As she jogged across the street to the Virgin Australia domestic terminal, not even waiting for the lights to change, she knew the odds of Molly still being on this side of the check-in gate were low, but by God, she was going to try.

The automatic doors parted, and as their eyes locked across the terminal lounge, the room began to spin. Each step was a mission, heavy and weighted with disappointment, and as the doors closed the warm night out, Kate came to a stop.

She pulled her gaze from Tilly’s and looked toward the check-in desk. Molly was long gone.

Seeing Tilly was like salt in a wound. In a bright white collared, sleeveless shirt tucked into the high waistband of her pleated skirt, Tilly’s flushed skin was obvious. Attraction twisted in her belly as Tilly nervously tightened her high ponytail, shifting the sunglasses perched there.

Tilly cast her gaze up and down Kate’s body, her boots, her linen suit. “She’s okay,” Tilly said when her eyes finally met Kate’s. “I think it helped her nerves that her first flight is just to Sydney—”

“How long did I miss her by?”

Tilly wet her lips. “Twenty minutes. Her family just left.”

Kate rubbed at her face. “Fuck.”

“When I got here, and you weren’t here—”

Roughly, Kate pulled her hands from her face, set them on her hips. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to be here, surprise her… And I’m glad that I was.”

Kate chewed at her lip. She understood why Tilly had come, but if Molly had already left, why the hell was Tilly still there? Was she waiting for Kate?

Tilly’s car keys jingled as she switched her wallet from her right hand to her left. “I remembered that you told Molly you’d wait in the terminal in case she came back out. I mean, she didn’t ask me to stay, and she seemed to be keeping it together remarkably well…” she rambled. “But I remembered that you promised her you’d stay in the terminal for half an hour after you said goodbye, and then I had a feeling that you would turn up just to try to see her, because you always try when these things happen, you always just try, even if there’s very little chance—”

A beeping cart zipped through the terminal, around the check-in counters. They broke further apart to make way. As the cart disappeared around the corner, their gazes brushed. Nervous, Tilly shifted from foot to foot. Her eyes flickered from Kate to the chain of linked seats by the wall. “Sit with me?”

Kate nodded.

The check-in area was unusually empty. Across the lounge, over by the corridor to the gates, a young woman and her boyfriend—Kate assumed—were wrapped up in one another, a boarding pass loose in the woman’s grip as her arms dangled around his neck.

Kate sank into a chair in the corner. Tilly followed, placing her wallet and keys on the narrow strip of metal separating their seats. Kate’s gaze dropped. Her skin flushed—Tilly’s ring finger was bare.