I gripped the steering wheel tight, my gaze scanning the lanes like I could somehow force them to move faster. Or to part for me. Neither of those things happened.
“Come on,” I muttered, tapping my fingers impatiently against the wheel. “Come on, people. Just come on.”
Every second mattered, every goddamn minute was another minute closer to her flight taking off. When I finally arrived at the airport, I was halfway out of my mind. I didn’t even think about finding parking, swinging the car into arrivals and immediately squealing to a stop.
Voices started shouting behind me the moment I opened my door. “You can’t park there!”
“Sir, move your vehicle!”
I left the engine running and the door open, not even glancing back as I ran, flatly ignoring everyone who tried to stop me. If it got towed, so be it. If I got fined, arrested, or even publicly humiliated, I didn’t give a shit.
As always, the airport itself was packed, but I pushed through the crowd, only paying attention to the announcements overhead enough that I’d pick it up if anyone said the words Heathrow or London. The rest of the noise faded into the background, the people talking, the luggage wheels dragging across the floor, and even the occasional baby crying.
I made it as far as security before reality caught up with me. “Boarding pass, sir.”
Ah fuck.I hadn’t even thought about this little hiccup, but I still blinked at the agent, my hand automatically going to my pocket like one might just appear. Naturally, it didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”
In my rush to dramatically chase down the woman I loved at an airport, I’d forgotten one very basic detail. You needed a ticket to get through TSA.
It had been a while since I’d flown commercial. Private terminals didn’t tend to come with long lines, impatient security agents, or the crushing realization that you couldn’t justwalk throughand fix your life.
“Sorry,” I muttered, stepping aside as the next person moved forward.
A ticket still wasn’t going to suddenly appear in my possession, though. Trying to come up with a plan, I stared at the barrier like it might magically grant me access if it sensed my sheer desperation, but it seemed unlikely that would actually work.
Come on, think. There’s got to be a way.
I turned sharply when I remembered that these terminals didn’t only have people asking for boarding passes. They also had departure boards, but weirdly there wasn’t a flight to London listed for at least the next couple hours. I made my way back over to where people were checking their bags.
“Excuse me,” I said to a woman behind the counter, ignoring the angry looks I got from people waiting in line. I would be quick. “Have there been any recent departures to London? Heathrow or Gatwick?”
She glanced at her screen and clicked around quickly. “There was one about an hour ago.”
An hour. A whole fucking hour. Fuck.
“Do you have a passenger list?” I asked even though I knew she was on that plane. I just… I could feel it.
She hesitated, eyeing me briefly like she was trying to decide if I was about to become her problem, but something about me must’ve let her know that I was just desperate. Not dangerous.
“I can check the manifest,” she said carefully.
“That would be great. Thank you. I’m hoping to find out if an Eliza Roderick boarded. I’m… she’s my girlfriend and I was an asshole. I was hoping to catch her before they took off.”
She clicked a few more times before she looked up at me. “Yes, sir. Eliza Roderick boarded Flight 549 to Heathrow almost two hours ago, and as I said, that plane took off just over an hour ago. There were no delays.”
That was it. I was done. She was gone.
I nodded, even though it felt like my body had just disintegrated. “Yeah. Okay. I thought as much. Thank you.”
Turning on my heels, I walked away with the noise of the airport swelling around me this time. Eliza was gone.
I made it to a row of seats before it hit me properly. My knees buckled with the weight of the realization and I dropped into one of the chairs with my elbows braced on my knees, staring at the floor.
I’d missed her—and not by minutes. Not by some narrow, cinematic margin where I could still run through the terminal and catch her at the gate. An hour.
A full you-had-your-chance-and-you-blew-ithour.
