“You don’t know what I think.”
“I know exactly what you think. I can see it in your face. You think I have a— you think this is that. It isn’t that.”
“Then say what it is. You had the curb. You had the car. You had all of last night while you zipped bags in the hall. Say it now or I am walking Mason back to the car and you can explain it to a gate agent alone.”
Mason’s head came up at his name. Derek hated himself a little for using it as a lever and did not take the lever away. Love, that morning, was going to be blunt or it was going to be useless.
Lauren sat. Not beside him. On the edge of the next seat, coat still buttoned, as if she might still make the flight by posture alone. Her hands were open on her thighs and then they were not. She looked at the paper.
“He’s my brother,” she said.
The word did not fit the air. Derek waited for the rest of it, because her face had not settled on the relief of a true simple thing.