But it hadn’t been that way in a long, long time.
And it certainly wasn’t that way here and now.
‘You definitely okay?’ he asked.
Carli replied with an affirmative ‘mm-hmm’ and accepting this, Niall hoisted himself up from his haunches.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in a wee bit.’
‘Yeah, see you in a wee bit,’ Carli mumbled, watching him go with almost enough cognisance to register how perfect his bum looked in his jeans.
Once the door closed, six of his words echoed in her mind.
See you in a wee bit.
Nearly two decades they’d spent apart and now the next time she’d lay eyes on him would be in awee bit. Surely, she would wake up and realise she’d eaten a dodgy meal on the plane and had fainted in the chemical toilet.
This couldn’t actually be happening.
Could it?
It was happening. Niall came back. Two hours later, when it was painfully clear she was not collapsed in a plane toilet. Niall Butler was there, sitting on a chair by her bed, legs splayed, elbows on his thighs, leaning towards her.
Something orange taunted Carli’s peripheral vision from the bedside table. She turned to see a can of Irn-Bru.
‘That’s for you.’ Niall spoke with the gravitas of a doctor bringing a patient some strong drugs. He’d always sworn by the stuff for sickness. ‘Settle your stomach.’
Carli’s guts let out a dissatisfied growl.
‘Guess I want food,’ she said, trying to lean into the crude display of all her bodily weaknesses. Would the embarrassment give it up for a bit?
‘I can get you something,’ he offered.
‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly three.’
‘Why are you still awake?’
Niall shrugged. ‘Chatting to Jamie. Jet lag. Wanted to make sure you’re okay.’
Bloody hell. He was staying up to make sure she was okay. What on earth was happening in her life? And whyhadn’t it happened when he’d ended their relationship with those words that she’d tried for so long to dissect.
I don’t know what our love is anymore. If it’s even love.
‘I’ve been popping in to check on you,’ he added, ‘but you’ve been out of it until now.’
‘Oh, right. Was I snoring?’ She may as well ask. What other dignity could be lost on top of wearing dog pyjamas, not having showered and having unbrushed teeth?
Niall’s face lit up with a mischievous smile that was no less cheeky than when he’d smiled as a sixteen-year-old. ‘Maybe.’
‘Are you serious?’ She eyeballed him with all the intensity she could muster.
He shook his head. ‘Maybe.’
‘Niall!’
‘No, you weren’t snoring. You looked very cute.’
