Chapter 47 Nate
NATE
Tomorrow we’d pack the rental car, drive back to Keflavík, and board a flight that would carry us back to Esperance and everything we’d left behind.
The thought gnawed at me like a low-grade toothache.
I shoved it aside as I pulled off the road and followed a winding track toward the accommodation.
The domes were visible from a distance, a row of glowing half-spheres dotted across the landscape like something out of a science fiction film.
A small building sat at the far end, warm light spilling from its windows, and a wooden sign pointed us toward the parking lot.
Maya leaned forward in her seat, squinting through the windshield. “What the fuck am I looking at?”
I chuckled as I pulled to a stop in front of the main building. “You’ll see.”
“You and your surprises are going to kill me, you know that?” She slumped back in her seat with a huff, but there was no heat in it.
“Relax. There are no near-death experiences in this one.”
“Well, I’m very fucking glad to hear that.”
We climbed from the car as a woman in a heavy coat came out to greet us. She handed me a key card and a laminated sheet of instructions, then pointed us down a path that wound between the domes, each one tucked behind its own timber fence.
We’d gone about five steps along the path when Maya grabbed my arm. “Nate. Are those beds in there?”
“Looks like.”
She craned her neck as we passed one, her face lit up by the warm light through its panels. “Are we sleeping in one of these?”
“Well, I was planning on catching up on my knitting, but sure, we can sleep, if you want.”
“Har har.”
Our dome was at the end of the row, the last one before the field opened up toward the mountains.
Maya ducked through the low door and stopped dead.
The room was tiny. Barely big enough for the bed, a sideboard and two chairs set next to a small table.
But the whole space was wrapped in honeycomb panels that curved upward from the floor, arching overhead into a wide, clear canopy that framed the entire sky.
A heater whirred in the corner, and soft lights glittered along the base of the panels.
Beyond the glass, there was nothing but open field, dark mountain ridges, and the pale wash of dusk.
She turned in a slow circle, her face tipped up, her mouth open.
“We’re sleeping inside the sky.” Her eyes met mine as she pressed her hands to her cheeks.
“Nate, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I need you to understand that I am going to talk about it for the rest of my life.”
Sure, there was no need for my heart to squeeze so hard at the glow in her eyes, but here we were.
She dropped onto the bed and bounced once, testing it, then fell back against the pillows and stared straight up through the glass ceiling at the pale gray dusk above us. Then she stretched her arms above her head and let out a long, satisfied sigh. “Get in here. You’re too far away.”
I crossed the space in two steps and lowered myself onto the bed beside her. She rolled into me immediately, her arm sliding across my stomach. Her fingers curled into the fabric of my sweater and she tilted her face up to mine.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Hi.”
I kissed her. Slow and unhurried, my hand cupping the side of her face. She hummed against my mouth and pressed closer. The warmth of her and the quiet of the dome and the wide, darkening sky above us made the rest of the world feel very far away.
Her eyes were still closed when I pulled back, a sweet smile on her lips.
“This is a good last night,” she murmured.
My thumb traced the line of her cheekbone. “Yeah. It is.”
She leaned back against my chest and I ran my fingers through her hair idly, while the sky above us shifted from pale gray to charcoal. Her breathing evened out after a few minutes, her body going heavy and warm against mine, and her hand stilled where it lay on my stomach.
The heater hummed. The light outside the panels faded by slow degrees. And I didn’t move, didn’t check my phone, didn’t think about tomorrow. Just focused on the feel of Maya in my arms and the quiet and the sky.
She dozed for maybe half an hour before a knock at the door brought her back.
Maya lifted her head, blinking. “Wha’ happened?”
“Dinner.”
“Already?” She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. “How long was I out?”
“A while.”
I eased her off me and went to the door. A young guy stood on the path holding a tray, his breath clouding in the cold air. “Hallo. Here is your dinner.”
“Thanks.”
“Lilja said to tell you, lights will start around nine pm.”
“Tell her we said thank you.”
I carried the tray over and set it down on the table.
Maya came over, examining the spread. “Oooh, lamb stew and fresh bread. Amazing.” She picked up one of the ceramic bowls and inhaled the scent. “God, that smells incredible.”
Then putting the bowl down, she reached for the thermos, unscrewing the lid, letting the scent of cinnamon and cloves fill the dome. “Oh, that’s dangerous.” She poured two mugs and held one under her nose. “That is extremely dangerous and I want seven more.”
“You’d better eat something first, then.”
“Good idea.”
I lit the candle on the sideboard while Maya poured the mulled wine. She dropped into her chair and picked up a bowl, her eyes sparkling over the rim.
“Okay. Top five moments of the trip. Go.”
“All of it.”
“That’s cheating.”
I shrugged.
“Alright then, I’ll go first. Number five, the glacier.”
“Solid.”
“Number four, the hot springs.” She flashed a wicked smile. “For obvious reasons.”
“I’m already offended that it’s not number one.”
“Funny. Number three, the horses.”
