6.
I wake up early just like usual, but I let Thalia sleep in.
I have a bagel and do some pushups but this morning is not about exercise.
It’s about getting all my work done first thing so I don’t have to stress about how much fun I’m having.
I usually only settle into work after taking care of everything else, so I’m surprised at how quickly I slip into the zone and get my pages in.
It helps that the scene I’m working on features three of my favorite goblin girls.
These three have been a trio since book four and I know that if I put them together it’s going to create comedy and drama.
Lily, Ursula and Zorba are always scheming to work out a way to get Jason to themselves, coming up with a little side quest that will take him away from the rest of the group.
They’re a little devious but not really bad; just trying to keep their man satisfied like good goblin girls do.
I tiptoe to the bedroom and push the door open to find she’s already awake, scrolling on her phone, the sheet pulled up to her waist and one arm tucked behind her head. She looks like someone who’s been awake for a while and decided not to do anything about it.
“Hey,” I say. “You’re awake.”
I hop on the bed and crawl toward her. She waves at me, points to her mouth—my breath stinks and I’m not opening my mouth until I’ve brushed. I kiss her forehead and roll off the bed, heading for the bathroom.
When I’m finished, I come out wearing a towel and an expression of pure, unabashed excitement.
“You want coffee?” I ask.
“No thanks,” she says, still watching her phone. “I don’t usually have coffee first thing.”
“Alright, but let’s get after it.” I tear away the towel and wave my dick around. “Carpe diem!”
“What?” she says. The sight of my cock is slightly more interesting than whatever’s on her phone.
“Seize the day! Let’s do it! Waterfall!”
I just stand there, thrusting with my hips and making this goofy face. She sets the phone on the nightstand and climbs out of bed, shaking her head slowly like she’s reconsidering all her choices.
“You’re something else,” she says.
She walks around me, pauses to grab my cock and give it a quick tug, and proceeds to the bathroom.
“Give me a minute,” she says. “I’m not decent yet.”
I put on a dry pair of board shorts and then pick out a pair of linen-blend pants and a long-sleeve shirt.
Rookie mistake is to wear shorts and a tank top because of the heat.
That’s fine if you’re staying in the shade, but the UV cooks your skin on the bike even when you don’t feel it because the breeze keeps you cool while you’re riding.
I was amazed when I first came here and saw Thais wearing hoodies.
Only later did I understand it’s what they put on to ride.
“Agh!” she yells from the bathroom.
“What’s wrong?”
She throws open the door and sticks her head out, hands wrapped around her soaked body.
“The water’s freezing!”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I take cold showers.”
It’s an adaptation I picked up so soon after moving here that I’ve almost forgotten most people like their showers hot.
Thailand is a two-shower-per-day kind of country.
And when you’re trying to beat the heat a cold shower is the more refreshing way to wake up.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me on that point.
“Just turn the little knob on the water heater.”
Her head retreats and the door closes. I listen for the sound of the shower and when I don’t hear any more yelps, I take it as a sign she’s figured it out.
A few minutes later Thalia reemerges, steam following her into the room. She’s got a towel wrapped around her and she’s smiling in the cautious way of someone who has just had a pleasant surprise they weren’t expecting to admit.
“There,” she says. “Now I’m human again.”
She wraps her arms around me and gets the front of my shirt wet. We kiss and it’s sweet, easy.
“You taste fresh.”
“I used your mouthwash.”
“Good. We’ll get you a toothbrush while we’re out.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me.
“Oh, I’ve got one in my travel pack at the hotel,” she says. “I should probably check out.”
“Yeah, that makes the most sense. We’ll swing by on the way.”
She goes still in my arms. Not pulling away, just going quiet for a second. I feel it.
“Or—” she starts.
“Or what?”
“I mean, I could just keep paying for it,” she says. She makes it sound casual, but she’s watching my face. “It’s not much. I don’t want to just move myself in here.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s your space,” she says. “And I’m a stranger with a backpack who was swimming in your pool without permission four days ago.”
“You’re not a stranger.”
“We’ve known each other for four days.”
“Right. Not a stranger.”
She gives a short laugh, half skeptical, but I can see she wants to be convinced. I take her by the shoulders and wait for her to look at me properly.
