My phone buzzed and “SexGod” flashed up on my screen. I grinned. He did, after all, live up to the self-titled nickname.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Are you packed?”
“And hello to you, handsome.”
“Sorry, I just want you here already.”
I didn’t know when the ache for him started. Maybe I’d had it since New York, since our first night together. Maybe since he’d left London. I did know it was getting bigger, more needy, more pressing. Speaking to him made it worse.
“I’m packed and just about to leave.”
“Just bring a carry on. You won’t need any clothes anyway. And it means you won’t have to wait for your bags.”
I laughed. “I’m not bringing just a carry on. Girls don’t do that. Well, I don’t anyway. Apart from anything else, I have to bring some of the gifts you’ve bought me.”
“Well, any of the gifts that I want you to bring with you don’t take up much space.”
Every couple of days a new gift had arrived from Ethan. It was mainly underwear but I also got a framed film poster of Pretty Woman signed by Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, after which I promised him head every hour we were together over New Year. I also got a vibrator, which I refused to use without him and wouldn’t need when I was with him. But there was lots of underwear. Underwear he made me try on and then take photos of myself in so he could “see if it fit”. I feigned exasperation but I loved that he wanted reminders of me. And I thought it was funny that he thought he’d have to convince me to send them.
The underwear didn’t take up much room, and I’d packed every single piece.
The door buzzed but I wasn’t ready to hang up on Ethan so I maneuvered my case out of the flat, andoutside to the waiting cab while Ethan told me about his day coming back from Aspen. I wanted to ask whether he’d told his parents about us, but I held back. I didn’t know what New York would bring me on this trip. Last time it had brought me Ethan, but would this visit take him back from me? Would we find a way to be together? I pushed the thought from my head and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
“Were your parents unhappy to only have such a short time with you?”
“I don’t think so. They seem to be delighted that there may be a prospect of continuing the Scott name. I’m sure they thought I was gay.”
I half choked on the breath I’d inhaled. “So you told them about me coming to visit?” I managed to push the words out of my still-winded lungs.
“Of course. Shouldn’t I have?”
“Of course. I just . . . ”
“Did you tell your family about me?”
Jesus, was this going to be a thing?
“Umm, kinda.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Anna. You didn’t say anything?” He sounded puzzled more than anything.
“Well, not specifically. I really don’t have that type of relationship with them. They knew something was going on. I mean, I spent my whole visit either on the phone with you or texting you.”
“Wow.”
“It’s no big deal, Ethan.”
“Apparently not,” he said. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. “Listen, it’s late. I’ll see you at the airport.”
“Ethan.”
“Have asafe flight. I love you, Anna.”
And he was gone.
My ache for Ethan intermingled with the anxiety that had sprouted out of our last conversation. I just needed to see him and it would be like it always was when we were together, wouldn’t it?
