“Waiting at LAX. I’m catching a flight in about an hour,” Jane answered, in a hardly spirited tone that sounded analogous to Adam’s when he had talked to Mickey. They both ended up with a losing hand, no better for having played the game.

    “So soon?” was all Adam could say.

   “I’m giving you a chance to run after me, and I think that’s generous enough. I’m not professing any sort of undying devotion to you, because we’re both not naïve enough to think that’s possible.”

    “So, why?”

    “I don’t think either of us is satisfied with the way that things ended, that’s why. As much as we both longed for a cordial parting of ways, I don’t think it left the resonance I wanted it to. And I don’t think that you’re finding any peace either.”

    “So that’s it? One hour?” Adam summarize disbelievingly.

    “You’d better have your running shoes on,” Jane advised before she hung up.

            Adam dropped his phone to his side and sighed. “I should have known,” he remarked, lacing up his sneakers again.

            “Where do you think you’re going, the Taj Mahal? No one backstage is going to care whether your shoes are tied,” Mickey said with a laugh.

            “Who said I was going backstage?” asked Adam mischievously, grinning like a Cheshire.

            “Aw, not now, man. It was her, wasn’t it? I should have known!”

            “C’mon, you’re coming with me.” Adam stood up and beckoned impatiently with his hand.

            “What exactly do you think is coming out of all this?” asked Mickey incredulously.

            “Peace of mind,” replied Adam as he started to flag a taxi.

            “How are you supposed to find her?” Mickey asked once they had safely arrived in LAX, on stable ground after the terribly speedy cab ride.

            “You’re going to help me look.”

            “No, I’m not. Why do you think you should go after her in the first place?”

            “I’m not going after her, Mickey,” Adam revealed, a twinkle in his eye.

            “What?”

            “Wherever she’s leaving, I want to be there. I’m not going to send her off, and hopefully I won’t catch her eye either.”

            “So, remind me why you’re going through all this again?” asked Mickey as the two bought a ticket in order to enter the terminal that Adam presumed Jane was in.

            “I’m watching her leave.”

            Mickey slapped a hand to his forehead and followed Adam as they went about their way, carefully scanning the airport for any sign of Jane. “Could I even recognize her?” he whispered.

            “Red hair, tall, that’s all you need to know.” Adam paused, scrambled to the terminal vendor and bought two newspapers, sitting down seemingly casually in a seat and beckoning for Mickey to do the same.

            “Why does this feel like a bad romantic comedy?” Mickey asked as he was handed a newspaper.

            “Shh,” Adam said, putting his newspaper up to hide most of his face. “Three rows up, five seats over.”

            Mickey put his paper up as well and groaned. Adam had been right in saying that she didn’t look much worse from the years that had passed, and Mickey himself thought she had matured into quite a woman. But what Adam had wanted him to see, he supposed, was the helpless look on Jane’s face, scanning the airport for any sign of Adam.

            “Are we supposed to feel penitent about all of this?” Mickey asked, noticing Jane’s pitiful expression.

            Adam put the newspaper down and walked over to her.

            Jane looked hardly relieved to see him and instead smirked. “I half-expected you wouldn’t come, not that it matters to me.”

            A faint smile crossed Adam’s face. “You see, if you’ll look ‘bout three rows that way—” He pointed to Mickey. “—that’s where Mickey and I have been sitting here, watching you for the past, oh, say, five minutes. You sure didn’t seem like you didn’t care.”

            Jane looked embarrassed. “It might not have seemed that way from—”

            Adam put a finger to her lips. “If you really hadn’t bothered to look like you cared, I wouldn’t have bothered to say good-bye. I swear it.” He removed the finger and offered her a genuine smile.

            “Really?” Jane asked. Her expression conveyed perplexity, so he pursued.

            “Listen, you didn’t get what you were looking for, and now that you’re going back to wherever you’re going back to, I’m sorry for it. Because you held your end of the deal, being a gentleman I should only do the same.”

            “Male pride aside.”

            He smiled, content with what he was about to do.