Because this wouldn’t work if all he did was fall in love at surface level.
I had to get deeper; I had to set up camp there. He had to get used to, and enjoy, the invasion. And then he needed to know what it was like to have that ripped away, to feel that emptiness.
It was a slightly more difficult plan, though not impossible.
As I sat there with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company, though, there was no denying a small, infinitesimally small, stirring of guilt in my chest.
A stirring that I promptly squashed right down, trying to remind myself that Fenway had undoubtedly done his fair share of lying and defrauding in his life.
Karma was a belief I held near and dear to my heart.
And, clearly, he had done something wrong to make a woman pay me to break his heart.
I felt marginally better about that as we finally made our descent, as we came to a stop, as the stairs opened, and, finally, Alvy instructed me to go down and wait outside, get some fresh air.
What happened when I did just that was anyone’s guess.
But five minutes later, I heard footsteps behind me, then a hand grabbing mine, swinging it as it dragged me forward with it.
“You must be famished,” he declared. “Shall we go to one sit-down restaurant, or tour the entire building and create our very own buffet?” he asked, still swinging our arms between our bodies as I rushed to keep up with his pace.
So.
The Fenway representative was back.
I was going to get whiplash if he kept changing it up on me.
“Darling, is everything alright?” he asked, looking over at me.
My back and ass were killing me from sitting still for so long. My feet had taken objection to my shoes five minutes after I had strapped them on. And my stomach was growling so hard that I felt nauseated.
“I was debating my options,” I told him instead. No one—especially those of the male persuasion—liked hearing complaints. “What kind of food does the sit-down place serve?”
“I am going to imagine Qatarian.”
“I’m not sure I know what that means.”
“Me either,” he admitted, giving me an uncertain look. “Buffet might be safer.”
“Alright, lead the way,” I told him, waving my free arm to the massive glass sloping dome building, making his brows pinch as he looked down at me, trying to figure out the mood change.
If he was going to keep me on my toes, I had to keep him on his as well.
“Wait,” I said as we got closer to the building. “Shouldn’t we wait for Alvy?”
“Alvy is taking a car to the closest hotel to catch some sleep. Josh will sleep here. But for Alvy…”
“Separate male and female rooms for rest,” I filled in for him.
“Precisely. Don’t worry. We won’t leave without Alvy.”
With that, he led me into the airport.
Where I promptly became a very obvious tourist, wide-eyed and stopping to gape every dozen or so yards.
Airports in general were massive buildings. This one, though, seemed doubly so. And it wasn’t nearly as packed as the airports I had seen in my life. In fact, it probably felt so vast precisely because it was nearly empty.
Even the rows of seats seemed upscale compared to back home with their burnt orange and black leather seats.
“What are you thinking right now?” Fenway asked, leading me up toward an escalator.
“Everything is so clean,” I admitted. “And not surface clean. Like when you go to an office and the floor is swept and mopped and the garbage isn’t overflowing, but if you look closely, the floorboards are grimy and there is dust on the artificial plant on top of the cabinet. Like every inch of this place is clean.”
“There is a giant yellow stuffed animal exhibit over there, and you are noticing the cleanliness of the baseboards,” Fenway teased, but his smile said he was charmed.
Charmed, I could work with.
Charmed was one step closer to swooning which was one step closer to love.
“What can I say, I marvel at the mundane. So what kind of shopping can we do here once we eat?” I asked.
“The only kind you find in an airport like this,” he told me, dragging me toward the food court. “Designer.”
Designer clothes meant designer price tags. Normally, I would scoff at that. I didn’t need a special tag to make me feel confident in my outfit, validated in my choice. But this job came with a travel and living stipend should I need it. Clothes for the job seemed like a genuine need.
Except, of course, after our bellies were full and we hit the stores, Fenway had somehow gotten to the cashiers at the shops while I was browsing or trying things on. And paid for it all.
Alvy appeared absolutely out of nowhere—I hadn’t even seen Fenway use his phone to call them—and took all my bags, disappearing with them.