Two days later, in Bangkok, I wiggle my toes under the foam of the bubble bath I’m taking in the hotel’s tub. We checked in last night, after first visiting Archie at the hospital. His prognosis is good. Our sweet Viking will be back on his feet in no time.
“If you stay in that tub any longer,” Logan calls from the adjoining room, “you’re going to turn into a mermaid.”
I stare at the skin on my fingertips; indeed, it’s already all wrinkled up. I don’t care, though, I’m not getting out of this tub for anything in the world.
“I’ve ordered dinner,” Logan says.
I don’t reply.
“Burgers and champagne.”
Okay, now he’s got my attention.
“And I’ve planned something special for dessert.”
“What?” I call back.
“I can’t tell you unless you come out and see for yourself.”
“Sorry,” I say. “This bath is too good.”
“Are you sure? Because dessert involves chocolate-covered strawberries hand-fed to you while naked in bed.”
Burgers, champagne, and a naked hand-feeding of chocolate strawberries?
No bath is that good.
I pull the tub stopper with my toes and get up as the water swirls down the drain. I use the showerhead to rinse my body of all the remaining foam and then step out of the tub, wrapping my body in a fluffy white towel.
Hot water, clean towels, food. Things I’m never again taking for granted.
In the bedroom, Logan isn’t much more dressed than me. He’s sitting at the small, round table wearing only his boxer briefs. His chest, arms, and legs are covered in bruises and bug bites. And his knees are still swollen from the impact with the ravine. Both our bodies have seen better times. But… mostly-naked Logan? Another thing I’ll never take for granted.
I scowl. “I thought you promised me a naked dinner?”
“Naked dessert,” he corrects. “You must endure clothes for the burgers and champagne.”
I sigh theatrically. “The hardships you put me through.”
We ravage the food with the enthusiasm of two people who’ve recently spent seventy-two hours eating basically nothing. And dessert turns out to be as worthy of an abandoned bath as Logan had promised. We make love well into the night and fall asleep curled in each other’s arms.
Who would’ve guessed the standoffish Dr. Logan Spencer was a cuddler?
***
We spend the next week suspended in this beautiful limbo where we live together in a hotel room, make love as we wake up, eat a lush breakfast, and take a cab to the hospital to visit Archie. The rest of the day Logan passes at the Thai Fine Arts Department, while I settle in a nearby cafe working on my computer to post-produce all the photos I took in the jungle. We eat lunch together, work more in the afternoon, pay Archie another visit, and then we go back to the hotel for another night of passionate lovemaking.
It’d be a perfect life, if not for the ticking timer attached to it.
Archie will be discharged from the hospital in two days. He and Logan have already booked a flight to San Francisco. Archie, to take some well-deserved downtime. Logan, to give his dean and the college foundation sponsoring the expedition a full report on our discovery. He needs to ask for more funds before he flies back to Trat to supervise the cataloging of all the treasures we uncovered and study the civilization who lived in the lost city. With a site so vast and untouched, the process will take months. Logan will have to move to Thailand.
I, too, have booked a flight home to LA. A near-death experience has been enough to make me reevaluate a few of my life’s choices. Like the one of not talking to my sister over a boy scuffle. First thing I’ll do when I get home is bang on her door and hold Summer in my arms so tightly, she’ll beg me to let go. Then we’ll crawl into her California king bed and stay awake all night talking until we fall asleep, like we used to do when we were kids.
The only remaining question is: with our lives moving in such opposite directions, what’s going to happen to Logan and me?
“Man,” Archie says, packing the last of his clothes in his rucksack. We’re in his hospital room, and I’m helping him get ready for the long flight home. Winter has gone to the cafeteria for a coffee run. From here, the three of us will share a cab straight to the airport. “Please tell me the photographer owes me two hundred bucks, yeah?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Back at camp, I bet her one hundred dollars you’d screw each other’s brains out before the expedition ended.” Archie folds a shirt on the bed and then turns his piercing blue gaze on me. “She raised me two hundred you guys wouldn’t.”
The statement takes me aback.
Without having specifically agreed on it, both Winter and I have been very discreet with PDAs in front of our friends. No real reason why, I guess we just wanted to enjoy the privacy of our new relationship. But Archie knows me too well…
From the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, I can tell he’ll tease me until the end of time.
“Don’t even try to deny it, man,” he adds.
“Okay, I won’t.”
