Chapter 22
Ambra stowed her computer into her bag. She quickly double-checked the cupboards, the bathroom, and beneath the bed to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, but everything was packed away. It will be good to go home, she thought as she pulled on her jacket, to leave Kiruna and all its failures and memories behind her. She had managed to talk her way into a late checkout and decided on another quick trip that morning to the house where the Sventins lived, again on a whim. The place still looked completely abandoned, and she wasn’t even sure what she was hoping to achieve by going back. She had left another message with the social worker and then returned to the hotel to pack up the last of her things.
She would make it in to the office that afternoon and had promised to submit an article later that day, so Grace was no longer pissed. The taxi she ordered wouldn’t be coming for a while, and so she lay down on her bed with her cell phone, scrolling through her news feeds. The world seemed to be in one piece. Unless you lived in Syria, that was. She absentmindedly opened up Jill’s Instagram feed. Her sister had uploaded pictures of yesterday evening. Champagne glasses, an open fire, but also a picture where Tom was visible in the background. He probably wouldn’t appreciate that, she thought with a smirk. When she read through the comments, she saw how hate filled they were. Jill hadn’t been exaggerating, some of them really were hair-raising. Ambra reported the worst of the comments and put down her phone. She realized that the trip to Kiruna had been good in one sense: For the first time in a long while, she felt like she wanted to meet someone. A man, that is.
An acquaintance from another paper had been in touch over Twitter recently, asking if she wanted to go out. Should she say yes and arrange to go for a coffee with him once she was back in Stockholm? It would do her good to get out more. Stand up to her fears, do something other than work.
It was also good to have met Elsa. Ambra had taught the older woman how to send text messages and take pictures with her cell phone, and after a few minor autocorrect errors, they now sent short messages to one another. Elsa seemed especially fond of the emoji function, and her latest message to Ambra was full of flowers, planes, and waving hands.
The small frog from Elsa was wrapped up in a pair of socks in her purse. She would put it on her bedside table, alongside the only photograph she had of her parents and an insanely expensive and impractical candlestick from the super exclusive Swedish store Svenskt Tenn that Jill once gave her.
She would just have to focus on the positives of coming up here and try to repress the rest. In a few days’ time, she wouldn’t care anymore. And by this time next year, it would be nothing but another bizarre memory among all the others she’d collected over the years. One of many in the memory bank. Do you remember when you did a live TV report with your sweater inside out, ha ha? Or when you had to step in to do an interview with a furious politician and she tore strips off of you? Ha ha. Or, funniest of all, when you thought that ex-soldier in Kiruna liked you? Ha ha haaaa.
* * *
She heard a knock at the door. Ambra assumed it must be the cleaning staff wanting to come in, because she had waited until the last minute to leave her room.
“Come in,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. When no one answered, she got up and went over to the door.
Tom Lexington.
You have got to be kidding me.
“Hi there,” he said, filling the entire door frame with his size and presence.
Ambra lowered her hand to the handle and squeezed the metal tight. This was where she was meant to come up with something witty to say. Or slam the door.
“Hi,” was all she managed.
He peered over her shoulder, into the room where her luggage was packed and ready.
“Are you leaving?”
“My cab will be here soon.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the door frame.
“I wanted to stop by before you left,” he said.
She dragged the tip of her shoe against the floor. “You could’ve called. Or sent a message.”
“Guess so,” he said.
She was silent. Dragged her foot again, debated for a moment, and then resigned herself to it. She may as well come out and say it. She braced herself. “Sorry I was in such a bad mood yesterday.”
He shook his head. “It was my fault. You don’t have anything to apologize for. I don’t know what happened. I shouldn’t have, you know . . .”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“You’re cool, that’s what I mean. It’s been fun, spending time together these past few days. And it did me good, to get out, to talk with you. It really meant a lot to me. I’m grateful for it. But I told you about my situation.”
Jesus, she wasn’t sure how much more of this apology she could handle. “You don’t need to explain,” she said, but he continued anyway.
