Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Oscar
Unsurprisingly, it was raining when we got back to London.
It poured it down for a week, which made me want to do nothing except hole up in my tiny studio under a mountain of blankets and watch the rain out my window. Sadly, I had an article to write, and Hawaii had never felt farther away. All I could do was spend every day dreaming about the past week and hoping to capture it in prose. The only issue was that every memory, every thought, was tied to Ilias.
Ilias on the beach, peering into rock pools and lying on his stomach with his camera in hand and sand on the soles of his feet. Ilias emerging from the sea like fucking Daniel Craig only a million times more attractive with water running over his chest and plastering down his hair.
Ilias getting excited over an enormous cone of shave ice from a street vendor in Kona or chatting to the owner of the restaurant we’d had breakfast at on our last day, the pair of them laughing together about pancake toppings and spam fritters. Ilias on the slopes of Mauna Kea in his oversized, Arctic Parka, gazing up at the stars, lost in thought.
Ilias waking up in my arms, his body pressed against mine with his face buried in my neck, smelling of peaches and vanilla and salt.
In truth, I didn’t know whether these thoughts were a help or a hindrance. The article was supposed to be aimed at couples, so perhaps it wouldn’t matter that every word seemed connected to Ilias. Or perhaps it would be so dreamy and nonsensical that Marcus would send the entire thing back covered in comments and tracked changes.
Or, even worse, just send a note back telling me to redo the entire thing. Usually, I was confident in my abilities as a writer, but this one had me spinning in circles.
There was a fine line between basically writing a love letter to my no-longer-fake boyfriend and writing an article people wanted to read.
Two days after I turned it in, I headed into The Traveller ’s offices for a couple of meetings about future issues, my next project, and the draft of my article. Normally, I loved the fact that I mostly got to work from home, but it made it worse on the days when I had to go in and the weather was shit. The rain seemed to have doubled down, and it inevitably meant I arrived at the office looking like a drowned rat with wet feet.
Vanessa took pity on me when I delivered her a small bag of fridge magnets and a box of cupcakes and offered me a cup of tea and a promotional towel from an old event. Marcus was less sympathetic and asked me if I knew what an umbrella was.
“I had one,” I said as I found a space at one of the hot desks in the open-plan office. “It’s just pissing it down.”
“I’m nearly done with your article by the way,” Marcus added, disappearing back into his office. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll send it over to you.”
“Is that a good sign?” I asked. “Or a bad one?”
Marcus turned in the door of his office and shot me a wry smile. I held my breath. “It’s good. We’ll catch up in a bit.”
I flopped into the chair, feeling myself instantly relax. I opened my laptop, then pulled my phone out of my pocket. Ilias and I had spoken on and off over the past week, but it had been more sporadic than I’d intended. I’d been busy with the article, and he’d been busy editing the photos and dealing with his family.
Half our messages had been about work, and the rest had been anecdotes about our days. I missed the conversation and the casual intimacy we’d had in Hawaii—like falling asleep with him next to me or joking about whatever we happened to be doing.
I knew I should’ve suggested we meet up and work together, but it hadn’t crossed my mind, and I hated how quickly I’d slipped back into work mode without considering anything else.
Oscar
Good news. I don’t think I totally fucked up the article.
Ilias
Success! Did you get it back then?
Oscar
Not yet, but Marcus said it’s good, and he’d tell me if it was shit.
Ilias
Does this mean we’re going on another trip? I’m sick of this fucking rain already.
Oscar
I’ll ask!
I stared at the screen, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard as I debated asking my next question. It shouldn’t have been a big deal because we were supposed to be doing this dating thing for real, but my heart was thundering in my chest so loudly I was surprised nobody had noticed. Why had coming home made everything different?
Then another message popped up, and Ilias asked the question for me.
Ilias
We should celebrate you not fucking up. What are you doing tonight? Want to get dinner?
Oscar
Sure. That sounds great. Where do you want to go?
Ilias
I don’t mind. Surprise me!
I thought for a second before the perfect place suddenly popped into my head. We quickly made some arrangements until I noticed an email from Marcus had arrived in my inbox with the draft of my article attached. I steeled myself and clicked it open.
Marcus had just left a brief note in the email saying I’d done a good job and there were only some minor corrections for me to deal with.
I let out a sigh of relief and quickly opened the document to work through the edits. It was mostly just spelling and grammar because my comma usage was horrible and a couple of corrections to my language where my phrasing was clunky or something wasn’t quite clear.
“Oscar, are you free?” Marcus asked from the door of his office as I finished correcting my final paragraph.
“Sure.” I hit Save and headed for his office, my shoes squeaking on the polished floor. I felt better than I had that morning, a new lightness in my chest knowing I’d done a good job. Marcus waved at the chair opposite his desk for me to sit down, taking his own seat and picking up his enormous mug of coffee. He grinned at me over the rim.
