered in tight huddles. Someone shouted about a missed flight.
The world moved on. As it always did. And I was supposed to as well.
I slung my laptop bag over my shoulder, gripped the suitcase handle, and made my way toward the terminal door.
Halfway there, something made me pause. Risk a backward glance over my shoulder. I knew it was a mistake—never look back, right? But I did it anyway.
Just in time to see Luka pull away from the curb.
And slam his fist on the steering wheel.
chapter
twenty-four
Bands of fluorescent light reflected off polished tile, waxed to an impossible sheen.
I glanced up at the gate display. Harsh yellow-on-black text glared back at me.
ATLANTA | DL335 | 08:05 | ON TIME
I pulled out my boarding pass and checked it again.
As if it would have changed.
For the first time, I noticed my seat: 38 B.
I shook my head. The company had flown me business-class on the way over. Now I was heading home in coach. And a middle seat on top of everything. Lovely.
I chose a chair at the far end of the gate area, away from the man-spreaders and the feral children with sticky iPads. I set my laptop bag on my lap, slid my passport and boarding pass into the front pocket, and tried to reconstruct a version of myself that hadn’t spent the past twenty-four hours being broken and rebuilt, fiber by fiber.