WEST WAITED UNTIL THEN, when it was likely that Lia would wake up on her own and be ticked at him, before he elbow-knocked on her door.
From the cacophony that preceded her opening the door, he could only assume that the new layout of the cabin was throwing her.
“G’mornin’...” He gave his best smile, then stretched out the hand holding her gadgets. “Brought these back.”
“Brought back?” she repeated, then picked them up as if they were foreign gizmos she’d never seen before. “Did I leave them out?”
He shook his head, then held out the mug of tea he’d brought in offering. “I came in and stole them last night so you could get a little extra sleep. Have tea, and get woken up a little. I’ve had a whole night of thinking, and you know I’m an impatient man.”
She took both offerings, pausing to toss the phone and radio behind her onto the bed, but kept the steaming mug in her hands. “You came and took them?”
“Aye,” he said, then nodded. “And I’m on duty still. It’s only ten, so I need to make this quick. May I come in?”
Last evening, he’d seen her run the emotional gamut from sad, to incredulous, to seriously annoyed, to far too quiet. It was the last one that had stayed with him. The one that had informed this morning’s decision.
“Why?” she asked, still not awake. Still adorably squinty-faced and now missing a hat, he could see how much her hair had grown out. Something he needed to ask her about. Those reasons she’d so passionately referenced.
“Because I have to say something...”
Last night, he hadn’t been able to properly appreciate how much roomier these quarters were, or the view. The room might end up colder than the ones at the end of the pods, as one wall had an immense, outwardly bending bubble of a window. Could’ve been on a submarine, or one of those retro midcentury designs for what they expected the future to look like: all modern lines and bubble windows. Would be hard to cover in the summer. Which might account for some of Tony’s insomnia. But that wasn’t why he was here.
He closed the door behind her and waited for her to take a perch on the corner of the bed with her cup, then just launched into it. He was rubbish at talking about bad things, and doing it like ripping off a bandage seemed the cleanest way. Put it on the table, then go back to work.
Confessing during your morning break, it was also kind of safer. No long drawn-out discussions could happen in such a short time period.
“I thought about this all night, and as far as I could come up with, I have only two options on how to handle this,” he said. “I can repeat myself until you punch me in the junk, which is neither productive nor fun. For me. Might be fun for you, depending on how angry you are.”
“Pretty angry.”
He nodded. “Or I can explain why I do... stupid things.”
That didn’t get a verbal response. She just looked instantly worried, and as alert as someone who’d been up for hours, and smartly stretched across the bed to put her tea down on the bedside table.
When she resumed a normal seated position before him, he instantly regretted not having tried to script it out, be eloquent.
“The reason I always look forward is because my rear view is... Pompeii, Sumatra and San Francisco, you know?”
“Volcanos?”
“Catastrophes. Earth-moving catastrophes,” he explained, already off to a banging start. “Only most of the catastrophes I see when I look back have been my own doin’. So, I don’t like to look back. I don’t like to talk about it, any of it. Or think about it. Or answer questions. Because of that, I’ve given you the impression I don’t want to know you. I still want to believe that none of that in the past matters, only what people can build together, but that hasn’t worked out so well.”
She shook her head, still saying nothing, and still worried, though he could see a spark of hope growing in her eyes.
“I shut down subjects I think might lead back to those things I don’t want to talk about. I know it’s a coping mechanism, but it’s helped me get over a lot of bad since I was a boy—focusing on the next good thing to replace the current bad thing.”
He paused to make sure she was still with him, but before she could say anything, he held up one finger to let her know there was more coming.
“When your city is buried under tons of ash, all you can do—the easiest thing, the cleanest thing you can do—is move on and start over.” God, he hoped she didn’t start asking for details on those bad things.
“How many times?” she asked, taking advantage of the pause he had to make to take a breath and get ready to say the big thing, the thing he prayed she’d hear and believe.
It only took him a couple seconds’ consideration to know he couldn’t possibly put a number to it. “I don’t know the answer to that. But that’s not the point, love.”
She frowned, but nodded in a way that said she was going to let him continue for now, but she wasn’t done with the number-of-moves thing.
He stepped closer, then squatted down so he was on eye level with her sitting on the corner of her bed. “I never look back at what’s been buried. When I said I never loved you, I thought you needed to hear that so that you could move on, too. But it was a lie. And I really need you to hear this...”
She nodded slowly, and waited, but the completely undisguised fear he saw in her eyes almost made him turn back. Illuminated another instance where he understood how much he’d hurt her.
“Besides the death of my brother,” he said, his throat thickening, and he could feel the water coming to his eyes, “You are the only disaster I’ve ever wanted to dig out from and rebuild.” He licked his lips, nodding, as much to himself as for her to see. “I do want that.”
