Claire's POV
The airport was a blur of motion and fluorescent light.
Devin had handled everything before we even stepped through the doors. Check-in was seamless, quiet, efficient in the way that only came with money and the right people in the right places.
I was grateful for it. I didn't have the bandwidth to navigate anything complicated, and Louis certainly didn't either.
He moved through it all on autopilot. Showed his passport, answered when spoken to, carried himself with that same controlled stillness he wore like armour. But I knew him well enough now to see past it.
The slight tension around his eyes. The way he kept his phone in his hand rather than his pocket, like he was waiting for another call he both needed and dreaded.
I stayed close. I didn't push him to talk. There was nothing to say that would make any of this lighter, and Louis wasn't the kind of man who found comfort in words that didn't mean anything.
