Chapter 24
“ H appy now?” Dean rips a piece of bread and hands it to me. We got two but I ate mine in approximately thirty seconds.
“ Ecstatic .” I push my head forward, opening my mouth.
He doesn’t hide his smile when he feeds me the bread.
My hand rests in the crook of his arm. “Who would’ve thought you and I would be here like this?” I’m still in the haze of before. We trust each other. Confessed. This is basically dating, right?
Dean doesn’t respond right away. He chews then swallows. “It’s unbelievable.”
My lips purse into an uncontainable smile. “Well, believe it. You and me, Dean. Us. It’s real.”
We’re past sunset. Streetlights fall over the streets. Dean takes us back to the train station and I’m instantly saddened by this being our end. Even though my feelings are new, and it’ll take me a while to understand them, I’m glad that they’ve surfaced for Dean.
Dean buys the tickets. I finish his bread.
We walk towards the train, but it isn’t the one we came on. It’s on the outside .
“Where are we going?” I ask him. Rationality says we should head back to Lucerne and Dean is usually the king of that.
“We have to make this trip worth it,” he offers me a hand into the cabin. “For you, especially.”
My cheeks redden. “I’m happy being with you. I don’t need more.”
When we sit down, Dean takes his phone out. “Is your airdrop on?”
“Uh,” I ask, mirroring his action and checking my phone. “Yeah, why?”
It pings.
Ogre would like to share photos with you.
Sound stills around us.
A total of two hundred pictures. Some from today, others from previous days. Me, me with Lottie, me in front of a view, my back, aesthetic pictures of me looking away from the camera, a wobbly food picture I giggle at.
“When did you take these?” There’s a thick lump in my throat. No one has ever taken pictures of me without asking. “Is that me cooking?” I’m stunned speechless.
“You like taking pictures,” Dean blushes. “I wanted you to have some of yourself.”
“Be honest with me,” a shaky breath. “When did you start liking me?”
Dean links our fingers. The architecture of us together becomes historical, a picture worth analyzing when thousands of centuries pass. We’re a mausoleum.
“There was no start to liking you, Nova. I can’t recall the exact moment of when it happened, just that—you know that feeling when you finally solve that one math problem, or watching a thriller where everything starts piecing together?
Liking you made sense. It completes whatever puzzle my life is. ”
I exhale shakily. That’s not what I expected him to say.
“Some people would just say last week, but that will do.” I’m doing my best not pulling him by the collar and kissing him. “Thank you for this,” I nudge his shoulder with mine.
“Of course,” he nudges back.
The train moves through fields of grass. Sharp mountains in the background fling past us. They stop fifteen minutes in, announcing something in Swiss German and French.
I can see water from my window. A couple of mountains.
People stand, going to the other side to see out.
I turn my head to see what they’re looking at.
It takes a second for my vision to focus.
“Oh my god,” I’m on my feet. It comes out from the pits of my stomach.
I’d spent years looking at the plant through a screen.
No amount of time can tell you how much I dreamt of seeing its perfoliate leaves.
It blends in with the grass, but the subtle tinge of lilac flutters my way. “I can’t believe it,” I say.
I push past people to get a closer look. They’re looking at the goats up here. I’m looking at the endangered plant.
“What is it?” Dean cocoons me from behind.
“ Thlaspi perfoliatum ,” I whisper it. “Umbel pennycress. They’re rare plants, only found on this side of the world.
Sometimes in the Mediterranean too, I think.
People never glance once at this plant, but it survives in harsh climate and dry areas like the mountains and will take care of surrounding plants.
A mother plant if you will. I never thought I’d see one in real life. ”
Dean runs a hand down my hair and listens for the next couple of minutes about the plant.
I tell him about its versatility in the ecosystem and how they’re cousins with the cabbage and mustard family.
He listens with intense eyes, letting me fangirl over it.
When the announcer asks everyone to be seated, he tells me to continue talking about it as we take our seats, and the train moves again.
Not once does he yawn or tell me to shut up.
