Page 18 of Just Come Over
An entire family: mum, dad, two kids, and a baby in a pushchair, were passing them now, and the TSA agent was scrutinizing Rhys in a frankly suspicious manner. He recognized that look by now. He’d seen it about five times today.
“Itlooksdark, though,” Casey said.
Rhys had always thought his stubbornness, his absolute refusal to give in or give up, was a positive. He was beginning to see the downside.
“I promise,” he said. “X-rays. Call it a... doll scanner. We’ll go through this big people-scanner ourselves, first you and then me, Moana will get scanned in the doll scanner, and then you can pick her up on the other side and give her a cuddle.”
“OK,” Casey said. “But she likes it better if I hold her hand.”
Oh.Casey handed Moana over, and took a huge breath as Rhys set the doll in the tub. That had taken some courage. “We’ll put her looking up,” he said, “so she can see the X-rays.” Then he stepped back into the queue behind the family and took Casey’s hand. It was small and warm, and it clutched his tight. He got that squeezing sensation again, too, around his... chest area.
The only problem was, after he’d urged her into the scanning machine, which she wasnotdaunted by, oddly enough, and had gone through himself, the TSA agent on the other side said, “Please step this way, sir.”
That was what you got, he guessed, when you lingered too long. “One moment,” he said.
“Right now, sir,” the agent said.
The last thing Rhys needed was temper. It appeared anyway. His temper was a bloody inconvenient beast. “I need to see to my daughter first.” Casey was, in fact, hopping up and down, trying to look into the bins to find Moana. “She needs to get her doll.”
“Sir,” the agent said.
Another agent handed Casey her doll, jacket, and backpack, so that was good, but she was looking around now. Looking forhim.He said, “One moment. I just need to get her.”
“I can’t allow that, sir,” the agent said.
Rhys was fifteen seconds from exploding. He could feel it starting to happen. “You can take me into a room and strip me naked,” he said. “I’ve got hours to spare. You can do a cavity search. Whatever you like. Be my guest. It’s nothing that won’t have happened to me before at the base of a scrum, I promise you. But my daughter’s over there. She’s just lost her mum, she’s never been in an airport, and she’s scared. I need to get her first.”
He got her. Possibly, the agent didn’t want trouble. Or possibly, he’d seen Casey’s eyes. They had some superpowers. She didn’t appear especially traumatized, though, as she watched him be checked over. Pity his own heart was beating like a hammer, and so was the blood in his temples. It was a good thing a blood pressure check wasn’t included, because he’d have failed.
“What’s that?” Casey asked the agent as he scanned Rhys’s palms, and then his laptop and phone, after patting him down in a way that would normally happen around the third date.
“We’re checking for traces of explosives,” the man said.
“You mean, like he’d explode?” Casey said. “People don’texplode,though. He has a really big fish hook, that’s all. I think he has powers, even though he says he doesn’t, but notexploding.”
The agent subjected Rhys to some more penetrating gaze. “Could you show me the fish hook, sir?”
Rhys sighed and pulled the pendant out from under his shirt. “You already saw it.” He didn’t tell the fella not to touch it, even though he wanted to. That wouldn’t end well. “And for the record, I don’t have powers.”
“No, sir.” The agent handed him his backpack and laptop. “Have a nice day. You too, young lady.”
He’d never been more glad to head toward an airline lounge, even though it was taking twice as long as usual. He was used to walking fast, but Casey’s legs were too short for that. He was holding her hand again, which helped him moderate his speed, but the way she slowed for things like the giant-pretzel vendor didn’t help.
“We could get one of those,” she said, watching as an employee brushed an entire gym workout’s worth of melted butter onto the top of a twisted knot of absolutely nutrient-free dough, then sprinkled it with a day’s ration of coarse salt.
“We could,” he said, “if we wanted to watch our cholesterol and sodium levels rise in real time.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not healthy.”
“It’s kind of like pizza, though. It has dough, see? That’s how my mommy makes pizza. With dough.”
“Pizza isn’t healthy, either. And neither are cookies,” he decided to add, since they were now walking past a shop selling those, and she was eyeing them in a way that boded no good at all. They were practically the size of her head. He could feel his waistline expanding just looking at them. That was the good thing about holding her hand. At least you could keep moving.
“If it’s not healthy, how come you ate five pieces?” she asked.
“I was making an exception. Exceptions are allowed.”
