Chapter 18 #3
I stow my bag, buckle my belt, and press my forehead against the plexiglass. The tarmac stretches out in golden light. I can't see Gate 3 from this angle, but I know he's still there. Standing at the window. Watching for my plane like a man who won't leave until the last possible second.
Because that's who he is.
My phone buzzes.
WEST: Watching your plane push back. Safe flight, Cooper.
He IS watching.
ME: This is creepy and romantic in equal measure.
WEST: I'm aware of the optics.
ME: Thank your family for letting you stay.
WEST: Aunt Milly says you're welcome anytime. Mom says to text her when you land. She's serious about that.
ME: Tell them thank you for breakfast. And for being so warm.
WEST: Already miss your face.
ME: Already miss your shoulders.
WEST: Just my shoulders?
I'm grinning while crying. Snot-cry-laughing in seat 14A of a BermudAir regional flight. The woman beside me in a floral sundress offers a tissue without comment. I take it. She pats my arm once, brief and maternal, then goes back to her crossword.
"All electronic devices to airplane mode, please."
I switch. My last text sits unsent in drafts. I'll send it when I land.
The plane taxis. Engines whine. Through the window, I can see the charter area—smaller planes lined up like expensive toys.
One of them is his. In twenty-two minutes, he'll board it with his parents and Aunt Milly and the quiet knowledge that he rearranged his entire family's departure schedule just to sit with a woman from Boston who owns a suitcase with paperclip.
Two aircraft. Same sunset. Same sky. Different destinations.
Both heading north. Both going home.
Just different homes.
For now.
The engines roar. Acceleration presses me back into the seat. Anguilla tilts beneath us—turquoise water turning to distance, green hills shrinking to thumbnails, the resort where everything changed becoming a speck on a coastline.
I close my eyes.
Think about the extra seventy minutes in an airport lounge.
About a man who moved his family's flight just to have more time.
About breakfast with the Prescotts, and Eleanor saying see you again soon with the decisive certainty of a woman who doesn't make promises she doesn't intend to keep.
When I open my eyes, we're above the clouds.
Logan International smells like jet fuel and Cinnabon.
I step outside and the cold hits me like a personal attack.
Caribbean Jane packed for seventy-eight degrees.
Boston Jane is standing on the curb in a denim jacket and a sundress, and the wind is punishing me for nine days of Caribbean warmth with the malicious energy of a city that doesn't care about your feelings.
"I'm going to die," I mutter through chattering teeth. "Hypothermia. Denim jacket. This is how it ends."
"JAAAAAAANE!"
The scream comes from across the arrivals lane. Grace is barreling toward me at a speed that should be illegal outside of a track meet—arms windmilling, scarf streaming behind her like a cape, her entire body operating on a frequency that can only be described as unhinged sisterly joy.
She crashes into me. Full-body. Nearly takes us both to the pavement.
"You smell like sunscreen and sex!"
Several people turn. An elderly man with a rolling carry-on gives me a thumbs up.
"Grace."
"What? You do! The sunscreen part!" She pulls back, squinting at me under the fluorescent lights. "Also you're glowing."
"I'm jet-lagged."
"You're GLOWING. That's not jet lag. That's orgasm residue."
"That's not a thing."
"It's absolutely a thing. I read about it."
"Where? Where did you read about orgasm residue?"
"The internet is a vast and educational place, Jane."
She loops her arm through mine and steers me toward the Massport shuttle stop, already launching into what she calls her “essential interrogation protocol.”
“Did he—tell me everything. I need details. Seventeen questions.”
“Seventeen?”
“I had twenty-three but I narrowed it down to essentials.”
She grins. Wide. Unrepentant. The Cooper family grin—too big, too bright, impossible to fake.
I've missed her so much my throat tightens.
We climb onto the free shuttle to Airport Station, the doors hissing shut behind us. Grace is vibrating with excitement. I’m vibrating from cold. My suitcase wheel is squeaking like it’s filing a relocation complaint.
And somewhere between the shuttle lurching forward and Grace demanding to know if West has a birthmark “anywhere interesting,” I realize—
I thought leaving him would make me feel incomplete. Like I’d left a piece of myself on that island.
But I didn’t lose anything.
I came back with more.
The shuttle lurches to our stop and Grace is still talking.
“Did he look devastated? Was he stoic devastated or tortured devastated? There’s a difference.”
“He was… steady,” I say.
She makes a face. “That’s worse.”
The doors hiss open and we spill out with the rest of the passengers.
Grace hooks her arm through mine as we head toward the stairs down to the Blue Line.
