“She’s worth everything I have. Let’s go.”
Chapter Forty
Phoebe
Exhaustion overwhelmed me as the plane finally touched tarmac at Heathrow airport.
Heathrow.
Not East Midlands.
Not an airport close to home, but an airport that meant we had another four-hour journey ahead of us, despite the fact we’d been awake far too many hours already. We’d tried to sleep on the plane once we’d boarded, but only Bailey had been successful, with Rhea and me tossing and turning this way and that the entire time. Sometimes you went beyond being tired to becoming numb, even to sleep.
As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, Bailey grabbed her phone and began to receive a string of text messages. Her smile lit up her face, but she never offered to tell us who they were from or what had made her grin from ear to ear that way. She’d been the same before we’d taken off, too, having received something from someone in the airport that had had her giggling to herself.
“She’s barely seen the back of Andy and she’s already scrolling away on Tinder again,” Rhea said, rolling her eyes.
I’d been too braindead to respond at that point, but honestly, good for Bailey. I admired her ability to move from one man to the next without ever forming a strong attachment. It would take one hell of a masterpiece to lock her down for life, and I had no idea if such a man existed who could ever be strong enough to handle my fiery friend.
Still, as we made our way off the plane, through passport control, and waited for our luggage to arrive, the constant pinging of her phone had even me ready to snap.
I never claimed to be a good tired person.
Thankfully, Rhea got there before me.
“At least put the bloody thing on mute if you’re going to have it glued to your hand for the rest of our journey home.”
“Thank you,” I said under my breath.
In a very un-Bailey-like manner, she quickly looked up and said, “Oh, sorry.” Then cleared her throat and pushed her phone into her pants pocket, leaving Rhea and me to stare at each other in confusion.
“What? No snarky comeback?” Rhea asked.
“Nope,” Bailey said, popping the ‘p’, looking very smug with herself.
Rhea turned my way again. “No prizes for guessing which one of us had the best sleep on that plane, huh?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t me.” I reached for my suitcase to drag it off the carousel and brought it down to the floor, pulling up the handle and pushing it forward the moment Rhea and Bailey had grabbed theirs, too.
Bailey led the way as we walked through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ doors, her grin practically screwed on whenever she glanced back at us trailing behind her.
“What’s gotten into her?” I asked Rhea quietly.
“Whatever it is, I want some.”
“No kidding,” I chuckled as we made our way into the arrivals section of the airport.
A stream of people stood behind the feeble barriers, some with flowers as they waited for their loved ones, others holding signs with random names on, no doubt collecting their passengers to take them home. Bailey practically skipped alongside them, and I thought I saw Rhea falter in her steps, but then I realised how tired I felt and that it was probably the hallucinations kicking in…
Until I looked up.
And I sawhimstanding there.
Henry.
Holding a small bouquet of bright pink flowers in one hand and a sign in the other that read:My Smart Arse.
I froze, unable to move, releasing the suitcase I’d been pushing forward, not caring as it sailed away from where I stood, almost certain my heart had stopped beating.
