Bree grinned at Eliza. “Feels like yesterday, eh?”
Eliza’s jaw clenched. “Ancient history.”
Lincoln returned, his cell phone to his ear. “Do you remember what Andy was like in our early conversations? Couldn’t wait to get away on this trip, but since a month ago we’ve heard nothing, apart from one message asking me to lend him the money for his ticket.” He lowered the phone. “Voice mail.” He pulled back his sleeve and checked a glittering, chunky Rolex for a moment too long, as if giving it its moment in the spotlight. “We board in fifty minutes.”
Eliza smirked. “When was Andy ever quiet about anything?”
Bree’s gaze was drawn to Lincoln’s wrist and she whistled. “That looks expensive.”
“When you’re in stockbroking, it’s important to wear your success.” Lincoln glanced at Eliza’s wrist. “Good to see you’re doing it, too, Lize.”
Bree elbowed Lincoln. “That was a gift from my girls. Hey, didn’t you bring home a bracelet from that African orphanage you went to after graduation?” Another quick-fire glance at her old friend.
Lincoln shuffled on his feet, a hardness swirling across his face. “Probably.” He studied the incoming passengers as he rose on his toes. “If Andy doesn’t turn up, I’ll have to get the money from him somehow, but I don’t really know how. It’s like he’s disappeared.”
Three
“Pacific Australia flight 8779 will be boarding shortly.”
Lincoln’s blood pressure thumped in his ears with each unfamiliar face that joined the massing throng at gate 58. Heads down over phones—sharing the excitement of impending travel with the remote masses of social media rather than the living, breathing people within arm’s reach.
He turned to Eliza. “I don’t even know what Andy looks like now.”
“You would if you had come to the ten-year dinner. He was a lot quieter than he used to be and he’d put on some weight, but haven’t we all?”
A bitter guffaw burst from Bree before she scrambled for a sheepish shrug. “Sorry.”
Lincoln inwardly cursed Andy as he tried the cell phone number he had eventually pried out of him. Voice mail. Again. “So help me, if he doesn’t make it . . .”
Eliza’s nose crinkled. “While I think it’s great you offered, why would you need to pay for him?”
Lincoln looked forward to prying the real answer from Andy. “All he said was things are really tight at the moment. That’s fine because I’ve done really well this year, and I wanted us all to be here.”
Eliza put a hand on Lincoln’s arm. “If he doesn’t make it, I’m happy to help cover costs so you’re not out of pocket.”
Lincoln smiled down at her hand. “Thanks, I appreciate the gesture.”
Bree’s foot nudged her carry-on suitcase. “If he misses the flight, I’m sure the three of us can still enjoy the trip without him.”
Lincoln again checked his phone. “But I had something special organized.”
“It’s a lovely thought anyway. How is San Francisco?”
Lincoln’s chest puffed as he ran through his honor roll of career achievements. “I won’t spoil the story I’ve got to tell about my success. I took an internship six months after I got back from traveling in Africa and have worked my way up. And the Bay’s an amazing place to sail on weekends.” His restless glances for Andy grew more frantic. He couldn’t miss their flight. The numbers that concerned Lincoln had no dollar signs in front of them—he could cover the cost of Andy’s nonappearance with his next stock tip. The number concerning him most was an odd one. Three. Two good friends stuck together like glue and him as the third wheel, making it almost impossible to get Eliza alone.
He exhaled hard. “Bree, I see you’re in Nashville. It’s great you ended up in Music City. Still playing your guitar?”
Sadness crept across Bree’s eyes. “No, not anymore. That dream is long over.”
Eliza stepped forward. “But she’s got an amazing family—a wonderful husband and gorgeous kids.” Yep. Stuck like glue. Andy had about ten minutes before Lincoln would have to rethink his whole plan.
Lincoln chuckled. “Kids, eh? I’m sure you’ve got dozens of photos to show me on the plane. What about you, Lize?”
“Pacific Australia flight 8779 will be boarding in fifteen minutes.”
A thin smile settled on Eliza’s face. “Not in the cards for me, but you know what it’s like. You just get on with whatever’s next.” She glanced away, and Lincoln’s mind raced. She was unconvincing. Where was Andy?
Bree thumbed through her phone. “So what about you, Lincoln?”
Another wave of passengers crested toward them, and it didn’t contain a heavier version of his college friend.
“You seem quite popular, as we can all see on social media.”
“What is that supposed to—” Lincoln snapped an angry glance back into the furrowed brows of the two women.
Bree raised a hand to her mouth, admonished. “I’m sorry, Lincoln, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that . . .”
Eliza’s nose crinkled, and Lincoln’s memory fired back to college, and backpedaled from an argument he didn’t want to have. Not at the start of a significant trip.
“Lincoln, I insist on paying for Andy’s flight if he doesn’t make it. It’s obviously upsetting you.”
Lincoln plastered a wide smile on his face. He had to start this trip on a better foot than this. “Thanks, I’m just tired, I guess. Work’s frantic at the moment.”
“Well, try to relax. We’ll enjoy the trip without Andy.”
Lincoln smiled into Eliza’s gaze, into eyes he thought he would lose himself in for the rest of his life. But the crinkle above Eliza’s nose remained.
Lincoln pulled out his phone, eager for the distraction. He hadn’t started well. If this trip went like he planned, he would have to tread more carefully.
Across the concourse, a gate opened, spilling passengers into the airport in a broiling wash of tiredness and excitement, trips ending and beginning. Lincoln scanned the crowd—Andy would be twice as wide as he remembered. There was no one even close to matching that description.
Another check of his phone. Fruitless.
Eliza and Bree thumbed through photographs on Bree’s phone, amid giggles he’d last heard at Flagstaff College.
They were as close as they always were.
He needed Andy, and it looked like he wasn’t going to show.
Four
Andy Summers stared at the drifting landscape miles below as empty country morphed into a patchwork of suburbia. He was lost in his thoughts or, more to the point, trying to lose them.
His generous stomach strained against the seat belt as it dropped with a familiar lurch. His flight commenced its descent into Los Angeles. His clenched knuckles whitened on the armrests, and his stomach growled at the lateness of the hour. There had been no time to grab dinner—not with having to pack everything for a long trip—and he couldn’t afford to risk sitting in an airport terminal café while he waited. He had timed his run perfectly and made the flight as the cabin door closed.