“I don’t know what happened. I lay awake all night thinking about it. I don’t want you to think I had any ulterior motive. I haven’t really been myself lately, you know, and the sauna was hot, and maybe it was the wine . . .”
“It’s okay, Tom,” she said, resting her cheek against the open door. She wasn’t pissed, she wasn’t angry. It was okay. Jill was right, this whole being someone’s comfort lay thing wasn’t really for her. She’d been attracted to Tom and then read her own feelings into the situation. Yes, she felt embarrassed, stupid. But they were her feelings, not his. No big deal. She would go home and sleep with the Twitter journalist instead, she decided.
“Thanks for coming by,” she said.
“It didn’t feel right to part on bad terms.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“Maybe we can be friends?”
“Sure. Friends, sure.” She groaned inside.
He seemed relieved. “I can carry those down for you,” he said, pointing to her bags.
After a short pause, she said yes; she didn’t want to seem ungrateful now that they were apparently going to be friends. They took the elevator down to the lobby, where she quickly checked out, and then they found themselves standing outside the hotel.
“You don’t need to wait with me,” she eventually said, hoping he would get the message.
He brushed some snow from his face. A number of flakes had settled in his black hair, small white stars in the darkness.
“That’s what friends do, isn’t it? Wait with one another.”
“Suppose so.”
They waited.
And waited.
“It’s cold,” she said, huddling up inside her jacket. She was about to freeze to death. “Maybe we should wait inside?”
“There’s no cab coming,” he said firmly.
“It’s coming,” she said.
“Nope.” He picked up her bag and started to make his way toward the parking lot.
“What are you doing?” she shouted, jogging after him. “The cab will be here any minute.”
“It’s not coming.” He threw her bag into what she recognized as his car.
“Am I being kidnapped?” she asked, irritated.
He closed the trunk lid, opened the passenger side door and held it open for her. “Jump in, I’ll give you a ride.”
“But the cab . . .”
“Get in.”
* * *
Tom pulled up outside the Kiruna airport fifteen minutes later. He parked by the terminal building, climbed out of the car, and lifted Ambra’s bag from the trunk.
“I can take it,” she said, holding out a hand.
“I’ll carry it in for you,” he said decidedly, ignoring the obstinate look in her eye. The bag was heavy, and he still felt guilty; he needed to do something for her.
She walked ahead of him, and Tom followed her jerky movements with his eyes. It was good they had straightened things out, that they could part as friends.
Tom waited as she went to pick up her boarding pass. She was taking her bag as hand luggage, and he knew she had her beloved computer inside. Strange how quickly you could get to know a person.
She turned around.
“So,” she said.
So.
New Year’s Eve was approaching, and the airport was busy. All around them, people were checking in bags, skis, and strollers. “Thanks for the ride,” Ambra said as Tom held out his hand to her. She had pulled off her hat when they went inside, and her hair was a wild mass around her face.
He told himself he was just going to straighten one particularly unruly lock, but somehow his hand wasn’t satisfied with that. After he straightened that one curl and saw it bounce back, his hand continued the movement. Suddenly, he found himself stroking her cheek in a tender, lingering gesture. She froze and stared at him. His fingertips were coarse, so he kept his touch gentle, just wanting to see whether she was as soft as he remembered.
She was.
He let his fingers rest against her silken skin.
Standing in the middle of Kiruna’s little airport, stroking Ambra’s cheek, should have felt like a mistake, but it didn’t. It felt like the smartest thing Tom had done in a long time.
“What are you doing?” she mumbled, her brow furrowed. Tom’s entire palm was on her cheek now, however that had happened. Ambra blinked slowly, but otherwise she held his gaze. She didn’t seem to be a particularly vain woman, and he assumed that those long black lashes of hers were real.
“Thanks for the past few days,” he said quietly.
She inhaled, as though she had forgotten to breathe and was now compensating for it with one long, deep breath.
“Tom?” she said.
“Yeah?”