He listens and that silences all disruptive thought.
“What’s going on?”
After our whiplash of a conversation, we stop at Rotenboden. It’s full of people and after ten minutes of Dean’s grumbling complaints and refusal to take pictures, we take one blurry selfie with half his face cut off. The Matterhorn is a suggestion at this point.
We sit and talk on the field.
I learn that his favourite colour is shockingly yellow. I tell him mine is not-shockingly pink. When he mentions he didn’t get the chance to go to university, I tell him it doesn’t bother me.
He works with his hands and is emotionally intelligent.
Which is rare for men these days.
We had just finished eating dinner at a small restaurant.
A crowd of people were all walking in one direction, excitement, thrill, and contagious laughter funnelled around us.
Dean moves to ask a man with a shawl around his shoulders, smoking a cigar and smiling rather in awe of the movement.
“Herr, warum gehen alle in diese Richtung??”
My nerves whisper to each other in mesmerising shock. He knows Swiss German?
“ Es ist das allererste Laternenfest der Stadt. Dort gehen alle hin, du solltest deine Frau auch mitnehmen. Ich habe gehort, es wird historisch .” The man is smiling at me and all I can do is lower my head in acknowledgement. With his cigar-occupied hand, he wiggles his fingers .
Dean’s chuckle is low and throaty. “ Sie ist noch nicht meine Frau, aber ich hoffe, dass sie es eines Tages sein wird. ”
“Sie schaut dich an, wie ich mir Liebe vorstelle, bevor sie erkennt, was sie wirklich ist. Die Chancen stehen zu deinen Gunsten, junger Mann.”
I’m getting FOMO right now.
I act like I’m not paying attention to them, but I really am.
Then Dean walks back with a fresh set of confidence. Not like he’s been lacking in that department anyways.
“I didn’t know you could speak Swiss German.” Naturally, I find my way into the space in his arm and rest my hand there.
“I learned it in prison. Along with Urdu, French, Korean, and a little bit of Latin.”
I ignore the bubble of excitement I get and bite my tongue. So many questions, but I can’t ask them until he’s ready. “Any other tricks up your sleeve?”
He smiles like he’s trying to hold back his smile. It’s endearing. “If I told you, there’d be none left to surprise you with.”
“Okay,” I roll my eyes. “Then tell me what you were talking about.”
“That?” He juts his chin with goodbye as we follow the mob of people past him. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He sighs at my incredulous tone. “Would you believe me if I say that he told me we’re in the middle of Switzerland’s first ever lantern festival?”
I gasp. “You’re lying!”
Dean shakes his head with a tooth-filled smile. “I’m glad I’m not.”
“Did you know that was on my bucket list?” I’m bouncing with elation.
I’ve wanted to attend a lantern festival since Tangled. Seeing the lanterns in the sky, watching the world light up momentarily as everyone is united all at once? It has to be magical. I’m about to see it.
“I used to tell my sisters all the time about wanting to go and my oldest, Nadine, promised we’d go one day but then she…
” my voice lowers, fading into the background.
Memories of us sitting on her bed, the heater going on beneath her blanket.
Chit-chatting like we had nothing better to do than be with each other.
The days leading up to her wedding, the constant reassurance from her that nothing between us would change, but then she moved all the way to Alberta.
Rosa moved to Vancouver not so long after that and I was left alone with my parents.
Life went on for everyone but me.
“She what?” He asks patiently.
Forcing a smile, “She got married.”
Dean pinches his lips together.
Pulling at our interlocked arms, “We’ll miss the chance at getting a lantern at this pace.”
His gaze burns into the side of my face. Not the time to trauma dump on a man who dealt with enough.
We wait in line to buy a lantern. Gnawing at my bottom lip, “Why aren’t you asking me?”
“You don’t want to talk about it.”
My calves burn with each uphill step. “I would if you asked me.”
“I can wait until you’re ready.”
Slightly disappointed at his reply.
I don’t get the chance to tell him that because someone shoves an unlit lantern at us.
