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DREW
Ishifted my weight back and forth as the line for the security check inched forward. The engine in my truck might still be running in the short-term parking lot for how quickly I’d bolted inside. I’d found a last-minute ticket to New York out of Detroit this morning. My flight got into JFK around noon. That would give me plenty of time to get to HypeKey and talk to Sadie.
I should have taken a few minutes to research going through TSA with my prosthesis. I guess I’d tell the guy when I got to the front of the line. If I wasn’t already flagged as needing a cavity search for buying a last-minute one-way ticket to a major city and not checking any bags when I showed up, I would be after I set off the metal detector.
The guy behind me kept casting me suspicious glances. I looked shady as fuck, thanks to my body language.
“Haven’t flown in a long time. Little nervous,” I reassured him.
His eyebrows shot up. “Okay.” He went back to staring at his phone.
Apparently, people didn’t make small talk at the airport anymore. Or at least the Tuesday morning business travelers didn’t.
When I got to the front of the line, I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure how to go about this, but I’m going to set off the metal detector.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” The guy checking IDs and boarding passes delivered his response with zero curiosity. He had a better stare-down than an MLB pitcher.
“Prosthetic leg.” I swallowed. “This is my first time traveling with it.”
“Uh-huh.” He used a red pen to draw several circles around the SSSS at the bottom of my boarding pass. “They’ll give you an extra pat-down after you get through the machines.” He handed me my license and the boarding pass back.
I’ll bet.
After setting off the metal detector as expected, then going through the millimeter wave scanner, a stony-faced agent the size of a linebacker pulled me to the side and gave me a thorough pat-down. “We need you to come in here.” He gestured to a door off to the side.
My gut said nothing good happened in that room. “Okay.” I gulped.
There was a small table and a few chairs. “Sit.” He gestured to one of the chairs. “Ticket and ID.” He held out his hand.
I pulled them back out of my wallet and passed them over.
“I need to inspect your prosthesis.” He glanced at my loose track pants for a moment before his eyes refocused on my documents. “Can you pull your pants leg far enough up for that?”
“Yes, sir.” I pulled the left leg of my pants up past where my prosthesis attached and thanked my lucky stars that I’d dressed for comfort this morning. Hopefully, my leg was the only thing being inspected today. I sure as hell was going to be as respectful as possible to help with my chances.
He barely glanced at the prosthesis before pulling a couple of packets that looked like wet wipes out of his pocket and wiping it down with them. He laid them down on the table and set a timer. His eyes darted back to my license.
“Kelly Bay, huh?”
“Yes. It’s a small town Up North by—”
“I know where it is.” He didn’t make eye contact as he cut me off. “Andrew Evans.” He said my name like he’d seen a ghost. “How long since…” His question trailed off as he glanced at my leg again.
“Five years.”
“Fuck,” he muttered and ran his hand down his jaw.
The mood in this tiny room was confusing. For some reason I felt the need to explain myself—which I never wanted to do with strangers—but I also wanted to move this the fuck along, so I didn’t miss my flight. “It was a train acc—”
“I know what it was,” he snapped. “I read the newspaper articles,” he said quietly. His nostrils flared as he pulled a deep breath in through them. “Thank you.”
He delivered the last two words with such quiet esteem I had to have misheard him.
“For what?” I asked. Now I was the one observing him. When my eyes swept over the letters on the shiny rectangular badge over his left breast pocket, the pieces snapped together. “Oh.”
Forrester.
For a town that gossiped as much as Kelly Bay, no one knew what happened between Max and Ivy Forrester, prompting him to hightail it out of town. They’d only moved to Kelly Bay about a year before the accident—to be closer to Ivy’s dad, I thought—so I hadn’t seen him around enough to recognize his face all these years later.
But the universe had decided today was the day for me to cross paths with Russ Forrester’s father.
“You’re welcome.” The words felt foreign on my tongue, but for the first time I meant them. I no longer held on to remorse over the cost of my actions. Two people’s worlds were brighter because their son was still in it, and my mother would have wanted that. I knew it with all my heart.
Max Forrester cleared his throat. “What’s with the last-minute ticket?” He dropped all pretense of playing the hard-ass as he tossed the wipes in the nearby trashcan and gestured that I could pull my pant leg back down.
“Chasing a girl. Trying to keep her from being the one that got away.”
Max gave me a look that told me he knew exactly what I was talking about.
“Let’s get you on your plane,” he said.