“West...” She said his name, but he could see it wasn’t going to be followed up with other words. It was shock, and joy, and sorrow rolled into one syllable, and a year’s worth of feeling in her eyes.
“I know I referred to you as a disaster, and maybe that’s not the best romantic thing to say, but it was over in my mind, and there was no going back. So, not artful, but—”
She shot forward, arms shooting out to wrap around his shoulders. He would’ve fallen, but even in these more spacious quarters, he still only had a few inches behind him of space before the wall caught them both, then it was only a matter of straightening his legs to slide his back up the door, and pull them both to their feet. It was either that, or lie down with her in the floor, and if he did that, more would follow. And no one would be minding the clinic.
“You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s...kind of a lot to put on you first thing when you wake, but if you decide you want to give it another go—today, two months from now or the day we leave to go back to the world—I will say yes and count myself lucky.”
She nodded, and as much as he didn’t want to move from where they stood, arms locked around one another, he said, “No one’s mindin’ the store. I should get back out there.”
Although her arms loosened, she didn’t let go, actually cupping his shoulders to hold on to him. “Wait. I need to know...about the moves.”
“That matters?”
“Yes. I don’t understand—how can you not know how many times you’ve made big moves?”
The number wasn’t important, but the reason it was so high... Yeah, she was right about the reasons. “I’ll think about it, see if I can make a list. But give me a time frame. Does that just mean as an adult? Or as a child, too?”
“Is it more than five times?”
He nodded. “Let me work on that number, right? You get ready for work, have your lunch, then you can come on duty. I’ll hold the fort until. Maybe later I’ll have a figure for you.”
He wouldn’t have a figure later, but he would make generalizations which might give her an even bigger shock. Later. He’d worry about it later.
A hug wasn’t a promise. He couldn’t just take the ring off the chain at his neck and slide it back onto her finger, but it was something.
Lia had said her goodbye to West outside of Kasey’s bus less than a week ago, but it could’ve been months. Or even a different lifetime, and different people.
She hadn’t even gone on duty today until around noon, and now, at the end of the day and having seen him exactly once in the hours in between, it could’ve been a week. Like a child counting down to Christmas, she’d counted half-hour increments until she’d be off official duty, and could talk to him alone again. Because she’d had some thoughts, once her brain kicked back in. And they were good thoughts. They might not sound like some kind of Highland poetry as his words had done, but no one could compete with that.
So, at half past six, she’d called for him over the radio, doing her utmost to sound terribly official, asking him to come speak with her. So probably everyone now knew it was anything but official, but when everyone was fifty-six other people, it didn’t much matter.
A knock came within minutes to her private cabin door and she peeked out quickly, noticed him there looking curious and like he’d fallen for the officiality. She also took note there was no one in the clinic to see them, grabbed his sleeve and pulled him inside.
She had taken off her insulated suit, the thin one she even tended to wear inside, and set up the heater he’d brought her to get the room warm. Because it was time for dinner, and she wanted to be alone with him, she’d laid out a little picnic on the bed, with grub from the galley. Stuff that wouldn’t wreck her bedclothes if a dish tilted. Mostly hearty sandwiches and sides light on sauces.
He took all this in silently, then gave a cautious smile before asking, “So, are we picking up right where we left off? Before it all went badly wrong?”
“Not exactly,” she said, then felt the need to add, “Because we are changing things, right?”
“We are.” He punctuated his quiet words with a single nod, but then followed up. “Is it going to throw a wrench in the works if I steal a kiss before we get started changing things? You wouldn’t...mind terribly, would you?”
And when he said it that way, with a quirk to his mouth and his head tilted so his blue eyes were full of meaningful sidelong flirting, she couldn’t say no.
She leaned in to meet him halfway, intending a quick kiss of greeting, but he steered her backward until her back was against the door, and cupped both of her cheeks to press the sweetest, slowest kiss to her lips.
West’s kisses always made statements. Usually, that statement was I want you. Right now. Sometimes the statement was I want you and I’m cranky that I have to wait because of Reasons.
But at that moment, the statement could not have more clearly been anything but I missed you.
Tenho saudades...tambem.
There may have been shades of I love you in that kiss. She couldn’t be sure if it was there, or if she just really wanted it to be there.
Like with all their kisses when alone, soon even a sweet, lingering, loving kiss heated up. Deepened. Got them both a little stupid.
Just when she got breathless and grabby, he curled his fingers into the back of her hair, which was now long enough to pull, and gave a tiny tug. He leaned back enough that his nose touched hers. “What’s the reason?”
“For?” She didn’t follow.
“Your hair.” He tugged lightly again at the three-plus centimeters of length that had been previously razored to her neck for as long as he’d known her—practically a military cut in the back.