“Are these free?” Dean looks down at the paper whooshing in the wind. The only thing keeping it from flying away are the circular metal rods .
“Don’t question it,” I push him from behind. “Smile and keep moving.”
His back rumbles against my palm and I’m too busy trying to maneuver us through the crowd to be in shock, but boy is it there, sinking into the pits of my chest and separating into every vein.
“Write with this,” a woman in a hijab offers her marker to me. There are people all around us. Everyone’s bustling with joy and contagious happiness that I can’t help but smile along with them. There’s live music playing. Violins. Guitars. Songs in languages I don’t know.
Dean curves me to his side.
The night sky beams with hues of dark blue.
Crowded with candles and lanterns, Rotenboden shines bright.
Dean’s warm breath grazes my cheek. “What’s the protocol, lovebird?”
I swallow hard. “We write a wish, light it up, and let it go.”
“Hm,” he mumbles. “And if it’s already coming true?”
I turn my head to look at him. He doesn’t mean…
My heart jumps.
Our faces are mere centimetres apart. His lips are one word away from touching mine. His eyes glimmer with wanton desire and more emotion than I’ve felt in my whole life.
My lips part.
Those illuminating greens darken as Dean watches my tongue wet my bottom lip and doesn’t look away. His throat constricts, his jaw tenses and untenses.
My chest brushes his side.
When Dean takes in a sharp breath, his voice drops to a husky murmur. “If I kissed you, would you stop me?”
And because I’m Nova Rivera, youngest, bratty sister of two older ones. I’ve learned to never let men have it easy.
Deliberately— teasingly , I press my lips below Dean’s mouth. “Make it your wish and see for yourself.” No , I wouldn’t .
Well, maybe I am the type to give in easily but again? I’ve been thinking about his mouth. Specifically how it works, what it could do with me, and definitely to me.
My inner girlie pop is applying lip gloss, legs crossed, telling me that Dean Vuk knows how to work his mouth in ways I can’t stop myself against.
He shuts his eyes. Placing a physical restraint between us. When he opens them, his head tilted back. Dean gazes at me through darkened, lower lashes.
Consider me seduced.
Dignity be damned.
Dean works his throat. “You’re evil, Nova Rivera.”
My name on his lips grinds against my ribs.
When I think he’ll kiss me and test the dangerous waters I’m gladly drowning in, he moves to whisper in my ear. “I’m going to enjoy kissing the wickedness out of you.”
I cover my gasp with a deep, foreign sound. Pressing my forehead to his, “How are you sure I’ll let you kiss me?”
“Because I know,” Dean cups my cheek.
Desire explodes in his green orbs.
“The second I press my lips to yours, I won’t be able to resist you. And Nova,” his nose brushes mine. “If you wanted me to think you didn’t want me, you should stop pressing those pretty thighs together.” I give up .
“ Dean ,” I whimper, his name in pure anguish. My head falls against his chest.
“Not yet.” He presses a rough kiss to the top of my head. “Now write down your wish.”
My fingers tremble as I fist the material of his shirt. “I want you, Dean.” It comes out small and a part of me hopes he doesn’t hear it.
He becomes paralyzed. Then tries to pull away.
I hold him tighter. “I was once rejected six times in a row from the same guy.” I can tell he has questions from his inhale. “It’s been hard figuring out feelings when I’ve been gaslit at a young age into thinking mine weren’t real.”
I keep Dean less than arm’s length away when I let him look at me.
He watches me with an orphic look. Is he pissed?
“Dean?”
His mouth is set in a hard line. “Make your wish, Nova.”
Shivers run up my spine.
I’m trembling from head to toe. My heart rapidly paces, I grab the lantern from Dean and place it on the ground.
He watches me.
I’m quick to write, quick to light up the lantern, and even quicker at making it float to the sky.
The lantern’s barely in the air when Dean grabs my arm and in a single motion, turns me around.
His dark gaze pierces mine. “Your wish is my command.”
Dean doesn’t give me a second to reply before his lips come crashing down onto mine.