My phone vibrates in my pocket before I even reach baggage claim.
I pull it out expecting Dad.
Cally: I’m here.I have coffee and a pastry.
I stop walking so abruptly a man with a roller bag almost clips my ankle.I stare at the message like it’s a prank someone paid extra to deliver.He was home in Colorado.He has a game today—doesn’t he?Unless my brain is so fried I forgot how time works.
My thumb hovers over the screen, ready to typeWhere is here?,like that isn’t the dumbest question on the planet right now.
Another buzz hits before I can send anything.
Monty: I’m waiting for you.Breakfast in hand.
A laugh scrapes up from somewhere in me and dies halfway out, turning into a sound of disbelief.Like my body tried to joke and my heart vetoed it.
Two texts.
Two men.
Same timing.
And me?I’m hoping only one of them is actually at this airport because I am not in the mood to referee testosterone and old wounds in public.
I don’t reply to either of them.I can’t.If I choose a bubble on a screen, it becomes a choice in real life, and I’m too exhausted for consequences.
So I keep walking, weaving through travelers, scanning signs, exits, and faces that look calm enough to be offensive.My head is foggy in that specific way that happens when you’ve been strong for too long—thoughts floating, limbs running on borrowed energy from future me.Emotions arriving late and then showing up like a truck.
I pass baggage claim, and that’s when I see him.
Cally is impossible to miss.
He’s leaning near the edge of the crowd like he owns the square footage, like the airport was built as a backdrop for his ego.Dirty-blond, wavy hair pulled back in a loose tie at the nape of his neck, a few strands escaping to curl around his ears like they’re flirting.Stubble along his jaw that makes him look less like a poster boy and more like a problem someone keeps touching even after it hurts.
Leather jacket.Worn-in jeans.Hands shoved into his pockets like he’s trying to act casual, except nothing about him is casual when he’s looking for you.
His ice-green eyes catch mine—bright, intense, too awake—and everything around me dulls for a beat.The announcements, the wheels on tile, the constant rush of strangers.It all drops away until there’s only the exact second my life gets complicated.
He lifts one hand, and I see it then: the coffee cup, the pastry bag, the stupid tenderness packaged like a peace offering.As if he came here to feed me and ruin me in the same breath.
My feet keep moving, but it doesn’t feel like my decision.
Cally’s mouth curves—not a full smile.Something smaller.Familiar.Something that saysthere you arelike he’s been waiting his whole life and not ten minutes.
“There she is,” he calls, voice loud enough to cut through the noise.“My favorite disaster.”
I flip him off without even thinking.
His grin turns delighted.
“Missed you too.”
That’s the moment I feel it—feel him.
Monty.
It’s the way the air tightens, and my body knows before my brain catches up.Like every part of me is attuned to his presence, even when I don’t want it to be.My breath stutters, and I turn.
And there he is.
