Chapter 437 - 437: Seven Floors!

Back in London, Jasmine stopped dead on the pavement of Regent Street.

She didn't move. She didn't blink. She just stood there with Wolverine clutched against her chest, staring up at the building in front of her like it had been dropped from the sky.

Hamleys stretched up seven stories, every window glowing with color. Giant teddy bears waved from the glass. A toy soldier taller than Kyle stood guard beside the entrance in a red coat and a tall black hat. Bubbles drifted out of the doorway, and somewhere inside, a man was demonstrating a flying toy that swooped in loops over the heads of the crowd.

"Kiddo," Kyle said gently. "You have to walk in. That's how shops work."

Jasmine didn't respond.

Ella crouched down beside her. "I think we broke her."

"She's buffering," Cassandra said, adjusting Junior in his stroller.

Jane knelt down on Jasmine's other side and took her free hand. "Do you want to go in together?"

Jasmine finally nodded. Very slowly. Then she whispered, so quietly that only Jane heard it.

"Is all of it toys?"

"All seven floors," Jane whispered back.

Jasmine squeezed her hand so hard that Jane winced.

They went in.

-

The ground floor was chaos. Children shrieked with laughter. Staff in bright uniforms threw boomerangs that curved back over the crowd. A woman blew a giant bubble around a laughing toddler. There were stuffed animals the size of sofas, a wall of chocolate, and a train set that looped up toward the ceiling.

Jasmine had gone from frozen to vibrating.

"Brother Kyle, look! Brother Kyle! LOOK!"

"I'm looking."

"It's a giraffe! A big one! Bigger than you!"

"I see it."

"Can it come home?"

"Absolutely not," Ella said before Kyle could answer. "Where would we even put it? On the plane? In first class?"

Jasmine considered this seriously. "It could have my seat."

Kyle laughed. Cassandra was already steering Junior's stroller toward the lift.

"We're here for a reason," she reminded them. "Anthony's present. Focus."

"Focus," Jasmine repeated solemnly, and then immediately got distracted by a toy dog doing backflips.

The action figure section was on the fourth floor.

Jasmine walked down the aisle like she was in a museum. Rows and rows of boxes lined the shelves. Heroes in every color. Spider-Man in six different suits. Iron Man in silver and red and gold. Thor with his hammer. The Hulk, enormous and green, scowling from behind plastic.

Kyle watched her move from shelf to shelf, reading the names under her breath.

"What do you think he'd like?" Cassandra asked her.

Jasmine didn't answer right away. She stopped in front of one shelf and stared up at it for a long time.

Wolverine. A whole row of him. Claws out, teeth bared.

"This one," she said.

Ella raised an eyebrow. "Kiddo, he gave you a Wolverine. Isn't he going to think that's a bit weird?"

Jasmine shook her head firmly.

"He had two," she explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He said, 'I have two of him anyway.' Then he gave one to me. So now he only has one." She pointed at the box. "If I give him this one, he has two again."

The aisle went quiet.

Ella opened her mouth. Then closed it again.

Cassandra pressed a hand to her chest.

Jane looked at Kyle with her eyes suddenly very shiny.

Kyle crouched down so he was level with Jasmine. "That's a really good idea, kiddo."

"I know," Jasmine said simply. She reached up on her tiptoes, but the box was too high. "Can you get it?"

Kyle stood up and took the box down from the shelf. Jasmine took it from him with both hands, very carefully, the way someone might carry a cake.

"Can I give it to him myself?"

"Of course you can."

"And the card I made?"

"Both."

Jasmine nodded, satisfied, and held the box against her chest right next to her own Wolverine. Two of them now. One for her. One for him.

Behind her, Ella sniffed loudly and turned away.

"Are you crying?" Kyle asked.

"No. There's dust in here."

"It's a toy shop."

"Toy shops are very dusty, Kyle. Everybody knows that."

They spent another hour wandering the floors.

Jasmine picked out a small stuffed rabbit for Junior, which Cassandra accepted on his behalf with great ceremony while Junior tried to eat its ear. Jane got lost in the board game section and came back with three games she swore she would teach everyone. Ella found a toy guitar on the third floor and played a surprisingly aggressive version of one of her own songs on it, to the horror of a nearby father and the delight of his two sons.

At the till, Kyle paid for everything without looking at the total.

Then Ella reached past him and dropped something on the counter.

A giant plush shark. Grey, soft, and almost the length of her arm.

"Ella."

"What? It's for me."

"You're twenty-something years old."

"And this shark is beautiful. Pay for my shark, Kyle."

Kyle sighed and tapped his card again.

[Ding!]

The screen flickered at the edge of his vision.

[Spent $320. 50X Critical Hit. Earned $16,000!]

[The money has been transferred to account XXX-XXX-XXX.]

[Spent at least $300 on a beautiful lady!]

Kyle blinked the screen away and glanced at Ella, who was hugging her shark with total satisfaction.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing," Kyle said. "Best three hundred dollars I've ever spent."

"Obviously."

By the time they stepped back out onto Regent Street, the sky had gone dark and the lights were on. Jasmine was carrying her shopping bag like it held the crown jewels. Jane had two board games tucked under one arm and was eating a chocolate bar from the ground floor. Ella had the shark slung over her shoulder like a soldier carrying a rifle.

They walked slowly back toward the taxi rank. Kyle hung back a step behind them, just watching.

The women were laughing about something. Jasmine was explaining to Junior, very seriously, that his rabbit was called Mr Carrots and that he had to look after him. Junior was trying to eat Mr Carrots again.

It was a good day.

A really good day.

Kyle's phone buzzed in his pocket.

He let himself have one more minute with them before he checked it.

[[Eleanor: You didn't answer me. I'll take that as a yes. Friday, 8 PM. I'll send the address.]]

Kyle let out a slow breath and looked up at the glowing windows of Hamleys behind him.

"Of course."

He put the phone away and caught up with the others.

It was nearly midnight by the time the suite went quiet.

Jasmine had fallen asleep with her Wolverine on the pillow beside her and the boxed one for Anthony Jnr standing guard on the nightstand, where she could see it. Jane was out cold. Cassandra's door was shut. Ella had passed out on the couch again, this time with the shark wrapped in both arms.

Kyle stood at the window with a glass of water, looking out at the city.

And for no reason he could name, he thought about Calista.

Maybe it was the giant teddy bears in the Hamleys windows. Calista would have taken a picture with one and posted it within seconds, perfectly lit, perfectly angled, with a caption designed to make half the internet jealous.

He pulled out his phone and opened their chat.

Her last message was from before England. A photo she had sent him a few days before the flight, the one that had made him change course at a red light and drive straight to her house instead. Just two words underneath it.

[[Calista: Miss me?]]

Nothing since.

For Calista, that was strange. She was never this quiet.

Kyle thought about everything that had happened in London. About Maya, and Viktor, and Eleanor, and the family asleep around him. He realized he hadn't checked on her once since the plane took off.

"She's probably buried in work. The movie's still riding high."

But he typed anyway.

[[Kyle: Miss me?]]

He sent it before he could think better of it.

It was a little before four in the afternoon in Los Angeles. She would see it.

The message showed as delivered. Then read.

A typing bubble appeared.

Kyle waited.

The bubble disappeared.

It appeared again. Then disappeared again.

Then nothing.

Kyle stared at the screen for a long time. Calista Wave, the woman who had once sent him three messages in the time it took him to park his car, had read his text and decided not to answer.

"That's not like her."

He set the phone face down on the windowsill.

Somewhere across the ocean, something had changed. He just didn't know what yet.