Evie looks at her. ‘No,’ she says. ‘You don’t have to.’ She looks at Duke. ‘Our flight is boarding,’ she says. ‘I’m not trying to be cool or anything, it’s just we really are going to miss the flight if we don’t get a move on. We don’t have long.’

‘I’ll walk with you,’ Duke suggests, hurriedly, and Magda slips ahead to lead the way so that Duke and Evie can fall in step behind her. The waiting area has cleared out, and they join the back of the queue, only a handful of people in front of them. They really did only just make it.

‘Where is your stuff?’ Evie says, looking him up and down.

Duke pulls a face. ‘I … actually don’t know,’ he says, and she looks at him with those eyes, those lips, that hair, that face, puzzled, and he laughs. She’s here! He caught her! ‘At the hotel, maybe?’

‘I don’t get it?’ she says, puzzled.

‘I realised you’d left already and I just … got in a cab,’ he explains, and her face, when she understands that he’s here for her, is a face he will remember until the day he dies. It’s surprise, then confusion, then pure, unadulterated joy followed by flushed cheeks as she gets self-conscious.

‘Evie, your boarding pass?’ Magda says, turning to them. Evie hands her pass to the flight attendant, and Duke does the same.

‘You’re on this flight too?’ Evie asks. ‘To Salt Lake?’

‘Well,’ he says. ‘I needed the ticket to get past security. I can just wait with you until they’re closing the doors, right?’ He turns to look at the attendant.

‘Not really, sir, no,’ she says, alarmed. ‘This is kind of a you’re-in-or-you’re-out situation.’

Duke looks at Evie. She seems hopeful. It’s a no-brainer, then.

‘In,’ he says.

‘In,’ Evie echoes. ‘You’re going to fly to Salt Lake?’

‘Sure,’ he decides. ‘I mean. Look. There’s things I want to say!’

‘So say them!’ Evie retorts.

‘Okay!’ He laughs, and then they’re both laughing, and Magda turns around from where she’s walking, up front, through the jet bridge, and smiles.

‘Just wait,’ he says. ‘Magda – we’re coming, okay?’

‘We won’t fly without you!’ Magda shouts, boarding the plane.

‘Evie,’ Duke says. ‘I don’t know what I am doing. All I know is that I’ve been looking for love all my life, and all my life it’s been in the wrong places. And something has happened this month, during this time in Germany, where I’ve realised that I had my own stuff to deal with. I’ve been a performer for my job, and in my real life, for so long I didn’t know where one Duke ended and the other began, and I was resentful of it, but I still didn’t change it, you know?’