He pats me on the shoulder, affectionately but mockingly. “My boy, you make your old man proud.”
I push his hand away. “Oh, stop it!”
“I’m sorry.” Archie laughs. “But Dr. Logan Spencer breaking his own rules—to never mix business and pleasure—and for a woman! Not an everyday sight. But, heck, I’ve met the lady… So I understand, buddy, and I forgive you.”
“Forgive me for what?”
“For placing yourself before the mission…” With pretend gravity, he repeats back to me all the warnings about dating a colleague I’d given him weeks ago at the resort. “For risking the expedition on a skirt and a pair of legs, for—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I interrupt. “The moral high ground is yours.”
Archie throws his last T-shirt into the rucksack and ties the cover, then, turning to me, he asks, “So is it just sex, or”—he cups his hands under his chin and, eyes exasperatingly wide, bats his eyelashes—“are there feelings involved?”
A knock on the door prevents me from answering.
“Is everyone decent?” Winter asks from the other side.
Archie answers first. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, Snowflake.” Then he looks at me in a you’re-not-off-the-hook way. His unanswered question hangs in the air between us.
Winter comes in and gives me a paper coffee cup. Instinctively, I wrap an arm around her waist and stamp a kiss on her full lips.
Startled blue eyes stare up at me.
“We’re busted,” I explain. “He knows.”
Winter turns to Archie, smiles, and shakes her head. “Oh, we’re never going to hear the end of it, are we?”
If Archie’s devilish grin is any indication, no, we’re not.
Winter hands Archie his coffee, then takes a sip from her cup. “Can you at least wait until I’m properly caffeinated before unloading the heavy artillery?”
Archie gives a magnanimous nod. “Sure, Snowflake.” And, with a teasing grin, he adds, “I’ll think of all the things I can blow two hundred bucks on in the meantime.”
She rolls her eyes, but with a smile, and changes the subject. “Are we good to go?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Actually,” Archie says, “would you mind waiting for us downstairs?”
Winter raises her brows at him in a silent question.
“One bandage is hitching,” he explains. “I’d like my boy here to take a quick look.”
It sounds like an excuse, and from the small frown on Winter’s face, I know she’s thinking the same. But she doesn’t question it. She shrugs in a “boys will be boys” way, pulls on her rucksack, and with her coffee-free hand grabs the suitcase of city clothes she used to torture me with at the resort. But I can’t blame her; I was an ass back then and deserved being messed with.
I hold the door open for her.
“Don’t be too long,” she says. “Traffic can be unpredictable in Bangkok, and we already don’t have much of a cushion.”
I nod and give her a quick kiss on the forehead.
When she’s gone, I turn to Archie. “What is it?”
He stands leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, studying me. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“What question?”
“Are you in love with her?”
Ah.
“Why do you ask?”
“To know what you plan to do here, man.”
I gape in shock for a moment. “Are you seriously lecturing me on how to behave with women? You?”
“Well, this is the first woman I owe my ass to, and twice over, so I’ve grown pretty fond of her.”
“Then you don’t have to worry. My intentions are nothing but honorable.”
Archie doesn’t look convinced. “So you’ve already had the talk?”
“What talk?”
“Buddy, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but in three hours”—he taps his watch for emphasis—“you’re on a flight to San Francisco and she’s heading back to LA. Have you guys discussed the logistics of the long-distance relationship scenario?”
“No, but, we’re cool. Winter is cool. We haven’t figured out the details yet, but—”
“Have you talked about it, like, at all?”
“Not exactly. But—”
“And she’s okay with it?”
“She must be, she hasn’t brought the topic up once.”
“And why haven’t you?”
“I don’t know, it didn’t come up.” Enough with the grilling. “Would you back off on the third degree and chill?”
“Yeah, man, all right. Just one last piece of advice…”
“Yeah?”
“If you love her… tell her before she boards that plane.”
***
The discussion with Archie leaves me pensive. The slight tension between us lingers in the confined cab ride to the airport. So we don’t talk. I’m too busy introspecting.
Am I falling short with Winter? Does she expect some grand gesture or something from me? How are we going to say goodbye? My original plan was to surprise her in LA as soon as I was done giving my reports to the university and foundation boards, so I’ve kept my intentions quiet. Has she taken my silence as a sign that I don’t care? Surely not. She must know I’m serious about us.
She must.
Winter, too, is quiet. She seems to be lost in her own thoughts, staring out the window at the Bangkok skyline with a faraway look, like she’s not taking in anything she’s seeing.
