“Why not?”
“You can’t just waltz in there and start asking for the next flight. It’ll look suspicious. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you look kind of suspicious right now.”
I looked down at myself, remembering I was wearing Alex’s baggy running clothes over my bathing suit. My tangled, damp hair stuck to the back of my neck. Alex was right, I didn’t exactly look like someone who’d been planning on air travel today.
“Right.” I looked at my phone. “And I have no idea what gate they’re at. The airport is small, but none of it matters if I can’t get past security.”
Alex started typing on his phone. Had he given up already? As if sensing my disappointment, he looked up and gave me that almost smile. “Don’t look like that.” He held up his phone. “I know which flight they’re on. It’s the only flight to Raleigh at that time. They’ll be at gate C11.” He looked back down at his phone. “And I’m buying you a plane ticket now, so you won’t cause any suspicion at the counter. Their flight is full, so it looks like you’re going to Atlanta tonight.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Too late, I’m already putting in your information. I obviously know your birthday.”
I dug through my purse for my debit card, but Alex pushed it away.
“It’ll take too long to type out your card info when mine’s already in here. Consider it an early birthday present. You’re checked in and everything. You’ve got a middle seat, though.”
“You keep your credit card info in there with that shitty passcode?” Nina said.
“How do you know my passcode?” Alex replied. “What are you all standing around for?” He set off toward the terminal, and Greyson raced ahead, taking long strides across the concrete.
“Fine, I give in,” Nina said as she jogged beside me. “He can be Hot Guy from the Bar slash Hot Single Dad again.”
“I really prefer Hot Yacht Chef,” he called over his shoulder.
—
Palm Beach International Airport was not large by any means, but today it was packed with people. As Alex, Greyson, Nina, and I passed through the automatic doors and into the air-conditioning, my hopes of finding Mia and Kitty faded at the sight of the crowded check-in counters. Lines from almost every airline snaked across a gleaming white floor. Tired moms bounced babies on their hips, dads wrangled toddlers, and groups of college students with gigantic backpacks looked around impatiently as they waited to check their bags.
I scanned the room for Mia and Kitty, hoping to find their faces in the crowd. They were most likely at their gate already, waiting for the boarding process to begin, but maybe they’d gotten caught in the chaos out here. After circling the check-in counters and finding no sign of either of them, I made my way to the back of the security line. Alex, Nina, and Greyson stood beside me. The line stretched far ahead, the roped-off area signaling the start of security seeming an impossible distance away.
“Are you going to make it?” Greyson asked as the line shuffled forward. “We’ve only got twenty-five minutes.”
Alex’s eyes met mine. “You have to try, right?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to try.” This wasn’t only about Mia and Kitty. It was about me too. I needed them to be with me on my first birthday without Samson. I needed to tell Mia how I felt about him so she would know I hadn’t forgotten. I needed to tell her about what I’d gone through after my dad died so she’d know she wasn’t alone.
“Oh, she is absolutely doing this,” Nina said. “I was told there’d be an airport run, and I demand nothing less.”
The line kept moving, but it took forever to get to the first check-in point. Nina, Alex, and Greyson stepped out of the line and wished me luck, and then I was on my own. The TSA agent glanced at the ticket Alex had sent to my phone, and then waved me through. The line to the body scanners zigzagged ahead of me, inching forward. I only had fifteen minutes until Mia and Kitty’s flight boarded. I searched the crowd, hoping to find anyone who could help. Not the agent at the first checkpoint. She’d seen my ticket, so I couldn’t claim I was running late. Then I saw her, another TSA agent heading in my direction, just beyond the roped-off edges of the line.
I leaned over the barrier to catch her attention as she walked past. “Excuse me!”
The agent turned to me with a blank expression.
“Please, I’m going to miss my flight,” I lied. “Can I skip ahead?”
The woman squinted at me, no doubt taking in my wet hair and baggy clothes. “Sorry, but if we do it for you, we have to do it for everyone who’s running late.”
Why hadn’t I asked Nina to come with me? Maybe she had blackmail on this random TSA agent. If this woman didn’t help me, I’d never get to Mia and Kitty in time. I’d done everything I could, and it still wasn’t enough.
But maybe I hadn’t done everything I could. If lying didn’t work, there was always another option: the truth. “Fine. I’m not running late,” I said. The woman shook her head and turned to go, and I started speaking as quickly as I could, the story spilling out of me. I told her about Samson and how Mia and Kitty had shown up at my condo without warning. I told her how they thought they’d ruined my summer, and how Mia thought it was her fault her brother had died, and how I had to get to her before she left.
“Please, I can’t let them go. Not like this.”
At the TSA agent’s unchanged expression, I figured I was about to get a one-way ticket to extra security. But then she rolled her eyes and lifted the barrier. “Oh, come on.”
“This is as far as I can take you,” she said, leading me to the end of a much shorter priority line. I thanked her and watched her walk away, wondering if she had nieces she loved too.