“Steady is the dangerous kind,” she continues. “Tortured can be dramatic. Stoic can be repressed. But steady? Steady is ‘I already made up my mind.’”
The fluorescent lights hum overhead. The station smells faintly of damp concrete and something fried from a nearby kiosk.
“He moved his family’s charter,” I say.
Grace stops mid-step. A man behind us nearly walks into her.
“Like… private plane charter?”
“Yes.”
“For you?”
“For more time.”
The train roars into the station before she can respond. Wind whips my hair into my mouth. We squeeze inside with commuters who look like they’ve never kissed anyone on a Caribbean island in their lives.
Grace grabs a pole and stares at me like I just announced I’m running for office.
“That’s rearranging-his-life brain.”
The train lurches forward. I brace my suitcase between my feet. My reflection flickers in the dark tunnel window—salt-tangled hair, tired eyes, something bright underneath.
Maybe that’s the glow Grace’s talking about.
Our apartment is exactly as I left it. Small. Warm. The radiator clanking its usual complaints. My shoes kicked off by the door, blanket pulled from the couch and wrapped around me like emotional armor.
Grace perches on the armrest like a very attentive bird of prey.
"So."
"So."
"You went to a Caribbean wedding to honeytrap a cheating groom."
"Technically, the word is expose—but why are we rehashing this?"
"You accidentally fell for the best man instead." Grace is relentless and stubborn.
"That's a simplification, but—"
"And now you're in love with a professional hockey player who lives in a different city."
I open my mouth. Close it.
Grace can read me like a children's book. A short one. With large print.
"I didn't say I was in love."
Her expression says please.
"Okay fine, maybe I'm in something that rhymes with love."
"Shove? Glove? All of the Above?"
"You're the worst."
"You're deflecting." Grace leans forward, eyes bright. "Jane. I saw your face when you walked through arrivals. You looked... happy."
The word lands softly. Settles.
"I am happy," I admit. "Which is terrifying because it's only been eight days and that's not enough time to—"
"To what? To feel something real?"
I tell her about breakfast with the Prescotts. About Eleanor's handshake and Milly's courting question and the way West's father asked about my business model with genuine interest instead of polite tolerance.
I give her the version that includes the bracelet but not the dented wall. The kiss but not the specific geography of where West's mouth was at three a.m. And the part where I missed him before I even left the island.
Some things are mine.
Grace listens with her chin propped on her fists, eyes bright.
"This is a Cinderella story," she says when I finish.
I take a second—actually think about it.
“There are similarities,” I concede. “But here’s where it ends.”
“Cinderella had two wicked stepsisters. I have you, and you are aggressively supportive.”
I tick off on my fingers, like I’m actually counting the differences.
“Cinderella had ashes and worked like a slave for her family.”
“You have invoices and a functioning business.” Grace adds and nods in agreement.
“Cinderella had a whole team of mice and birds doing her chores. I suppose, I had bridesmaids… who nearly set my scalp on fire.”
Grace snorts. “Honestly? Same energy.”
"And Cinderella waited to be rescued. I have a return ticket and a portable skill set."
"But you have a Prince Charming."
"West is not a prince."
"Six-four, NHL captain, billionaire family, gray-blue eyes that I personally verified via your accidental we-fie look extremely princely—"
"Alright, a hockey prince," I allow with a wink. "Who texts in complete sentences and uses punctuation."
"No glass slipper."
"Fancy bracelet." She points at my wrist. "With an engraving. That's better than a slipper."
I look down at it. The diamonds catching the kitchen light. Jan 24, 2026. Us.
I throw a pillow at her. She catches it. Holds it to her chest.
"I'm happy for you," she says. Simple. Honest. No jealousy, no but-what-about-me, no complicated sister math. Just clean pride in her eyes. "You've been taking care of everyone else for so long. You deserve someone who takes care of you."
"Don't make me cry. I've already exceeded my quarterly tear allowance today."
She laughs, and I laugh, and the radiator clanks, and for a moment the apartment feels exactly right.
Then someone knocks.
My pulse spikes.
A tiny, irrational flicker: West?
He's on a jet. Over the Atlantic. He texted me forty-five minutes ago from thirty-seven thousand feet. He is physically incapable of being at my door.
But the flicker doesn't listen to logic.
"Are you expecting someone?" Grace whispers.
"No."
"Is it him? Did he follow you home? Is this a rom-com thing?"
Apparently, the Coopers sisters think alike.
"That would be insane! He's still on a plane with his entire family!"
"Maybe he jumped out!"
"That's not how planes work!"