The Little Teashop in Tokyo by Julie Caplin Page 0,107

the stupid sap should have just told her – but now as he jostled his way through the queue at the barrier from the monorail to Haneda International Airport, he prayed to move faster. He’d also always jeered at the dumb dolt who’d left his phone on the side with the camera doing a meaty close up. Why hadn’t he texted her? Told her to wait for him. Irritation at his own dumb-ass stupidity made him jittery and jumpy, hopping from foot to foot to the rampant disapproval of the woman in front of him. When he started to mutter under his breath, she turned and shot him a sharp scowl, but for Pete’s sake couldn’t she see he was in a hurry? He needed to catch Fiona before she went through security and … well, he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to tell her. His brain had gone into some kind of basic hunter mode where getting to the airport and finding her at check-in was the primary focus. The baseline was that he had to see her.

He hurtled into the airport terminal scanning the departures display for the combination of JAL and Heathrow. Bugger. He hadn’t even stopped to get the flight number. Haruka had thought that it left at about twelve-thirty which made the last check-in at ten-thirty and it was ten past ten now.

There, he’d spotted it. Check-in desk G, or it could be N, depending on what class she was flying. Shit, he had no idea. Taking off at a run he headed down to the check-in lines. The one at G was long and so was the one at N. There were too many people, lots of Westerners, so he couldn’t even pick out her hair. Her hairy coat. That was individual. No one else had a coat like that. He examined the queue once and then again. No sign of her. He ran to the next queue, for business class. Again he checked the people in the queue. He forced himself to slow down and check again. Where was she? She couldn’t have gone through. Not already.

In desperation he scanned the crowd again, one by one. Sweat, real actual sweat, dripped down his back and his hand was shaking. Maybe she wasn’t here yet.

He paced. He watched the clock. The queue got shorter and shorter until there were only two people left to check in.

It was now ten-thirty. The girl on the desk rose and the lights above the desk went out.

He stood there and stared at the darkened screen, unable to move.

She’d gone.

With despair clutching at his gut, Gabe turned and then, miraculously, in the distance he spotted the sleeve of a familiar coat. His heart leapt. There was Fiona’s hairy coat moving along in a tide of people walking down the concourse. The rush of relief almost pushed his pulse into overdrive. Taking off at a run he belted down the concourse. ‘Fiona! Fiona!’

The coat stopped and a figure detached itself from the group.

Disappointment, sharp and jagged, tore through him. ‘Mayu?’

‘Gabe! What are you doing here?’

‘Where’s Fiona?’

‘Oh, she’s gone. Went through ages ago. I like hanging around here; it’s kinda cool.’

Unable to say anything, he gestured to the coat.

‘Great, isn’t it? Fiona gave it to me.’ She clutched the lapels and swaggered, twisting her shoulders from side to side.

He grimaced, a sort of yes, from between pinched lips and looked back towards the gates.

‘Have you got your phone?’

‘Yes.’

‘I need it. I need to phone Fiona.’

Mayu smiled cheerfully at him. ‘Her phone’s dead. No charge. And no cable. It’s in her suitcase. She said no worries because she couldn’t use it on the plane anyway.’

He pushed his hands through his hair. Even if he bought a plane ticket, he didn’t have his passport. He threw his head back and sighed.

‘What are you doing here, Gabe?’ asked Mayu with a puzzled frown.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘Were you going to say goodbye to Fiona? Do you like her? Please tell me you don’t like Yumi anymore. Fiona is so much nicer.’

Gabe dredged up a reluctant smile. ‘Yes, she is.’

Mayu suddenly stopped and her eyes widened with saucer-like wonder. ‘You came to stop her. Like in the films. The big gesture.’

‘Grand gesture,’ murmured Gabe.

‘You have to go to London. On the next plane.’

‘I do have to go London. You’re right. But not on the next plane.’ No, this time he was going to do things properly. He knew exactly how he was going to