Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I make it to Arequipa in a dream state. Because even though I technically wake up when our plane touches down in Lima, I’m so groggy Will has to all but carry me (and my backpack) through the terminal and onto our third and final flight. I feel like a doted-upon child. I promptly fall asleep again and remain that way until we land.
Consciousness finds me as gentle fingers tap the bones of my hand. My head must have been lying on his shoulder. I tilt it up, catch Will looking down at me with the barest of smiles on his face. Probably amused at some dried drool on my chin or something.
It’s eight thirty in the morning. We’re in the same time zone as Austin, but my body feels jet-lagged. Thankfully, we don’t meet with any suppliers until tomorrow.
As soon as we retrieve our luggage from baggage claim and step into the aridity of the Peruvian terrain, I take deep breaths, suck ing the warmth onto my tongue, down into my lungs. It’s July, and it feels like it even though we’re in the Southern Hemisphere.
Eugenia and Will coordinated a private ride for us from the airport into the city, where our hotel is located. I follow him toward a rideshare corner of the arrivals deck.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Disoriented. Did you sleep on the plane?”
“Uh.” Will squints, putting a hand over his eyes to look for the makeshift sign with our names in the swarm of waiting drivers. “A bit.”
“Why does that feel like a no ?”
“There’s our guy.” Will grabs both his suitcase and mine by the handles and starts wheeling them toward a small man in khakis. I greet him in Spanish while he and Will load our luggage into the SUV.
“You speak Spanish?” Will asks me.
“Sort of. I get by. Camila,” I add by way of explanation.
He almost-smiles at me, turning for the car.
“I didn’t wake up to your infamous snoring,” I say once I’m strapped in and Will is beside me in the backseat. “You didn’t sleep, did you?”
He slants a look at me. “I once got scolded by a flight attendant who was passing along the complaint from another passenger,” he grumbles.
“Oh my God. When I finally hear this snore, I’m expecting to be traumatized.”
“ When and why do you think you’ll hear it?” Will arches an eyebrow in my direction.
“We’ve got adjoining rooms, don’t we? With a thin door?”
“ Two doors, actually.”
“Is that soundproof enough?”
“Depends on the sound, I suppose.” He glances out the window in the other direction.
I’m riffling through a selection of nonsexual verbal returns when my eyes catch on something beyond his window.
“What’s that?” I whisper.
“El Misti,” our driver says. “The volcano of Arequipa.”
It lifts out of the horizon in an almost perfect triangle, with two juts at the tip and folds of green and brown earth cascading down its sides like the pleats of a skirt. The base of the volcano must be miles from here, but something about the way it presents itself to us—to all of Arequipa—gives me the sense that I could reach out and touch it.
I scoot closer to Will, who leans back against his seat so I can get a better view. Between the volcano and our car is an entire city. Tall bushes of flowers with pink and orange petals shoot past as we drive, lining the road and creeping up the man-made structures. The sky is an azure color, starker somehow compared to Austin’s constant haze of dust and pollen.
“Have you ever done this before?” Will asks. When I tear my eyes off the window, I catch him gazing down at me.
“Fled the country with a man?”
“Visited a supplier.”
“Yes. I’ve done on-site visits in New Mexico, California, and New York.”
“So, you’ve never traveled abroad for work?”
I shake my head. “When I initially selected Revenant’s foreign suppliers, it was all facilitated remotely. By the time we grew enough to add more suppliers, I had the supply chain team, who took care of abroad visits.”
“But this time you asked to go yourself,” Will notes.
“Yeah, well. Stuey’s on paternity leave, and with the B Corp review coming up, I wanted to be sure all our new suppliers are exactly the perfect fit.”
Will nods, concealing a private amusement behind his eyes. Beyond the driver’s front window, the downtown area of the city comes into view.
“Hungry?” Will asks.
“If I say yes, are you going to block me from eating something at the hotel?”
He sighs. “Josie, you cannot eat hotel food as your first meal in Peru.”
“They always have a vegetarian option,” I say defensively.
“I’ll get you some vegetables, don’t you worry,” Will grumbles, “if you trust me enough to come into the city with me.”
Our driver pulls onto the main thoroughfare, where our hotel sits proudly. The streets are crowded with locals heading to work, and even this early, there are shops and restaurants open in droves, soft music coming from a café with an outdoor patio, tables and chairs spilling onto the sidewalk. When we climb out of the car I’m hit once more with a rush of warm desert air.
Will smoothly tips our driver with soles (I’m not even sure when he acquired them, but it was probably when I was half-asleep waiting to board in Lima). He grabs both of our suitcases and wheels them toward the hotel lobby. When I try to protest, Will shoots me a glare.
“Ten minutes,” he says.
“Ten minutes of what ?”
“Freshening up. That’s how long it’s going to take me. After that, I’m leaving the hotel. And I think you should come with me.”
We pause the conversation while we check in and immediately pick it back up as we head for the elevators.
“I should probably get some work done,” I say.
“Suit yourself,” Will says. “I’m not going to force it.”
He knows what he’s doing. He’s making me admit I want to spend the day with him. Not because he pressured me but because he merely invited me.
“What do I wear?” I ask. If I don’t have the right outfit, I’m not going.
“Something you’d want to explore in.”
“Explore in?”
Will nods at my Revenant outfit—dusty-blue trousers and a wrinkled white blouse—before his focus travels to my loafers. “Tell me you brought some tennis shoes.”
“How else would I take the hotel’s six thirty HIIT class tomorrow morning?”
Will groans. “This. This is the worst thing about you.”
“Is it a turnoff?”
“Not nearly enough of one,” he growls.
We pile into an elevator. It’s a quick ride. He stares at me with a surly expression from one wall. I stare back at him from the other, considering my outfit choices. On our floor, I drag my feet one in front of the other until we come to our hotel room doors.
“Can I have my suitcase now?”
Will wheels it toward me, pushing down the handle snugly.
“Thank you.”
“Welcome. So, are you coming?”
I hesitate. “Yes,” I declare before I can overthink it.
Will smiles. “We’re going to have fun today.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?”
“Because to you, it is one.”
“You think I feel threatened by the prospect of having fun?”
“I think,” he says, voice going deeper, “you feel threatened by the prospect of having fun with me. ”
“That’s not true.”
Will’s hand comes up to the wall, and his face drops closer to mine. That’s when I know he’s trapped me. Just before he says, with temptation in his voice, “Prove it.”