“So, how was the trip?”
“It was great. Hotel was lovely, the location was perfect, the food was amazing, and they put a great itinerary together for us.”
“I guessed,” Marcus said. “The article made it sound ideal.” I nodded, a little confused about why he’d asked. Then it clicked into place when he asked his next question. “Did Ilias like it? Did you enjoy getting to spend some time together?”
“Are you asking me to spill details about my relationship?” I raised an eyebrow but grinned. Marcus was my boss, but I considered us friends too. “He did enjoy it. He got super excited about everything. I think he filled about three memory cards with photos. And he’s great at finding all these local places tourists don’t usually find. He just asks everyone where they’d recommend, what things we needed to do, things like that… but he asks in this way that’s not demanding? More like he just wants to know what they think and what they love most about where they live. He wants real experiences, not ones curated for tourists. He doesn’t judge what a bar or a restaurant looks like from the outside, and he finds all these hidden gems you’d never have known existed if you didn’t ask.”
Marcus smiled at me and nodded. “The perfect person to travel with.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He is. We… we get on really well, even though we’re different.”
“I’d hope you would if you’re together.”
“I mean…” I tried to think and cover my tracks, wondering if I’d suddenly exposed myself. “Some couples get on really well at home but hate travelling together. They have different ideas about what they want, they like different things, they fight all the time. I think travelling together can be a big test.”
“It is. No question about it,” Marcus said. “The first time Annie and I went abroad together, we went to Rome on a city break, and our luggage didn’t arrive with us, so we had to spend the first day trying to buy clothes. Then I got us totally lost on the way to the Colosseum, and we ended up having a screaming match in the middle of the street where she called me a fucking asshole. Which had a grain of truth to it at the time.”
“And now you’ve been married what, six years?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “It was the worst fucking trip of my life, and I genuinely thought she was going to dump me as soon as we got back. But we made it through. Turned out getting lost worked out well for us. We found this tiny gelato shop and ended up sitting outside eating mountains of the stuff and talking everything through. We found the Colosseum eventually and ended up joining a tour we hadn’t paid for. The guide didn’t even notice.” He chuckled. “I learnt a lot though, and afterwards, we got pizza squares and ended up walking back through Rome at midnight. It was one of those perfect moments you never see coming.”
“That sounds amazing.” I thought about Ilias and I sitting on our little patio after we’d gotten back from Manua Kea, drinking hot chocolate and eating cookies, not really talking about much but not wanting to be anywhere else.
Like Marcus had said, it was one of those perfect moments I’d never seen coming.
“It was, and it wasn’t. But I’m glad you had better luck than I did with your first trip,” he said before taking a long swig of his coffee, then frowning when he realised it was empty. I knew in five minutes he’d have another one because caffeine didn’t seem to affect Marcus the way it did most people. “So, would you be happy to do another trip together?”
“Already?” I knew I sounded stunned, and Marcus laughed.
“I thought you said you liked travelling with him.”
“I do, I just didn’t think you’d be up for sending us together again so soon,” I said. “I thought I might have to… I don’t know, beg or something.”
Marcus snorted. “Nah, no begging required. We’re doing a feature for the July issue on ten of Britain’s best seaside hotels. The list has already been narrowed down, but they need reviewing. We’ve got a load of PR photos, but I’m happy for you to take Ilias and get some realistic ones we can use for padding. It’ll be quite intense. Three weeks and fifteen hotels all over the place. We’ve tried to organise them in a rough order so you don’t have to backtrack too much, but it depended on the dates places had available. Do you have a car, or do we need to get you a hire?”
“I’d need a car,” I said. “I don’t have much use for one of my own.”
“Makes sense.” Marcus scribbled something down in a notebook while I tried not to let my head spin. I didn’t mind taking on another assignment so quickly—it was all part of the job—but taking Ilias with me was an unexpected twist.
We’d managed to make it to Hawaii and back intact, but being trapped in a car together for long periods would be totally different.
“That all sounds good though?” Marcus asked. “Happy with that?”
“Of course,” I said because I couldn’t exactly turn him down. “Sounds like fun.”
“Weather might be a bit rubbish.” Marcus glanced out the window at the pouring rain. “But I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“Great. I’ll get Vanessa to send you the details, but I believe the first one is down in Cornwall next Thursday. We’ll catch up before you go. In the meantime, can you make sure you get the Hawaii article finished and submit your pitches for the next locations. We want another three if possible—at least one European, one in Asia, and one of your choice.” Marcus continued to rattle off details about things he needed me to do in the next few days, but I was only half listening.
I was thinking about the fact that I was going to be spending the next three weeks with Ilias while my stomach squirmed.