She could’ve laughed, just to hear they were on the same page. His question led right into the things she’d been thinking about, things they’d have to talk about if they were going to be able to have a relationship. And sudden, unexpected kisses almost as soon as they were alone.
“Short pixie is too edgy for village life. They expect a lady hairstyle.” She didn’t actually make air quotes around the word, her hands were too busy holding on to him, but she eye rolled some implied air quotes to him. “Ironic since they prefer to follow a man, but if it’s got to be a woman, she shouldn’t have a manly cut. I was advised.”
Again she made use of the eye punctuation.
“So if you don’t grow your hair, they want you to sell the vineyard?”
“No one said that, but the way things are, the way I’m expected to be there? Exactly opposite to how you know me.” She was still pinned to the door, and it was hard to do serious talking like that, and it could get out of hand quickly. She stopped grabbing and patted his shoulders instead. “I’ll explain more, but I need to say something else first because I totally forgot I was going to say it before you kissed me. I had a plan, see?”
He grinned and leaned back, then stepped cleanly away, so they were no longer touching, and things wouldn’t get out of hand. “Of course you did. So what was your plan?”
“Eat these ham sandwiches, then turn off the lights and watch the aurora through the big window.”
“Is ‘watch the aurora’ a euphemism?” he asked, cheeky smile back.
She smiled, but pretended she didn’t want to grin at him. “That was the other bit. The avoiding euphemism and innuendo-related activities. For now.”
“No sex?”
“For a bit?” she requested, then crawled onto the bed to sit against the wall, and tucked her feet in atop the blankets, careful of the food. “I had a plan when I came to Antarctica, for after the people who know me to be a certain way—you and Jordan—left. And it’s the reason I never invited you home with me. Why I don’t feel like I know myself. I want to know who I am, and I want you to know who I am before we start tearing one another’s clothes off again. Because once we start that... Like a first date. Sort of.”
“Right.” West stayed standing for a time, a little of his natural broodiness returning to the furrow of his brow. “Tell me the boundaries. You invited me to this wee room, and I’m supposed to sit on your bed? First date? I wouldn’t, well, I mean I would’ve done far more than sit on your bed on our first date. But generally...boundaries?”
She shook her head in a bit of a tsk. “It’s the only furniture here. You can sit on the bed.” There was a pause to discuss how taking his boots and suit off would be the only civilized thing to do, lest he mess up the bedding. And that it didn’t mean sex was happening.
Once he was in his thermals and sitting opposite her on the bed, he waved a hand, but looked far more relaxed. “Continue.”
“It’s a very long story, but the short version is I was raised to be a certain way—demure, proper, sweet, ladylike, et cetera. When I went away to school in a different country, I’d already become exceptionally frustrated and I went as far the other way as was in me to go, not thinking about what I wanted so much as what boundaries I could push that I could’ve never pushed in Monterrosa. I decided that was the new me, made some friends and that was established. Me and Opposite Me. Hair was one thing I could easily change while I was away. Or continue changing. I began growing it out at home. But if I keep it up, I can return home with longer hair.”
“Is that what you want?” West asked, looking skeptical of her plan in a way that made her want to throw her sandwich at him.
“I have no idea what I want. But hair affects how people see you, doesn’t it? If it’s a bold cut, it projects strength. Long bouncy waves project femininity and grace. It’s two very different images. So what I’m trying to figure out, my plan for myself, was stop making decisions according to the expectations of others.”
“I see.” He said one more word before taking a bite of his sandwich. “Pink, too?”
“Ophelia wore lots of pink.”
West almost choked when Lia referred to herself as Ophelia. And in the third person. In five words, he understood exactly what she’d been trying to tell him about not knowing herself. And how much it dismayed her.
“What happened if you didn’t do as was expected?” he asked, and then realized he might be making her think of the kind of things he didn’t like to think about, and changed his question. “Or now. How does it affect things now with the vineyard? Do they call you Ophelia?”
“They call me Dona Monterrosa,” she said, her eyes getting a little buggy.
“Not following.”
“Lady Monterrosa,” she said in English. “It’s over a century since the time of titles, but if you want to understand how traditional the people are, they still call the heads of my family Don and Dona. And before you ask, I don’t know how it makes me feel to have them call me that. Besides being responsible for their welfare.”
Drastically different from his childhood. And he wanted to hide it again, the exact same feeling that had led to him hiding Charlie on a fake adventure in the US. All he wanted to do was change the subject. Turn off the lights. Watch the aurora, which might not even happen tonight. Or distract her by proving how much he had missed her...despite her rules.
“You’re quiet,” she said, then ate the last bite of her sandwich, her eyes still full of concern but tangled with a fair amount of wariness. “You think it’s shameful to not correct them when they call me Dona?”
