“Why don’t you want me to see it?” Ari asks him curiously, and he gives her a strange shrug.
“I, well, it’s just a—” He pauses. “A bad photo,” he finishes, a little lamely. She nods, accepting the answer, though she keeps her eyes firmly locked on the sea. She’s not a fool, and she heard the odd lilt to his voice when he spoke. A lilt that made her question the truth of his words.
Still, she says nothing, choosing to bury herself again in his arms and in the happiness she knows they share when together. Maybe Tom isn’t the trickster, she thinks to herself bitterly. Maybe she is, though her only victim is herself. A simple wave of a magic wand, the turn of the right card and she can and will fool herself into believing anything Tom tells her. It’s the trick of the century — the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it lie in the dark. And she falls for it every time, because she loves him, and she knows he loves her too. He loves her, and tricks or not, she knows he would never deliberately hurt her.
Ari has so little experience of love in her life. So little experience of happiness. And so she tries to console herself, even when she hears Tom deflect, evade or lie in his silence. They are happy. They are in love. Their happiness and love cannot be deflected or evaded or silenced, even if Tom and the man he is can be.
It has to be enough for her.
She’s starting to learn that, with Tom, there won’t be anything else.
Denmark is a pleasant country, clean and floral and populated by generally cheerful and open-minded people. Ari and Tom spend two weeks there, soaking in the Northern European charm. One night Tom takes Ari to a tiny restaurant in Copenhagen, so small it hardly fits four tables, where they drink wine by candlelight and eat frikadelle and oysters. Afterwards, he takes her back to their hotel and strips her of her clothing, piece by piece, running his hands over her skin with disbelief at each new patch of skin that’s revealed to him.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers against her, his lips brushing over her body so that she erupts into thousands of goosebumps. “You are so perfect. I can’t believe you let me touch you like this. I can’t believe you let me anywhere near you.”
Later, when she’s lying naked in his arms, content and sated, she can brush her worries aside. In those moments, she knows she’ll take Tom any way she can have him. Even if it’s just like this, nothing more than a string of romantic moments with a man she hardly knows.
A man she hardly knows but loves more than she can say.
Once they’ve exhausted Copenhagen, once she’s painted and discarded another three canvases and restocked her supplies, the old, inevitable question again rears its head: where next?
“Switzerland,” Ari says eagerly one afternoon. “We can go through the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany into Switzerland.”
“More eggs?” Tom asks with an easy, playful grin, and she returns his smile.
“No. But the art... Oh, Tom, you’ve never seen such art. The architecture in Switzerland alone is worth a visit. We could even visit the Alps and see snow.”
“And the chocolate?” he asks.
“Why? You like it?”
He shrugs. “It depends on what’s being served with it.” He gives her a long, hot gaze that brings colour to her cheeks. “You’d look good in chocolate,” he says lightly, though his words are heavy with promise. “I’d lick every last drop from you.”
She bites on her lip. “Yes,” she agrees slowly. “Let’s go to Switzerland. For the chocolate.”
He nods, and she settles into his arms, letting him trace patterns on her arm.
“Maybe we could pop over the border from Switzerland into France,” she suggests. “We could go to Rouen, see the Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen—” She stops, noticing that Tom has stiffened behind her, his arm rock still, the veins in his hands showing.
“What?” she asks worriedly. “Is something the matter?”
“No, it’s nothing, it’s just...” Tom pauses, a strange look settling on his face. “My mother’s family comes from France.”
“Oh,” Ari says, her heart suddenly racing at the knowledge that he just shared something with her. Something of him, of his past. Ari pauses. Tom has a mother. A mother with a French background. In the absence of any other real information, it feels like a staggering intimacy. “You, um, never talk about your family.”
He shrugs then, as if it’s no matter, and perhaps it isn’t. Not to him.
“My cards... the queen of spades... that deck is from Rouen,” Tom admits, and Ari nods, soaking the information in.
“I didn’t know,” she replies. “I should give the queen of spades back to you... I should...”
“No,” Tom says suddenly, his voice firm. “That card belongs to you now.”
“But it belonged to your family . . .”
“Yes, it did. But I gave it to you. I want you to have it.” He pauses. “I like that you have it.”
“Have you ever been to Rouen?” she asks curiously, and he shakes his head.
