Page 237 of ClickBack

I leave him talking and move toward the security exit. A few people recognize me. One man asks whether I’m ready to get a ring with the Storm, and I tell him that’s the plan. He wishes me luck and keeps moving.

Then Giselle comes through in dark trousers and a white shirt, her bag on her shoulder, pulling a suitcase with a ribbon tied to the handle. She sees me and stops trying to weave around the people in front of her. She just looks at me and smiles.

I meet her halfway.

“Hey, baby.”

Her free hand comes to my shirt. “Hi.”

I kiss her. She lets go of the suitcase and puts that hand on me, too, which is all the encouragement I need to forget we’re standing in an airport.

“Jay,” Graves says behind me. “People.”

I lift my head. Giselle is laughing quietly against me.

“He means they need to get past us,” she says.

“They got the whole airport.”

“Jarrett.”

I take her suitcase. She keeps hold of my hand as we move out of the walkway.

At the car, Graves takes the luggage and gives her a hug. She thanks him for meeting her. He tells her somebody had to keep me from walking onto the runway.

“You’ve been like this all morning?” she asks once we are in the back seat.

“Worse,” he says from the front.

I meet his eyes in the mirror. “You finished?”

“Soon as the drive is over.”

Giselle settles against me. She smells like the body butter on her dresser, warm vanilla when I bend close. I put my mouth near her ear.

“You keep laughing with him. See who carries that bag upstairs.”

She turns her head. “You will.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “Probably.”

She tells me about the woman beside her on the plane, who talked through a full breakfast. I tell her about watching a video to figure out the rental’s shower controls.

“You watched a tutorial to take a shower?”

“I’m an educated man. I use my resources.”

She laughs, her fingers moving between mine. I look at our hands while she tells Graves he should have recorded that.

For most of the drive, I leave my phone in my pocket.

At the rental, she walks through the rooms, puts her laptop bag beside the desk, and opens the balcony door. She shuts it almost immediately.

“Absolutely not.”

“I told you about the heat.”

“You didn’t say it came out of a hair dryer.”