Page 23 of The Unfinished Line

“I don’t want to lie.”

“Don’t think of it as lying—think of it more as exploring a part. Just massage the truth. Tell her you came to do some research. You don’t have to say what for.” She paused. “And youdidcome for research. Research on yourself.”

“I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.” The creaking surveyor belt of the baggage carousel lurched in front of me and the first suitcase came tumbling down the luggage chute, followed by my backpack. “Okay,” I sighed, swooping my arm through the strap. “I gotta go.”

“Just breathe, Kam. You’ve got this.”

I wasn’t exactly sure whatthiswas, but I definitely didn’t have it.

I’d told Dillon I would take an Uber from the airport. After the stress of her race earlier in the morning, I didn’t want her having to come and get me. But when I stepped out of the single terminal exit, I caught a glimpse of wayward blonde hair sticking out from beneath a flat-billed snapback, and found Dillon perched on one of the sidewalk benches, her attention turned halfheartedly toward a chattering young woman.

“Welsh, actually,” she was saying as I drew closer.

“So, basically English.”

“Well, Wales shares a border with England, but we are not English. The English come only from England. Welsh come from Wales.”

“But you sound British.” The woman had grown almost impertinent.

“I am British. But there’s really no such thing as a single British accent.”

I was within a few feet of them, but neither had noticed me yet.

“British?” I interrupted their conversation, feigning shock. “I thought you told me you were from the United Kingdom?”

Dillon looked up, amusement appearing with her crooked smile. I’d forgotten how incredibly green her eyes were.

“I’m actually from the Commonwealth,” she winked, climbing to her feet. “Hello, Kam-Kameryn.”

I was at once reminded what had possessed me to fly across the country, pretending to have business in a city I hated, with absolutely no guarantee I’d even get to see a girl I’d spent less than five hours with three weeks earlier on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It had been worth the last thirty-one minutes of mind-numbing terror, if just to hear her say those two words.

“Hello, Dillon from Cymru.” It was a word I’d learned while browsing a UK travel magazine on my flight from Los Angeles to Miami. The Welsh word for Wales. “Did I pronounce that right?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“Perffaith.”

I had no idea what that meant, but she was smiling, so I took it as a good sign.

Taking hold of the crook of my arm, she glanced down at the woman still sitting on the bench. “Safe travels, mate.”

“Oh!” Loath to give up the conversation, the woman tried again. “Australian!”

But Dillon was done, and steered me toward the street, looping her arm through mine.

“You made it.”

“On a wing and a prayer,” I said, meaning it quite literally. I matched her stride—longer than mine, despite her not being much taller than me—and noticed each time our hips brushed as we walked side by side. “You didn’t have to come meet me. I would have just caught an Uber.”

“Don’t be daft—you just flew a hundred and twenty miles to get here. Of course I was going to meet you.”

A hundred and twenty miles. Thank God that was all she thought I’d done. I tried to play it cool. “Yeah, and you covered thirty-two miles in your race this morning. I’m sure the last thing you wanted to do was trek across town to the airport.” I second-guessed my choice of shooting off my newly acquired knowledge of Olympic triathlon distances. I should have said thirty. Something less accurate. At least I hadn’t said 31.99, to prove how crazy I was.

If she was alarmed about my sudden mathematical insight, she didn’t show it.

“So what drew Hollywood’s rising star all the way to Miami?”

I momentarily forgot about the conundrum of answering her question. The termrising starthrew me. It was something Dani called me, but always with a sense of mockery. Like my entire existence was as a social climbing upstart who would never quite make it to the top.

---