Delete. New email. Delete. New email.
After way too many attempts, I give up and turn my phone off. Ha, take that Fate!
You’ll never guess what I’m doing? Yes, that’s right, I’m wandering about the shops at Heathrow. I consider turning my phone back on for my daily chat with Penny, but what with all the weird insistent emails and messages from strangers, it feels too much like opening a frightening portal to another realm, so I decide against it. Instead, I actually buy the salmon sperm facial today. It’s hugely expensive, which seems ridiculous considering the contents, but I plan to slap it on mid-flight. Perhaps this is my mission, I wonder idly. Maybe I should have bought the moisturizer all along, and my quest is simply to find some great skincare?
Feels like a lot to put a person through, just for the sake of a well-hydrated face, but who truly knows by this point?
Still, at check-out I ask for a bag so people can’t see what I’ve bought. The word SPERM is written in large capital letters on the packaging, after all. I’m walking swiftly away from the spermy crime scene, head held low, not looking where I’m going, when I walk slap bang into someone.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, bouncing backwards.
There, standing right in front of me, is Callum Bang.
I gasp, blinking furiously in case this is a mirage.
‘Callum?’ I say in one shaky exhale, equal parts delighted and unsure. ‘You’re here! Hang on, are you here?’
I decide that the best way to confirm his presence is to snake my arms around his waist and press myself up close to him. Instinctively, I squish my face into his chest, inhaling great lungs full of his citrussy scent. It feels like the oxygen I’ve been missing. It’s like I’ve been suffering from altitude sickness this entire time, stranded somewhere high up a mountain, flailing around in a thinning atmosphere.
Callum is my basecamp and finally, finally, I can breathe again.
‘It’s you,’ I whisper, the realization hitting me square in the face. This beautiful, annoying man who has been standing right in front of me the entire time. ‘I thought I’d lost you, so I made a plan to go it alone, but everything just kept getting weirder and now you’re here and, oh my God, it’syou.’
I step back, tears dancing in my eyes as I properly look at him.
It’s definitely Callum. Solid, real, handsome as hell. His green eyes blaze down at me, twinkling through his glasses in the airport lighting. And I decide, in this moment, to pour it all out.
‘We’ve got so much to talk about but first, I really have to get this off my chest. Because it kind of got eclipsed back on Monday Five when you told me you were looping too – and I want to hear all about that, by the way. For example, where the hell were you yesterday and the day before? But before any of that, you saidsomething that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. We’d just landed in Perth and you said: “I want you to pick me”.’
I pause to look up at him, standing there watching me intently. He does not say a word. Classic Callum.
‘And I’ll be honest,’ I babble on. ‘I’d ruled you out over the past few days. Seemed to me like you were no longer an option. But, God, here you are! I want to say that I do pick you. I will always pick you, even if we have to spend the rest of our days living this eternal Monday. Honestly, I’d rather that than not have you around, Callum. I’ve missed you so hard these past few days which is so bonkers, when you think about it, because we really did not like each other very much. Until I realized that I really do like you. Very much.’
I pause to catch my breath, gazing up into his eyes.
Callum looks confused.
My heart stops beating. Clean stops.
Have I said too much? Does he still hate me in this version of today?
Eventually, he opens his mouth to speak.
‘I’m so sorry, but have we met?’
A sucker punch to the heart. Staggered, I stumble backwards, no clue what to say. He doesn’t even know who I am? Now my heart is hammering so hard I can feel it pumping in my chest, like it’s trying to escape, and I don’t blame it.
I’m about to shout a lot of extremely loud expletives and have the world’s largest meltdown when the I see the corners of his mouth twitch up.
I know that smile. It’s the mischievous one that delights in teasing me. The one I used to find so damn irritating until I didn’t.
‘Moss,’ he says in a slow, low rumble. ‘Just kidding.’
‘What?’ I shriek.
‘Of course I know who you are. How could I forget? I’ve missed you like crazy.’
‘So you were teasing me, just now, after I quite literally poured my heart out to you?’
