I’m up early, having spent a lot of the night slipping in and out of dreams that seemed to be driven by snippets of country music. I think at one point I was even dancing in my sleep. Nic’s eyes seemed to be there at every turn, watching me, smiling at me and connecting with me.
Even lying back and closing my eyes, his face is still there, as if it’s imprinted on the inside of my head. The music starts to fade and his hands reach out for mine. As our fingers touch he feels real, even though I know this is a daydream.
I vault out of bed and stand under the shower, letting the warmth of the water wash away my dream. There’s only one way to calm a turbulent mind and that’s to work.
Playing back Paige’s interview, she said she knew Darren was the one when she first set eyes on him. And yet, leafing back through my notes from Veronica’s interview, she said it wasn’t until their third date she had this gut feeling that Liam was meant to be in her life. That has me scrabbling to check the guys’ interviews.
Liam said that Veronica grew on him and suddenly dates weren’t planned, they were taken for granted. That doesn’t sound very romantic to me. Darren’s response was very different. He said that he could read Paige’s feelings, as he saw it in her eyes. He told me that relief flooded over him as it would have broken his heart if she hadn’t felt it, too.
I’m a journalist, not an expert on love, because you need to experience it first-hand in order to understand it, I suppose. But the difference between these two couples was gnawing away at me, like a crossword clue you can’t solve. I wonder what it was that I saw reflected back at me on Nic’s face last night. I remember Darren’s eloquent description when he talked about the moment he fell in love. You’d know if it was the real thing, wouldn’t you? You couldn’t mistake it for something else, like pure lust. Could you? And how do you recognise it in someone else?
I sit back in my chair, chewing the end of my pen. I’m not saying Darren and Paige are more in love than Liam and Veronica, but the younger couple seem to give out this innate sense of being on the same page with their relationship. Of course, the two lifestyles couldn’t be more different. Maybe what I’m trying to do here isn’t merely in the pursuit of clarity so I can do the article justice, but to understand how people fall in love. Am I looking for answers because ultimately I want what they already have? Or am I simply doing the job I’m being paid to do?
Suddenly a switch turns on in my head and I jump online, calling up Liam’s YouTube page. Curiously, no new videos have been posted since the Lapland adventure. Cursoring down the long list of videos that in itself is unusual. Maybe it’s a little early for him to be downloading the prequel to their current jaunt, although he’s done that for most of their other exotic trips, but five months with nothing new?
I go back a year and click on a video of a trip to China. The opening couple of minutes is mostly panning around and I skip forward until I see Veronica’s face fill the screen. She’s beaming as she extols the delights of their stay at the Commune by the Great Wall. She explains that it lies at the foot of the fortifications and was named one of China’s top ten new construction miracles by American Business Weekly in two-thousand-and-five. But it’s not the words coming out of her mouth that catch my interest, it’s the light in her eyes. Clearly she’s looking at Liam and, yes, she’s having a wonderful time but it isn’t just the holiday that’s enthusing her.
I stop the video and move down to the end of the list and after a little buffering I’m back in Lapland. That shining, almost flirtatious look has gone. Her smiles come from the way she sets her mouth and lifts her cheeks but her eyes don’t smile at him anymore. It’s as if there’s some sort of disconnect. I click further along the progress bar at the bottom of the screen to catch the drinks party at the sauna. Sitting back in my chair to watch a scene that previously I hadn’t really paid much attention to, it dawns on me now that I was blindly focusing on that Christmas feel-good factor.
The camera has been set up to run and this is probably only a portion of the original footage. With drinks flowing quite freely and people hopping in and out of the indoor hot tub to grab time in the steam room opposite, there’s plenty to distract the eye. So, I concentrate on watching Liam and Veronica’s movements. It’s almost as if Liam is avoiding her at times. As she enters the hot tub, he eases himself out and heads off to reappear with a fresh drink in his hand. I’m watching Veronica chatting away to one of the other women on the trip and once again, Liam isn’t there. As I scan around he’s following someone into the steam room and there it is. As his right arm is holding open the door for the vivacious looking woman with a mass of dark curls clipped up on top of her head, he leans forward and steals a kiss on the back of her neck. Unnoticed by the others, the door closes behind them.
I click back to the very beginning and watch the entire video with a fresh pair of eyes. He was careful, but then for a large part of the footage he was safely behind the camera. What gave him away time and time again is the way he seemed to follow that women whenever she appeared in the shot. There was no footage at all of Veronica talking to her and that told me everything I needed to know. Veronica is aware that Liam is having an affair. Either he doesn’t realise that and thinks he’s gotten away with it, or they have an open marriage.
I let out a slow, depressing sigh. My stomach is already full of butterflies this morning but now it’s churning. When I’m not focusing on what I’m doing, Nic drifts into my head and I have to push him away because this is important. What if Veronica walks away from Liam before the article goes live? They seemed to have it all and yet the proof is there in front of me, confirming that what was probably a wonderful love story to begin with is now little more than a sham and I’m gutted. There’s no time to find a replacement couple and they so fit the bill. I have no choice but to keep my fingers crossed nothing happens between now and publication day.
It’s a stumbling block I hadn’t expected, but as the day runs its course I shake off that sense of disappointment. However, a growing sense of dread that I’m ignoring the potential for disaster here niggles away inside my head. Today everything feels like a battle anyway as Nic is there in my head at every turn, no matter what I do. He wasn’t just looking at me every time our footsteps brought us closer together last night, he was looking into me. He was searching, in exactly the same way that I was doing to him. We were questioning each other’s motives.
Is this a case of right man, wrong place and wrong time? How could life be so cruel? After listening to Max’s sad story about relationships falling apart because work always came between them, wasn’t that a warning?
I skip lunch, preparing myself for the interview with Darren and Paige at three o’clock. It lasts just over an hour and their happiness is infectious; there’s a lot of laughter and meaningful eye contact. And playfulness, as they tease each other about their shortcomings. It is all so natural, as if it didn’t matter that Darren was untidy and Paige always had to pick his clothes up off the floor. Or that Paige often ran late because she is nowhere near as organised as he is. They both have faults but nothing that bothers either of them. I end the session feeling that what they have is special, very special indeed.
I tidy up, ready to grab a quick sandwich and aim for an early night. I know that although I was irritated by Nic’s attitude almost as soon as I jumped into his taxi that first day, I was also intrigued by him. If I was feeling so put out, then why did I book him to take me into town? I could easily have found another number online. I smile to myself, acknowledging that maybe this isn’t a surprising turn of events. The attraction was there from the start, I just wasn’t sure it was mutual. And now I know. He kissed my cheek because he wanted to make a statement.
I suck in a breath, wondering what I’m letting myself in for and knowing I can’t simply run away, even if I wanted to. Besides, having had my little epiphany the other day, if I want to take control of my future then it’s going to be all about change. I just had no idea that would include coping with a heart that misses a beat every time I think about a certain someone.