Chapter 46
MELLY
I could read a book anywhere. Maybe it was because of my job or because I just loved to read. I didn’t get carsick, and I could read through any kind of noise.
But I couldn’t get through the chapter during my layover. I was too nervous. My anxiety kept me from sitting still and so I paced the gate area. My continuing flight to Glasgow was on time, but I was debating if I should get on it.
Danny had said he’d text his dad and find out where he was.
What if he got the wrong information or if Daniel had moved on?
Would I end up spending the week wandering Scotland alone searching for a traveling lumberjack?
And worse, what if I did find him and he wondered why I showed up? Or if he was with a woman.
I dropped into an empty boarding area seat.
Oh God. I hadn’t thought of that until right now. He hadn’t wanted a relationship with me, which was fine because that was our arrangement. But that meant he was open to being with someone else. We may not have shared for those few days we were together, but we weren’t exclusive now.
I had no doubt Scottish women were lovely and couldn’t resist Daniel’s brawniness and charms.
I was just the nerdy librarian he slept with for a few days.
No. He invited me! He wanted me to go with him!
I turned him down, so now he could be with anyone!
“Daniel Pearson, please return to gate twelve for a left item.”
My head whipped up at hearing Daniel’s name on an airport announcement. What?
My heart thumped hard.
“Did you hear that?” I asked the businessman beside me who was working on his laptop, some complicated spreadsheet on the small screen.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Did you hear that? For Daniel Pearson?”
“That’s not my name,” he replied, then turned his attention back to his work.
“Daniel Pearson, please return to gate twelve for a left item.”
I popped to my feet as if I got bingo and wanted to snag the cash prize.
They had said his name. I wasn’t hearing things. I wasn’t going insane. I was at gate thirty-two.
Tugging my wheeled carry-on, I hurried toward the moving walkway to get to gate twelve.
“There can’t be more than one Daniel Pearson,” I muttered to myself, weaving around a family with a double-wide stroller and two screaming kids.
Then I thought about it, how I first actually met Daniel. There were two Daniel Pearsons. Could this be Danny? Why would Danny be at the Chicago airport?
I hopped off at the end of the moving walkway and onto the next one, making my way down the longest concourse that had to be in existence and made it to gate twelve.
I went up to the gate agent, a pretty Black woman with a dazzling smile. “Can I help you?”
“Daniel Pearson,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “You called for him. I need Daniel Pearson.”
“Melly?”
“Daniel!”