“No,” he said, having gathered that she had trouble getting them to listen to her enough as it was, so she probably needed the built-in respect of a fake title to give her words a little more weight. “I guess I was trying to figure out how I can help you with this quest to know yourself.”
Not really what he was thinking, but if he told her the truth, this would all get very personal, very fast. Her problems, while definite problems, weren’t bitter and twisted. She had the kind of childhood problems that weren’t so ugly they couldn’t be discussed. Her problem had been parents that gave her what she wanted, but only if it came with a price tag, not support. Not time. Not love...
And that’s probably where this all came from, he realized. Definitely a problem, but not as ugly as a mother who’d abandoned him at nine, expecting him to take care of his little brother, age four, and the progressively worse foster homes they’d been shuffled between because of his behavior and scheming.
“You’re supposed to tell me if the things I change make me unlovable,” she said softly. “And, I hope, tell me your sad secrets, too.”
“I don’t...” He started to say no, but watched her mouth thin and twist to the side. That had been her complaint, hadn’t it? And he’d said he wanted to dig out the ashes around them. “My sad secrets are...bad, love.”
“I know.” She cleared everything else off the bed and crawled down to sit beside him, leaning to turn off the light as she did. “Know how I know?”
“Because I likened them to famous catastrophes?”
She lifted his arm and tucked in at his left side, and just the act of touching helped him push some of the bile back down that always rose in his throat when he got too close to those thoughts. He contracted his arm to pull her closer, but she didn’t settle until she’d taken his right hand in hers, and weaved her fingers in between. “It was pretty indicative.”
“I don’t know where to begin,” he whispered, because saying the words out loud felt wrong in the small dark room. “Or what might be too much. We all change as we age, and things I did...”
“If the things you did are no longer secrets, they don’t hold as much power to hurt you anymore.” She lowered her voice, too, and he was grateful. Painful words shouldn’t ever have the strength of a full throat. Painful words whispered could still bruise, but words shouted or given force could tear out big holes.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is.”
He shook his head.
“You don’t look in the rearview mirror because something bad happened, and you want to leave it behind. Something you said was your fault?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re afraid of me knowing?”
He didn’t immediately answer; the more she prodded at it, the faster he felt his heart rate going. It didn’t take long before she felt it, too, or heard it, with her ear against his chest.
“That’s why you need to tell me. And we need to take the physical stuff slow, o namorado.”
The endearment made him smile a little. There weren’t many Portuguese words he knew; most of them were endearments that sounded beautiful from her soft lips, and comforted him somehow.
He had taught her less Gaelic, but the one she preferred came out on its own on reflex. “Leannán sídhe.”
She released his hand and turned his chin, gentle but insistent, until he was gazing down at her in the low light. “You think I’m not going to love you? I think you don’t really love me. You say that’s not true and want me to believe you, right?”
“You still don’t believe me?”
“I’m...” She struggled for words, then said, “Faith is a choice. It’s your job to prove my faith. And it’s my job to prove yours. If you tell me the bad things now, and I don’t go anywhere, you don’t have to be afraid of them anymore. You can trust me. And if I change something, a few things—if I cry when things hurt me and don’t feel like I have to hide it from the world and be strong all the time—and you don’t go anywhere, I don’t have to be afraid of that anymore, either.”
He closed his eyes, suddenly very tired. “It sounds so easy when you say it that way.”
The last word uttered, he opened his eyes to look at her again, and found her face lit in soft blue light, and both of them turned to look out the wide bubble glass at the blue whispers across the starry black sky, pale and ghostly waves that stretched to brilliant, almost neon blue.
She clutched at his hand, anchoring herself to him in that way they’d never really done outside of these aurora sightings. In that moment, such peace settled over him that the heart, which had been threatening to pound out of his chest, slowed, and then slowed some more. He almost wanted to tell her everything, to empty himself out to see if that would make room for more of this peace.
“Where do I begin? I don’t know how many moves yet,” he whispered.
She pulled her gaze from the dancing sky to look up at him again. “Then tell me your saddest memory. I’m not going anywhere. Watch the skies with me and we’ll let it go.”
His saddest memory. He didn’t have to think to know what that was, and he could tell her that. He didn’t have it in him to say those words yet. To tell her it was his fault Charlie was gone. But he could tell her about that night. Even without his guilt, it would’ve been his saddest memory. The faster he got it out, the more time he’d have to win her back, if he did accidentally say more again than he meant to, and she found out how disgusting he could be.
Pulling her closer, in as few words as he could, while they both watched the serene seas swirling above them, he told her about a six-hour train ride north to a Scottish morgue to identify and claim his baby brother’s emaciated body.