Page 79 of Smoke and Glitter

He can look at the socks.

I hang my coat back up.

Nothing new from Sam when I wake up the next morning. I check. I'm not going to pretend I don't.

By the time my car arrives, I've showered, checked my passport twice and nearly knocked over my coffee when my phone lights up with the driver notification.

At O'Hare, I get through security early enough that Jake would make fun of me. I buy coffee and settle near the window while messages start coming in.

Summer makes me promise again to call when I land. Marisol sends a picture of Lucia holding up another dog-cat, this one with six legs. Jake threatens to end our friendship if I come home with an accent.

I smile at that one. Sam's name is farther down the screen. His message is still the last thing there.

Hope the tour stuff is going okay.

I read it once and close the thread.

When boarding starts, I get in line.

A woman ahead of me is fighting with a stroller while her husband holds a sleeping toddler and three backpacks. The man behind me is complaining into his phone about boarding groups.

Movement near the gate entrance catches my eye.

My head turns before I can stop it.

It isn't Sam.

For a second, the disappointment is so sharp I feel stupid for ever letting myself imagine it.

Then the line moves. So do I. I don't want him bursting through the airport to ask me to stay. I never wanted that. I just wish he'd come.

For once, I wish he'd been the one to cross the distance.

My boarding pass scans, and I walk down the jet bridge without looking back again.

By the time I get to my seat, my hands are shaking enough that it takes me two tries to fasten the belt. Chicago is still outside the window when we push away from the gate, gray and familiar and full of people I love.

One of them is Sam.

That hasn't changed just because I wish it had. My eyes fill before we reach the runway.

I let them.

The plane lifts, Chicago drops away beneath us, and I cry harder than I expected to. Quietly, because the woman beside me didn't pay for this particular in-flight experience, but enough that my sleeve is damp by the time we break through the clouds.

It hurts like hell.

Eventually I wipe my face and look out the window.

London scares me. By morning, I'm there. By lunch, I have work to do.

Chapter thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Sam

By the time I get upstairs after close, Autumn is somewhere over the Atlantic. That didn't stop me from checking the time all fucking day or staying behind the bar until there was nothing left to invent. Tony caught me restocking a garnish tray that was already full. Later I tightened a screw under the service station that has probably been loose for months without bothering anybody.