“Well, the airways are clear now,” Ari replies, more than a little sadly. “I just got a message from the airline. My flight leaves at 2p.m.”
“Mine leaves at four,” Tom says, and she thinks — or does she hope? — that the same sadness she feels also tinges his voice.
“We have the morning,” she says softly. “If you want, we have the morning.”
“I want,” he replies instantly. “I want very much.”
She blushes again. “More card games?”
“No,” he answers. “More magic.”
He pulls her back into his arms and kisses her softly. His eyes are soft, and his breath is warm and his lips are firm, and she could melt, right then and there, from all three of them.
“How am I going to say goodbye to you?” he whispers, and she isn’t sure if he’s asking the question of her, or of himself. “How do I do that, Ari?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers back, allowing herself to run a finger along his bottom lip. “But we don’t have a choice. It’s just something we have to do.”
“There’s always a choice,” he says, just before he kisses her once more. “And with you, I want to make the right one.”
* * *
They say goodbye in the departures lounge. As Ari boards the plane, she tries to stop the tears that have treacherously gathered in her eyes. She bites her lip, pushing her hand luggage into the overhead containers and trying to see reason.
It was just a one-night stand.
He was only ever going to be a fling.
He would just be a story she told.
It was never meant to be.
She sits in her seat, staring out of the window miserably, looking at the airport terminal and wondering where Tom is, where he’s sitting and what he’s doing.
Wondering if he’s already missing her the way she’s missing him.
It’s then that a voice sounds from above her, and she turns.
It’s Tom, and he’s sliding into the seat beside her.
“What?” she whispers. “How are you here?”
He smiles at her, before claiming her cheeks with his hands and kissing her passionately.
“Ari,” he says. “I told you. There’s always a choice. And you know something? I just made the right one.”
Chapter 7: The Ends of the Earth
It shouldn’t be possible to fall in love this quickly. It shouldn’t be possible to feel so strongly, so movingly, about anyone this quickly at all. Love isn’t like that. Love isn’t lust, which can hit you like a tonne of bricks. Nor is love like anticipation or excitement, both emotions that crash over you in waves, building upon one another in your bloodstream like a tidal pool of pleasure. Love is more than that. Love is slow-building, slow-moving. Love isn’t an ocean wave, but a gentle stream, a river that carries you away gradually.No,Ari thinks, staring at Tom while he sleeps.It can’t be possible to fall in love so quickly. It just can’t.
So, why then does she feel it? Why then does her stomach twist in knots in his presence? Why does her heart pound quicker, her blood run hotter? Why does the mere sight of him fill her with gladness? With happiness? With excitement and so many other emotions that she feels full to the brim with them? Why is that?
They’re lying in a hotel room in Oslo, the sheets knotted around them. Tom’s hands are in Ari’s hair, her head cradled lovingly against his chest. Absently, she runs her fingertips along his skin, tracing a pattern into his hip. He stirs against her, and she smiles, inhaling the smell of him in the warmth of their bed. It’s heady, his smell. Almost intoxicating. She could live off his smell, she thinks. Give up food and drink forever in exchange for a lifetime of this aroma.
She frowns at that, shaking her head. Five days with Tom and she’s become nonsensical, her mind turning to butter around him. Rational thoughts are all but gone, replaced by ridiculous ideas of love and romance. It’s infuriating. It’s demeaning. But it’s also wonderful.
She hadn’t come to Europe to look for love. No, that hadn’t been on the plan at all. This was her year to be wild and free. Her year to travel and have adventures. Her year to explore, to paint, to follow in the paths of great artists. Her pencils were packed, her paints securely fastened into her luggage. This was her year, a gift of time she’d given to herself. One day, soon enough, she would settle down to work. A meaningless role in graphic art, or marketing, or maybe web design. Something moderately well-paid and secure, in a generic London office. Grey work in a grey city, she’d always wryly thought. Ari, who’d had independence thrust on her from a young age, was realistic about the future. And grey was fine. It was safe and non-threatening, after all. Grey offered security — after a lifetime of stark black and white, of bleak prospects and even bleaker day-to-day living, security was all Ari could ask for.
It was all she wanted, really.
