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"It doesn't matter now. I'm leaving in an hour, and we don't even know when Matt will be here. I don't have my phone. Maybe we just need some time to think things over. I'll see him in San Diego. It'll be fine."
"Shay, I'm telling you: don't get on that plane without telling him how you feel." Andy was practically begging.
"We'll see what happens, okay?" Shay offered a little smile, but inside her heart was curling up into a little ball and cowering.
She knew Matt wouldn't be here in time to say goodbye.
She was counting on it.
Because then?
She wouldn't have to say goodbye, either.
Chapter 13
Shay wasn't sure what she'd been expecting when she got to the airport, but with every passing step he couldn't shake the deep, insistent urge to look behind her. Like maybe, just maybe, Matt had come to his senses and run after her like someone out of a movie.
Not that that was plausible.
Even if he'd tried, he had roughly thirty minutes to find her before she went through the security gate and out of his life.
No, she reminded herself, not out of his life. This is just a redefinition. It was what they'd agreed to.
It was what she wanted.
The lady at the security window scanned her boarding pass and yawned while she eyed Shay's ID before finally waving her off into the early evening line of bankers and businessmen taking off their shoes and hauling out their laptops for screening. Again, she glanced behind her, but instead of Matt she found a familiar red headed stranger.
"Oh, hey," Shay said and the woman blinked at her curiously for an instant before the realization clicked into place.
"Hello. You'll be glad to know I'm not sitting next to you this time. I've got my rabbit wrangler." She nodded to a tall, balding man standing in the bag check line.
"Glad to hear it." Shay smiled, then glanced at the line of people that very clearly was not going to move.
Good, it shouldn't move. The longer I'm here, the longer...
She rattled her mind internally. She just had to distract herself. Keep herself from staring at the revolving door and wishing that Matt Archer would come traipsing through it.
"How was your trip?" Andy asked the woman, her mind still focused on the unmoving door and the unmoving line and the unmoving hands of time.
"It was great, actually. Phillip was a little late with work, but we managed. It was a nice anniversary."
"Oh, anniversary." There was a celebration she hadn't been part of often. "How long have you guys been together?"
"Ten years." The redheaded woman beamed at the gawky man who was clearly arguing about something with a disinterested looking customer service member.
"That's sweet. What line of business is he in?"
"Oh, he never lets me tell anyone." The other woman rolled her eyes.
"What, is he a secret agent or something?"
"May as well be. Half of what he says is Greek to me." She shot her husband another look, then shrugged and said, "I don't see how it could hurt, and I do owe you one."
Dropping her voice, the other woman went on, "He's in entertainment. Nothing big, but sports casting. For some reason people always seem to want--"
"Favors." Shay nodded, knowingly.
"Yeah, but only because he's such good friends with the team's owner. It's amazing how people can just come out and ask you for anything. They don't even have to know you." She shook her head, "What's the world coming to?"
