Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Katie
Travis wasn’t answering his phone. I tried repeatedly, but when it defaulted to voice mail, I had to do a calculation of what time it was on the US west coast. I was too frazzled to figure it out, so I gave up.
I had planned to be here for a few days, working out the details with Edgar and (I thought) reading the script, but when I got back to my hotel, I changed my mind. I packed, checked out, and got back into an Uber on the way to Heathrow airport. In the car, I tried Travis again. He didn’t pick up, so I left a voicemail.
“Hey,” I said to the recording. “I’m coming home early. It didn’t work out with Edgar, but I’m fine—it’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything when I talk to you. Where are you, anyway? You always pick up. I’m going to the airport now to change my ticket and get on a flight. I’ll see you when I get home, I guess. If you get this in time, call me back.” I paused, because I wanted to tell him I loved him. But saying it for the first time in a voicemail was lame, so instead I said, “Okay, bye,” which was deeply unsatisfying. I hung up.
My phone stayed silent as I arrived at the airport, navigated my way through with my bag, and stood in line at the airline counter. It stayed silent as I moved toward the front of the line. The man in front of me was finishing up when my phone finally rang. It was Travis.
“Katie?” He sounded breathless when I answered. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the airport, getting on a flight,” I replied. “Where are you?”
“Don’t get on a flight!” he said, panicked. “Don’t go anywhere!”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m here.”
I looked around. “Where?”
“In London. At Heathrow. I just landed.”
My heart leapt in surprised joy. I hadn’t thought I could feel so happy so quickly. “You came to London?”
He was panting as if he was jogging. “I wanted to surprise you. I just got off the flight.”
“Ma’am?” The airline agent was waiting for me, uninterested in my mental state.
“Sorry,” I said to her, then ducked out of the line, maneuvering my bag and the phone at the same time. I dropped into a wildly uncomfortable plastic chair as people moved past. “Travis, why did you come to London?”
“I had to see you,” he said. “I got some news. Incredible news. It got me thinking, and now I’m full of ideas, and I didn’t want to call you. I wanted to talk to you in person, and then I thought I should be there anyway to be your moral support while you get the role with Pinsent, and we can go celebrate together. I thought, Why the hell not? So I got on a plane.”
“Oh.” My throat closed. I had never had anyone in my corner like Travis, and it felt so good. “That’s so sweet. I have news, too.”
“I got your voicemail. What’s going on? Wait, we shouldn’t do this on the phone. Where exactly are you?”
I told him, and he told me where he was, and we coordinated our way through the enormous maze that is Heathrow airport. I spent forty-five minutes with my bag in one hand and my phone to my ear, running frazzled through corridors and food courts as Travis came through Customs and did the same. It was confusing and frustrating, and it wasn’t Love, Actually —but I hated that movie, so I didn’t mind.
When I finally caught sight of Travis standing outside the doors near a taxi stand, I said “There you are!” then hung up my phone and broke into a run. I watched him swivel, his phone still held up. Even though he wore a hoodie and a ball cap, I would know him anywhere. I had no idea whether anyone had recognized either of us, and I didn’t care.
Travis saw me coming. He slung his bag over his shoulder and jogged toward me, his expression lighting up. “Watch it!” someone griped as he bumped past them. A cabbie tried to wave him over for a fare. Cars honked as he jogged across the pavement. And then I flung myself at him and was in his arms.
I felt his arms tighten around my middle and lift me off my feet as I buried my face in his neck. There was more honking, and someone else shouted, but I didn’t care. I felt Travis’s chest shake with quiet laughter as he put me down. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said in that low voice in my ear. “It’s been a while.”
I pulled back just enough to kiss him soundly on the mouth. “I have so much to tell you,” I said. “I couldn’t wait.”
“Same,” he said. I looked into those blue eyes and I could see how happy he was, truly happy to see me. To be with me. It wasn’t a show. I was starting to think it never had been.
We talked at the same time. I said, “Listen, we should?—”
“I have to?—”
“It’s—”
“You go first.”
“No, you.”
We smiled at each other. Airport security gave us increasingly hostile looks. People bumped past us, annoyed. Travis tilted my chin up and kissed me again. I remembered the first time he’d ever kissed me in an airport, and all of the times after. It had never been a show for me, either.
“Where are we going?” he asked me when he broke the kiss. “London or L.A.?”
“Travis! You just got off a plane. You can’t turn around and fly back.”
“I will if that’s what you want to do.”
“I checked out of my hotel,” I said. “I could call them and get us back in. If they won’t take us, we’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Travis said in that confident way of his that said he could wing anything. “You want to stay in London and have fun for a few days before going home?”
“I want to be where you are,” I said, and I watched his face light up even more. “And you’re here.”
“Look out, London,” Travis said, hailing us a cab.
I didn’t know where we were going. It didn’t matter. I already knew it would be somewhere good.