Their car breaks down outside of Rouen, and Ari surprises him by cracking open the bonnet and peering inside.
“Where did you learn about cars?” he asks with interest, and she gives him a grin.
“Paid my way through art school with a side job at a mechanic’s,” she tells him. “Paint brushes and a wrench... I’m good with my hands.”
Tom grins back at her. “Don’t I know it.”
She throws a towel at him. “You can be cute later.” She turns back to the car, peering into the open hood. “Although it might be much later. This doesn’t look good.”
“What is it?” Tom asks, peering over her shoulder to take a look himself. He’s no mechanic, but he’s messed around with enough of his father’s old cars to know his way around an engine. “What do you think?”
“I think we’ll need a new part.” Ari sighs, sitting up and looking around her. The sun has just set and it’s getting dark, an azure sky settling in above them. “What are we going to do?”
“There was a small town about half a mile back,” Tom remarks. “Let’s head there, find somewhere to stay for the night. In the morning we’ll try and get a mechanic out to look at the car.”
“I can fix the car,” Ari says proudly, standing taller. “We just need the part.”
“Okay,” Tom agrees. “We’ll find a mechanic to get the part from then.”
She nods, before putting down her wrench and coming to stand beside him. Tom wraps his arms around her small frame, feeling that pulsing light of happiness run through him at her nearness. She nuzzles into him, and he presses his lips to her hair, inhaling that smell of hers that he loves.
“Just another egg to crack, right?” he says softly. “Another adventure for us.”
“Yes,” she agrees, looking up and catching his eyes. “Another adventure.”
“Come on,” Tom says, “we passed a hotel in that town. Let’s go and check in. There’s nothing we can do here now.”
Ari nods but makes no attempt to extricate herself from his arms. “I like you,” she tells him, a smile on her lips. “I like being with you.”
“I like being with you too,” Tom replies, kissing her gently. Her mouth is soft and sweet, and he sighs against her lips. “Come on, let’s get to the hotel.”
“What was it called?” Ari asks, and Tom thinks back to the sign he’d glanced at as they’d driven through the town, dark letters against a wooden board.
“The Hotel La Reine,” he says. “The Hotel La Reine.”
Chapter 11: Hacer La Vista Gorda
When Ari saw Luis and Reine come into view, sitting on the side of the road beside their broken-down vehicle, she felt a deep torrent of relief. Her body relaxed, her heart beat slower, and some of her uncertainty, some of that terrible jitteriness, dissipated on seeing her daughter whole and well.
It was one of the things no one had told her about motherhood, this odd dislike of being parted from her child. It was something she’d been unable to prepare for, no matter how many books she read or parenting vlogs she watched. No one had ever told her that, once her baby was in her arms, she would spend the rest of her life feeling incomplete when she was away from her. It was as though there was an invisible string between herself and Reine, and whenever — through necessity or choice — Ari had to be away from her, that string pulled on her heart, making her feel nervous, woebegone and incomplete.
She still remembered, with startling clarity, the first time she’d ever been away from Reine. Her daughter had been six weeks old and just starting to give Ari gummy, heart-melting smiles, when Luis and Sebastian had walked into her flat, dressed head-to-toe in running gear, sweatbands on their foreheads and a nappy bag strapped to their backs.
* * *
“Right,” Sebastian intones, taking in the sight of Ari on the sofa with Reine in her arms, a bottle of Lucozade by her side andHomes Under the Hammerplaying on repeat on the television. “It’s time.”
“Time for what?” Ari asks, protesting when Luis reaches down and scoops Reine from her arms.
“Time for you to get up, shower and get out of this flat,” Luis answers, cradling Reine and grinning at the baby. “TíoLuis and Uncle Sebastian have found a Mum’s Bums and Tums running group at the park, we’ve invested in a top-of-the-line baby jogger and are ready to take this one for the day in a cardio-friendly fashion.”
“No,” Ari replies instantly, reaching for Reine. “No, you can’t. I’m not ready yet. Besides,” she adds, “she breastfeeds. What about when she gets hungry?”
Luis pats his backpack. “I have three bottles of defrosted breast milk ready to go.”
Ari stares at him blankly. “Please tell me it’s mine, and that you didn’t buy it on the internet.”
Sebastian gives a huff. “Of course it’s yours. We popped in last night when you were passed out next to Reine’s cot and took it from the freezer.”
