you too, stranger. Of all the gin joints, hey?’ He fiddled with the last of his belongings.
I let out a breathy laugh. My body felt loose with relief, almost like I was floating. I couldn’t feel my legs. ‘What are you doing here?’
He held up the arm with the suit hanger wrapped around it. ‘Heading to France for a late family Christmas-slash-New-Year-slash-I’ve-been-a-terrible-workaholic-son-all-year type of party.’
His eyes narrowed on my clothes, and I suddenly felt self-conscious of the activewear leggings and I HEART SCOTLAND hoodie I’d chosen as my plane outfit, especially when he looked handsome as hell in a buttoned-up navy blue sweater and matching pea coat.
‘Is this it then?’ he asked.
I felt my heart tug a little at his words. Is this it? They stung, and the realisation that I was so close to leaving sat in my stomach like a pit of post-meal acid.
‘This is it.’ I nodded. ‘A thirty-hour flight in two metal tubes forty thousand feet in the air and I’ll be back in Sydney.’
‘God, and here I am internally moaning about my forty-minute flight across the channel.’ He stared at me with those piercing blue eyes. ‘Want to grab a coffee then? How long have you got?’
I angled for a view of the departures board nearby. ‘About an hour or so. You?’
‘A little more than an hour or so. I thought the tube would be busier, so I came early. Just as well.’ He gave me a wink as we slid into a couple of empty chairs facing the window. Outside, planes took off, while others bounced and skidded to a stop, ferrying people to and from all corners of the world. It seemed like, here in our own little bubble, time had stood still.
‘How goes work?’ It was so unfair to be this excited at the mere sight of someone.
‘Good!’ He nodded. ‘Great. Lots of impotence, not me, of course.’ A lanky finger pointed back at himself. ‘Thrush, colds, disease incubators.’
‘Still not you, right?’ I teased.
He crossed his fingers before taking a sip of coffee. ‘Promise.’
‘Busy?’
‘Just the way I like it, keeps me out of trouble.’
I laughed, enjoying the way we fall back into the banter of Hogmanay. He asked about the rest of my trip, quizzing me on favourite landmarks and dropping random factual titbits here and there. I asked about his work and training, and went back and forth as we outlined where we’d like to be in five years.
Slowly, without realising it, I noticed William’s hand on mine, closing his hand around my fingers. ‘Where do you want to go first?’
‘Hey?’ I smiled, distracted by the fact that he was actually here in front of me, holding my hand. This sort of thing did not happen in my life.
He grinned. ‘When we travel the world together – where are we going?’
‘Well.’ I huffed and relaxed back into my seat, almost leaning on him. ‘I thought maybe I’d just take you home first.’
‘Good. Great. I’ve always wanted to go to Sydney. Where’s the first place you’re taking me?’
If I had any doubt about him at all, the fact that he remembered so much detail told me everything I needed to know: that he felt the same.
‘Right. I guess the first place we’d go is the sandwich place near the train station. It’s about ten minutes’ walk from home, in this little huddle of shops, and they make the best roast pork rolls. And breakfast, they do a great breakfast, too.’
‘Brown sauce?’
‘As much as you want.’
‘Excellent.’ He squeezed my fingers gently. ‘I would take you … for a stroll through Soho. There are heaps of bookshops there. Cafés, obviously. We could drink coffee, read books, and duck into the small jazz bars that you don’t know are there until you’re ready for an espresso martini.’
‘Or…’ I poked at his chest. ‘A Fighter.’
‘No, no, no.’ He chuckled. ‘You need to not do that.’
‘After breakfast, we could head to Bondi Beach. We could fail miserably at surfing together.’
‘Ooh.’ William winced. ‘In the summer? Might end up a bit lobster-fied.’ He reached across and pinched at my face with pincer hands.
I angled my face away from his grip, laughing hysterically. ‘Sunscreen is a thing.’
‘All the sunscreen in the world can’t protect this pale English skin, baby. Look at it, it’s…’
‘… alabaster?’ I tried.
‘Well, I was going to say porcelain, but alabaster sounds less like a toilet, doesn’t it?’
I looked away, covering my mouth with the palm of my hand. ‘You are not a toilet.’
He tipped the empty coffee cup in the bin next to us and looked at me. ‘You hungry?’
‘I could eat something.’
Still in a comedic mood, William began prattling on randomly again. I just knew I was about to turn into the human equivalent of a beetroot. My comment might have been a slip of the tongue, but my mind went wandering and my body ached in all the right places.
We wandered the terminal until we snared the last table left in a Lebanese restaurant. No wonder it was full, with the smells wafting from the kitchen. It was brightly decorated with lots of reds, yellows, and mosaic tiles. We ordered a sharing plate of tapas and very responsible pre-flight sodas.
‘You sure you don’t want your own meal? I’m happy to pay.’ William dropped a tattered backpack by his feet.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I said through a yawn. ‘We’re about to be overstuffed with bad aeroplane food anyway.’
‘Speaking of “we”, where is everyone? You were travelling with friends, weren’t you?’
I pointed to some spot in the distance, in the same way a supermarket employee would tell you sugar was in aisle three, while waving in that general direction. ‘They’re back at the pub..’
‘You didn’t want to join them? I don’t want to keep you from them, you know, if you’re all travelling together.’
‘We’re about to spend the next thirty hours together. I’m good.’
‘Okay. Good.’
We spent our remaining time nibbling at tapas and chatting about books, arguing over what we believed was the perfect plane read. He argued thrillers, as long as they weren’t medical in nature, and I was keen on beach romance. When those options were exhausted, we launched into a discussion about what films might be showing on the plane. It was a beautifully easy, rolling conversation. My phone buzzed a few times – Heather, wondering if I’d walked off with their cider. I whipped out a quick response saying I’d meet her at the gate.
Just as a discussion about the universe and godly beings was getting underway, the departures board clicked over to Boarding beside my flight number. It was accompanied with the familiar ding and the professional voiceover of a flight attendant inviting all first-class and frequent flyers to board first.
Reluctantly, and with a shared look of disgust, we gathered our belongings, William slipping my backpack across one shoulder. When he reached out, I gladly took his hand. So comfortable was it that I didn’t let go until we reached the gate, where everyone was waiting, as wide-eyed as they had been that night almost a week ago. I introduced William again, and asked Heather to take a photo. A Polaroid was the one piece of him that I could take home with me. Then William asked for one. Behind us, a stewardess announced our rows were ready for boarding.
‘This