“Yeah.” Alex looked at him as if he was the dumbest person in the world. “It’s what brothers do.”

There wasn’t anything he could say to that. The beauty of it was, though, he didn’t need to. Instead, he nodded at Alex and his brother rolled his eyes at him in return. No translation needed.

If only figuring out what he was going to say to Shelby would be as easy.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

The car was barely at a stop near the airport curb before Ian had the door open. Thanks to a call to Lucy, he’d gotten Shelby’s flight information and the tip that she liked to get to the airport two hours in advance. Of course she did. She carried around a flashlight Taser; she didn’t leave anything to chance. He glanced down at the clock on his phone screen. He was cutting it beyond close.

“Thanks, Alex,” he said as he got out. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No shit,” his brother responded. “Now go fix your fuckup.”

Ian sprinted through the airport doors and through the crowd at the airport. He deked left and then right, making his way toward the security gates where a crowd of people waited in lines that barely seemed to move. It was as far as he could go without a ticket. There were two hours before her flight. She had to be here.

He jumped up on a trio of seats off to the side and scanned the crowd looking for Shelby. Trying to find one person in the room of wall-to-wall people was like trying to find a guy without a mullet in an eighties hockey video montage.

“Shelby Blanton!” he hollered, his heart hammering in his ears.

People turned and looked around, glad for some entertainment while they waited. Several training their phones on him, no doubt to send the video of the Harbor City weirdo at the airport to their friends back in Omaha. A few TSA agents turned in his direction and started toward him. He didn’t give a shit.

“Shelby, I know you’re mad and you have every right to be.” This was where that whole grunts-more-than-talks thing became a problem. When he needed the words, he didn’t know what to say. So he went with the first thing that came to mind. “I was an asshole.” Wow. He really should have made a plan, but it was too late to now. “I don’t have the right to ask, but I’m asking for another chance in every zip code. Please.”

“Sir,” one of the TSA agents said. “I’m gonna need you to get down from there.”

Fuck. “Just one minute more?”

The agent pulled out a pair of zip ties. “Depends on how curious you are about the inside of the airport jail. Stay up there and you’ll get the full tour.”