Mmm. Maybe Archie had a point.
The silent ride to Suvarnabhumi Airport takes slightly over an hour, and, as Winter predicted, we’re tight for time, especially her, since her flight leaves forty-five minutes earlier than ours.
All business-like, the three of us enter the airport and split right away to drop off our luggage at our respective check-in booths. The lines are similar in length, and we all get our boarding passes at the same time.
We regroup shortly afterward in front of the security check gates.
Winter looks up at me with a strained smile. “So I guess this is goodbye,” she says. “I should be hurrying, my plane will start boarding soon.”
Tension marks her features, and, with Archie’s warning ringing loud and clear in my ears, I begin to wonder if I should really tell her I love her.
But here? At the airport? While we’re pressed for time and about to leave… seems highly unromantic…
Still, now I’m nervous. Archie is doing his best to be inconspicuous. He would’ve probably left us alone already, if his abrupt departure wouldn’t make this even more awkward. And Winter… she’s still looking at me with those impossibly big blue eyes.
What do I do now?
I let out a nervous laugh. “So, I just figured I don’t even have your phone number…”
“My phone number?” Winter spits out.
I know that pout. It promises nothing good.
“Yeah, you know, to keep in touch.”
Her eyes narrow, and she looks more like the Winter of the first days we met. The woman giving me grief about almost everything and not the warm, loving creature of the past week.
Boarding pass and passport in one hand, she takes a step toward me. “You want to keep in touch?” The question comes out in a hiss.
“Yeah?”
What am I doing wrong here?
“I’ll tell you what,” she snaps. “Why don’t you friend me on fucking Facebook, then!”
And with that, she spins on her heel, walks toward the security gate checkpoint and, showing her boarding pass to the officer at the head of the line, marches away on the other side.
I’m already running after her. “Winter, wait!” I call.
When I reach the officer, I hand him my ticket. But after one quick look at the papers, the attendant shakes his head at me. “This is fast track only.” He points at the sign above the queuing lane entrance.
“Well, I don’t have a fast track pass,” I say in a panic. “But I need to reach that woman.”
“Sorry,” the man says. “This line is only for passengers with a fast track ticket.”
“Winter!” I call again. I can still see her on the other side as she removes her jacket and places her bag in a plastic box to feed it through the baggage scanner. “Winter, wait! Winter!”
She doesn’t hear me—or, pretends not to. And then she’s past the metal detector and walking away. Away from me. Away from us.
I stare to my left at the regular security line, and my shoulders sag in defeat. The queue is too long. I’ll never catch up with her before she boards her flight.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the officer says. “If you don’t have a fast track pass, I need you to move aside.”
A heavy arm drops on my shoulders and steers me away. Archie gives me a pat on the chest with his other hand. “Attaboy, that went well… uh?”
Did I overreact?
I spend the journey home asking myself that question over and over again.
Unfortunately, I have a disproportionate amount of time to obsess. The itinerary back to California is crap. Some volcano in the Philippines decided to throw a little cinder and sparks party over the weekend, making the shortest, east-bound route to LAX closed off to all flights. So I’m rerouted to London Heathrow first, then New York JFK, and finally LAX.
A nightmare of a trip for every traveler, but for one journeying with a broken heart, like yours truly, it’s unbearable.
So, did I overreact?
I’m not sure what exactly Logan said that set me off like that. I know I can be impulsive. But where I spent our time in Bangkok trying to figure out how we could make our relationship work—Should I move to Berkeley? Could he transfer to UCLA? Should we do long-distance for a while?—Logan, apparently, hadn’t given it a second thought.
Maybe I’m the idiot for assuming we were on the same—serious relationship—page. But if he didn’t quit his job for Tara after so many years together and with wedding bells on the horizon, he’s not going to do it for me after a week of jungle romance.
The idiot asked for my phone number… to keep in touch.
What does that even mean?
The question tortures my poor brain hour after hour. On the first plane, I don’t sleep. On the second, somewhere over the Atlantic, I pass out due to sheer exhaustion, but when we land in New York I’m none the more rested. I still feel like crap, have found no answers to my questions, and I’m dying for a decent, not-in-flight cup of coffee.
With a four-hour layover ahead of me, at least I have plenty of time to get a lavish breakfast.
