(Connie's POV)
Sean peels off toward the coffee counter the second we clear the layover gate, which gives me exactly the window I've been waiting for since somewhere over the Indian Ocean.
I sit down next to Jack on the hard plastic bench outside the gate, both of us surrounded by the particular chaos of an international transit hall — announcements in three languages, a family sprawled across four seats two rows down, someone's rolling suitcase with one bad wheel squeaking past every thirty seconds like a metronome nobody asked for — and I decide this is as good a moment as any to say the thing I actually flew out here partly to say.
"Hey," I say. "Can I tell you something?"
He looks up from the game he's not really playing on his phone, screen already half dimmed from inactivity. "Su
