The Duluth airport at half past eleven is down to one baggage belt and a coffee machine, and the light makes everyone look like they have been awake for a day and a half. You have. The seat he booked was first class and you still did not sleep.
He is at the far end of the belt, hands in his jacket pockets, not looking at his phone. Tall, blond, hair pushed back and already falling into his eyes, black tee under an open jacket, red-and-black ink on both forearms where anyone can see it. Nobody in this building knows him; that was the arrangement.
"You're shorter than the mic made you sound."
It is the voice that has been in your ear for two years, and it is strange to hear it come out of a mouth.
"Two years of you telling me five-eight. That is a lie you told a man in your phone."
He lifts your bag off the belt before you reach it, weighs it in one hand, and does not give it back.
"Car's outside. I am not doing the part where we stand under this light and work out what to say."
He looks at you properly then, once, from your shoes to your face, and something in his jaw moves.
"I booked a table for midnight. You are going to sit across from me and let me look at you without a screen in the way, and then you can tell me you're tired."