Inside the airport, my gate hasn’t been announced yet. So I wait in the general hub and stop at a nice bar with a clear view of the departures board. It’s not exactly a coffee shop, but I like the look of their fancy Italian coffee maker and of the donuts on display over the counter. I need the caffeine, the sugar, and the saturated fats. This is my place.
“Hi.” I sit at one of the high stools that line the main bar counter. “A cappuccino and a donut please.”
“Single or double glaze?” the bartender—a friendly-looking guy with sandy hair and blue eyes—asks.
“Definitely double.”
“On its way.”
Five minutes later he places my breakfast in front of me. “Sugar’s right there.” He points at a glass jar on the counter.
“Thanks.”
I add a sprinkle of sugar to my coffee and tuck in. At record speed, I consume everything, my stomach still grumbling once I’m done.
The bartender clears the empty plate and mug in front of me. “Can I get you anything else?”
“What other breakfast food do you have?” I could eat another donut, but now I’m craving something savory.
“We do paninis,” the bartender says as if reading my mind. “Cheese and ham?”
“Yes, please. And an orange juice, please.”
He nods, smiles, and gets to work making the sandwich and feeding oranges to the juicer machine.
“Here you go,” he says, placing the food and drink in front of me.
I take a bite of toast and moan my appreciation. “Gosh, I really needed this.”
“Long flight?” he asks.
“Long everything.”
“Not a fan of plane food?”
“Who is?”
“No one, you’re right.”
The bartender lets me enjoy my second breakfast in peace, but when he comes to clear my plate again, he asks, “Traveling for business or pleasure?”
“Ah.” I scoff. “Business, no pleasure whatsoever!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Bad trip?”
“Bad boss.”
“Ouch. What did he/she do?”
“He. At first, the idiot behaved like a jerk just because I’m a woman. Then, he made me fall in love with him. And when I was completely head over heels gone, what did the prick do?”
The bartender shrugs in a no-idea way.
“He went and asked for my phone number… to keep in touch! Bah! What does that even mean? What do you think he meant?”
“Err… I need more information to make a proper assessment. Like, how did he go from being a jerk to making you fall for him?”
And before I know it, I’m telling this guy the whole story. From my first encounter with naked Logan, to the expedition in the jungle, the lost city, Smith and his rogue mercenaries, our escape, up until our wretched farewell at Bangkok airport yesterday.
When I finally shut up, the bartender lets out a low whistle. “Whoa, that’s quite a story. In my job, I hear many tales… but this adventure… wow!”
Did I overshare? Maybe I overshared. But when I’m nervous, I talk. When I’m tired, I talk. When I’m both, I crash into TMI land like a cannonball.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve unloaded my life story on you and haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Winter Knowles.”
“Mark Cooper,” he says, and offers me his hand to shake.
Another customer sits a few stools away from me, and Mark goes to serve him before he comes back to me and begins unloading the bar dishwasher.
Eager to hear a second opinion, I ask, “So, what do you think Logan meant by asking for my number?”
“Honey, I really can’t tell you if he’s in love with you or not. But running away probably wasn’t the best way to find out.”
“I know, right?” I bite my lower lip. “But I had a plane to catch, and he just made me so mad.”
“Or…” Mark stops sorting dishes and looks me straight in the eye. “You were afraid of the answer and preferred to bail before you found out.”
“Oh, gosh.” I cover my face with my hands and, peeking between my fingers, I say, “You might be right. So what do I do now?”
Mark gives me a warm smile. “You go home, get some rest, and then go get the man! He’s coming back to the States, too, right?”
“Mm-hm. But shouldn’t I wait for him to come to me?”
With a mock-serious raised brow, Mark asks, “Are you really into all that men-should-make-the-first-move crap?”
“No,” I admit. “Not really.”
“Then we have a plan!”
“You’re right, thank you. Even if Logan says he doesn’t want to be with me, I need to know either way.”
“All passengers. Flight AA 171, with direct service to Los Angeles LAX, is beginning boarding at gate 46. We’re going to start boarding families with small kids and passengers with special needs. Then, we’re going to board first and business class passengers. And finally, all other passengers…”
“Oh, that’s my flight!” I say, getting up. “How much do I owe you?”
Mark hands me the bill and takes my credit card. “You need your receipt?”
“No, thanks,” I say. “Just a bit of luck.”
Mark winks at me. “This Logan guy would be an idiot to let you go.”
I nod, ready to head to my gate. “I agree with you. Let’s hope he does, too.”