He should stop touching her. But Ambra looked up at him, her eyes like mountain lakes and birch glades in spring. And then it felt as if she was moving her cheek against his palm, only a slight movement but enough encouragement for Tom’s fingers to slide back toward the nape of her neck, in beneath her curly hair. It was like touching a cat or mink fur, she was so incredibly smooth, and he heard someone breathe out and knew that the sigh had come from him.
Point of no return.
Every operation Tom had ever been on had one, a point of no return, and he was close.
Then, once Ambra was on her plane to Stockholm and disappeared from his life, possibly for good, her scent would linger on his fingers as a reminder, he thought. He passed the point where he might have been able to turn back, took one last step and held on to her, not hard but determinedly, lowered his mouth to hers, and then, finally, finally, he kissed her. Finally got to continue what he’d started yesterday, dreamed of last night. His mouth moved against hers. Their lips met, tentatively. He angled his head, gently brushed his tongue against her lower lip, and she allowed him in, parted her lips, invited him to taste her, to feel her welcoming warmth.
Tom pulled her closer, so firmly that he heard her pant; pressed her to him, felt her mold to his shape, felt a leg slip between his thighs. His hands moved in, beneath her coat, around her back, down past her waist, and onto her hips. He grabbed her ass and pulled her even closer, kissed her properly now. She was still just a stranger to him, but his hands and body were fast learners, enjoying the fact that she had a soft, round ass beneath her jeans, passionate arms exploring his body, and an eager mouth. She clung to him as though they were in the middle of a natural disaster and he was her only hope of survival. Tom moved one hand between their bodies and raised it to her breast, cupped the soft weight of it. She groaned faintly against his mouth, made that feminine movement of pressing her breast against his hand, and then he groaned, too, ran his thumb over her nipple, which he felt harden through her layers of clothing.
They kissed like that, passionately and erotically, until he sensed a change in her. She stopped moving in his arms, gently pulled away, placed one hand on his chest, and pushed him back. She didn’t say anything, just breathed heavily, and studied him as though she was trying to understand what had just happened.
“What happened to being friends?” she said with a wry smile.
Good question.
“I have no idea,” he said, pushing one of those incessant locks of hair from her face. His finger followed her temple, her cheek, and then wandered down towards her collarbone. She gave off such a strong, energetic impression that he didn’t always notice how young she looked. Every time she took a breath, her collarbone rose and fell beneath his hand. He could sense all her vulnerable points, her pulse, her throat, her veins.
“This was a bad idea,” she said, though she didn’t sound too convinced.
“Yeah,” he replied, taking her face in his hands and kissing her again—hard, eager, with an open mouth and tongue. Her palms flew up to his chest, onto his arms, and then around his neck, where they nestled into his hair. Tom groaned as Ambra pushed her body against his again. He hadn’t realized quite how starved he was when it came to physical contact. He pressed his mouth against hers, used his tongue, kissed her recklessly, uncontrollably, heard her whimper.
And then someone swerved to avoid something in the crowded departures hall; maybe it was a baggage cart, maybe someone stumbled and bumped into Ambra. Tom’s arms wrapped around her protectively.
“Sorry,” said the woman who had bumped into her.
“No worries,” Ambra mumbled.
The woman moved on, and Ambra laid her cheek against his chest. Tom’s hands were clasped behind her back, his chin in her hair, and he breathed in the scent of her. She shifted gently but stayed in his embrace, now with her nose against his breastbone. How long had they been making out like teenagers? A minute? Five? Even longer? He had no idea. It was as if everything his brain usually kept track of—his surroundings, the way people were moving, how much time had passed—ceased to exist. He let go of her, took a step back, and rubbed his face. A loudspeaker barked that the flight to Stockholm was now boarding.
She straightened her clothes. “That’s me,” she said.
“Yeah.”
Her face was flushed, her mouth looked like it had just been kissed, and he felt a jolt in his heart. They would probably never see each other again. “Hope you have a good flight home,” he mumbled.
She smiled, turned, and walked away toward security.
Tom waited, confident she would turn around. But she didn’t, and then she was gone.
Gone.