“The horses are top three?”
“The horses had better personalities than most people I know.” She took a bite and kept talking through it. “Number two, the zip line. And number one... The volcano.”
“The volcano’s number one?”
“I stood inside the Earth, Nate. Inside it. That doesn’t just crack the top five, it owns it.” She waved her bread at me. “What’s yours, then? Since you clearly have opinions.”
“The zip line.”
She stopped chewing. “Really?”
I shrugged. “Nothing else comes close.”
Her bright eyes locked onto mine for a long second. Then she blinked, cleared her throat, and picked up her spoon, aggressively returning her attention to her stew. “Well,” she said, a little quieter. “That’s annoyingly sweet of you.”
“I have my moments.”
She nudged my knee in acknowledgment. “Hmm, okay, well, I’ll give you the zipline.
And maybe I should move the hot springs up a notch.
The glacier’s still a solid five, because, you know, it was just wind and a lot of ice.
Ice and crampons and my nose running the entire time, basically.
So now it’s just between the hot springs and the horses, or I guess I could move the zip line, but then… ”
Christ, she was gorgeous. Her cheeks were flushed from the wine, her eyes bright, a smile curving her lips. Something pulled tight behind my ribs. Quiet and unfamiliar and so full it almost hurt.
“You’re not listening,” she said.
I shifted in my chair and cleared my throat. “I’m listening.”
“What did I just say?”
“Something about the glacier.”
She tilted her head, studying me for a beat too long. A tiny frown creased her brow before she turned away and reached for her phone. The screen cast a brief, harsh glare over her features.
“Almost nine,” she murmured.
Through the glass, the lingering dusk had finally surrendered to full night. The mountains and the fields were completely swallowed by the dark, leaving us wrapped in a deep, velvety black illuminated only by the fairy lights and our single candle.
“I guess we’d better get ready.”
“Yeah,” I replied, pushing to my feet.
I cleared the plates and set the tray outside the door while Maya moved the table against the wall and pulled the two chairs close together. I switched off the lights, blew out the candle and sank into the chair beside her.
Then we waited.
The absolute silence of the Icelandic countryside pressed in on us. Beside me, Maya’s knee bounced a nervous, excited rhythm.
It started as a smudge. A faint, greenish haze low on the horizon. Then the haze brightened, deepened, and began to move, a slow ripple of color. Like smoke rising from a fire that burned somewhere beyond the edge of the world.
Maya’s breath caught, and she reached for my hand in the darkness.
Minutes bled into one another. The faint haze brightened into a slow, hypnotic dance across the atmosphere.
Vibrant greens poured into vivid violets, rippling across the stars like glowing silk caught in an invisible current.
The sheer scale of it was mind-bending. It made the world feel impossibly huge and perfectly still all at once, wrapping us in a beautiful silence so immense it pressed tight against my chest.
After a long while, my attention shifted away from the sky. Beside me, Maya’s face was tilted up. Tears tracked down her cheeks, catching the glow.
A sudden, fierce ache bloomed in my chest. My thumb twitched with the urge to reach out and catch those drops, to pull her into my arms and keep her right here in this bubble forever.
But I couldn’t bring myself to break the spell.
As if a physical tether pulled her, she slowly turned her head to meet my gaze.
Her eyes were impossibly bright. The smile she gave me was so radiant, so achingly beautiful, that it punched the air straight from my lungs.
My heart rolled over in my chest as blood rushed in my ears. My fingers tightened around hers on pure instinct.
Every version of her I’d ever known moved through me at once.
The ten-year-old in pigtails who’d grabbed a thrashing fish with both hands.
The thirteen-year-old who’d taken charge at the hut.
The eighteen-year-old who’d dropped her towel.
The woman who’d shoved my father to protect a child who wasn’t hers.
The woman who’d held me through the night, without question.
The woman who’d stood on the edge of a canyon, terrified and shaking, and jumped anyway.
The woman sitting beside me now with tears on her cheeks and the northern lights in her eyes and a smile that could bring me to my knees.
And that’s when I knew.
The certainty of it was staggering. Absolute and undeniable and so deep it felt like it had always been there. My lungs stopped working. The rest of the universe faded into static.
I was deeply, profoundly in love with Maya Brookes.
The realization settled over me, like a heavy, warm blanket.
I reached across the narrow space between us.
My fingers slid into the hair at the nape of her neck, gently tilting her face toward mine.
I pulled her close and brushed my lips lightly across hers.
She made a soft sound against my mouth and kissed me back, her hand coming up to rest against my chest. Right over my fractured heart.
When she pulled away, she tucked her head under my chin and shifted her eyes back to the sky.
The lights kept moving above us. Green and violet washing over the dome, over her, over everything. I held her closer, my cheek against the top of her head.
Tomorrow we’d fly home. Tomorrow the real world would close back in. I’d have to figure out what this meant. What it cost and whether I was brave enough to pay the price.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight there was just this. The sky, the lights, and Maya.