“I’ve been texting and calling you all week. I need to talk to you before you leave,” he says. He keeps pace alongside me as the line advances.
“No, I mean, how are you even here? I thought they don’t allow people past security without a ticket since 9/11.”
“I got a comped ticket. That’s not what I’m here to talk about.” He presses his fingers to his temples.
“To where?” I only have to run the clock ten more passengers before I’m on the plane.
“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. I’m not using it.” I wait him out until he looks down at the paper ticket clutched in his hands. “Bogotá, I guess.”
“Can we please talk for a minute?” He tugs at my arm, trying to pull me out of line, but I stand firm.
“My group is boarding. So if you have something to say, you can do it here.” It’s harsh, but I’m pissed it didn’t occur to him I wasn’t answering his texts or calls because I didn’t want to talk to him.
He takes a deep breath and eyes the distance between us and the front of the line. “Finn, I got scared. I panicked the other night when you told me how you felt. I guess I don’t have a lot of friends—”
“That’s absurd, you have more friends than anyone I know.” I’m not going to stand here and let him twist the truth like his. How dare he try to get me to feel sorry for him after he shattered my heart on Christmas?
“I have Saturday-night friends, but not Tuesday-afternoon friends. I don’t have anyone else to watch movies with on a weeknight or run errands with me. I don’t have other friends who want to talk at two a.m. when I can’t sleep. My other friends aren’t there when there aren’t tickets or parties or connections to be had. And I don’t want to go back to not having Tuesday friends.”
“So, you aren’t attracted to me, but you want to run errands together?” This is a thousand times worse than I imagined. I’m not even a friend, I’m the help. Or at best, maybe a human replacement for the Calm app.
“No . . . I’m explaining this wrong. I’m . . . can you get out of line so we can talk? Finn, of course I’m attracted to you. Have you ever seen yourself sing? How could anyone see that and not fall a little in love with you. But it’s not just that, it’s your strong hands, and the way you walk—it’s so graceful, like the whole world’s your stage—and your gorgeous brown eyes, and the way they crinkle when you laugh. And your heart, let’s not forget your huge, beautiful heart. I’ve been attracted to you since the very first night. I didn’t think I could have both.” I’m at the front of the line now and I have my phone out, poised to scan the QR code, but this makes me hesitate.
“Either scan it or get out of line,” the line dictator behind me says.
“One minute,” Theo says through gritted teeth, an octave below yelling.
“Can we?” He points to the wall of windows on the other side of the gate agent’s podium in front of a row of abandoned chairs. All my fellow passengers are in line.
“Fine,” I relent.
“Did you hear what I said back there?” he tries again once we’re off to the side. “I was so out of line on Christmas. Of course, I love you, but I was scared and I choked. And I know I hurt you and I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am, but I’d like to try—”
“You love me? You’re attracted to me?” I interrupt, needing to hear the words a second time. I switch my iced coffee to the other hand and draw my cold, damp palm across the back of my neck to jolt myself out of it if this is some kind of dream or delusion. I never expected to be having one of the most important conversations of my life with a Dunkin iced coffee in my hand. This must be what it feels like to be Ben Affleck.
“Finn, for chrissakes, I went home with you the very first night we met. You could have had me then. I didn’t think you wanted me. And you—all of you, Hannah and Priya, too—became so important to me so quickly. It felt like too big a gamble to risk losing you. You know my dating track record is shit. So I thought I would be your friend instead. I thought it would be better . . . for both of us.”
A slightly hysterical laugh bubbles up the back of my throat. It starts as a giggle and builds to a full guffaw. “Let me get this straight—” I say between gasping laughs.
“Well, not straight, certainly. At least, bi,” Theo corrects. His expression melts into a sly smile that makes my internal temperature tick up a few degrees.
“We both wanted to be together this whole time?”
He nods. “The whole time,” he confirms.
“And you waited until now, a literal minute before I’m leaving, to tell me this?”
“That’s about the size of it.” He looks around the gate area and the rapidly shrinking line of passengers like he’s not sure what to do now. “Finn, will you please stay?”
Stay?
It’s like he took a safety pin to my soap bubble of happiness.
How could he ask me to do this? Anger wells inside me, and I’m so blindsided by his request that all I can manage to spit out is, “I will not be your Andie Anderson!”
“Who?” His voice is panicked, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “I’m not asking you to be him. I don’t even know who he is!”
“Not him! Her. From How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.” His blank looks remains. “You know, when Matthew McConaughey recklessly drives his motorcycle across the Manhattan Bridge to track down Kate Hudson who’s on her way to an interview in Washington, DC, because it’s the only place where she can pursue her dream of serious journalism. Which, of course it’s not the only place she can pursue her dream of journalism, but also how could he quash her self-determination and ask her to stay in New York for him?”
Theo looks more confused than before I launched my word vomit at him. The two gate agents, done checking in passengers, have turned to gawk at the scene I’m making.
“Finn, I’m not asking you to give anything up,” he says, putting an arm on my bicep to calm me down. “I’m just asking if you can take a later flight.”
In all the times I’ve imagined this, us getting together, the fantasy always flickers out with the declaration of love. I’ve never considered what will come after, and now I’m panicking.
“How will this work?” I demand.
“I thought we already covered that my father owns an airline, I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“Not the flight. Us.”
“Well, you said it. I don’t have a job. I’m sure I could come up with all sorts of reasons to be in LA, if I needed an excuse. I was thinking that maybe we could try the Golden Girls thing where we live together and are best friends and eat a lot of late-night cheesecake, but also, we’re in love. But I think that’s the least of our concerns.”
“Okay, what’s at the top of your list?” I ask.
He gives me a shy smile. “That we haven’t had our second kiss yet.”
My insides melt into a molten puddle as he leans closer and brings a hand to cup my jaw. I watch his eyes flutter closed before I lean in. And then our lips meet. At first, it’s tentative, but then he wraps his arm around my back and pulls me closer. At the last minute I swing my iced coffee to the side so it doesn’t get crushed between us.