“You’re here for just a few more weeks,” I say. “You’re going to spend that time in a room above a bar when there’s a pool down there with your name on it? That’s insane. Besides, I want you here.”
“You want me here,” she repeats, like wants me to confirm them.
“I want you here.”
She chews on the inside of her lip for a moment. Then she nods, some private negotiation concluded.
“Okay,” she says. That word. “But I’m buying groceries.”
“Deal.”
“And I’m not just some girl who moved in. We’re—whatever this is. Together. For the time being.”
“Together for the time being,” I agree. “Works for me.”
She searches my face once more for something she seems to find, then steps back and starts getting dressed. I hand her the long-sleeve shirt I picked out for myself and she holds it up against her body, checking the length.
“You’ll want this for the bike,” I say. “Trust me.”
She pulls it on over her tank top without argument. It hits her mid-thigh.
Outside the sky is clear, the day already heating up.
Thalia’s hotel is a little hole-in-the-wall off the beach road.
She was paying 700 baht a night—just about $20 USD—and budget is what you get for that price.
Not much of an expense, but still. When you’re traveling on a gap year, every bit helps.
It takes her less than ten minutes to pack and she comes back wearing her big traveler’s backpack, hair still damp.
She adjusts a strap and gives me a look that says she’s ready for whatever.
We head north toward the Bang Waan waterfall on the island’s eastern side, stopping for breakfast in Bang Thao.
Bartel’s looks like the kind of trendy spot that would be right at home in West Hollywood—artisanal breads, coffees, smoothies with protein powder and vitamins mixed in.
The place is packed. We find a table outside in the corner, the only one left.
“Now I understand why you asked me what you did the night we met,” she says.
“What did I ask?” Then I pick up on her thread. Everyone speaking around us is almost entirely in Russian. “Oh, yeah.”
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine there’s been this big, floating population of Russian emigres on the island.
There are so many that whenever I see another white person in Phuket I assume they’re Russian automatically, because most tourists here are.
They’ve got a reputation for being surly, unsmiling.
And if you grew up where they did you might turn out the same.
The ones I’ve met don’t fit that stereotype though.
Most of them are polite, friendly, and speak good English.
But they also tend to congregate wherever you happen to be.
I go and grab a couple of menus. Thalia orders a salad with salmon and a cappuccino, her finger running down the laminated page like she’s still deciding even as she says it. I put in our order at the counter and bring back water from the little self-service area in the corner.
“This was the perfect choice,” she says. She’s sitting up straight, looking around at the other tables with that attentive expression she gets when she’s cataloguing a place. “I love Thai food but I was needing something a little different.”
“Bang Thao’s full of places like this,” I say. “Boat Avenue, which we passed on the way over, is wall to wall foreign restaurants. You can even get Mexican food. Which is great for me, but I don’t see a lot of Thais clamoring to go there.”
“This is their home, but people come here and treat it like their playground.”
She says it lightly, not as an accusation, but she sets her water down and waits to see if I’ll push back.
“Yeah,” I say. “The hotels and tour businesses bring in money, and the people working here earn more than they could back home. But that’s still not much, and it can be hard to survive here. Harder when they’re tearing up forests and banana groves to build villas for, well, guys like me.”
She rests her cheek against her hand.
“Feeling guilty?”
“Not guilty exactly. I pay plenty for the privilege of being here. Our breakfast alone costs what the poorest people in this country would spend on a week’s groceries.”
“Really?”
“Pretty much. So that’s the trade-off.”
A waitress sets down Thalia’s cappuccino. Thalia wraps both hands around it and looks into the foam for a moment.
“Makes you realize how lucky you are,” she says. “And it makes me realize I’m lucky I met you. I’d be eating bananas for breakfast if I hadn’t.”
“Don’t think the luck just flows one way,” I say. “I’ve been here a year and I barely left my villa. When you’re single, there’s never a good reason to do stuff like this. Eating alone is fine, but it’s better with company. So. I’m lucky to have you.”
“I don’t know how guys can go out to eat alone,” she says. “At uni, if I couldn’t find someone to join me in the caf I just wouldn’t go. I would rather eat microwave ramen than eat by myself.”
“Only child,” I say, tapping my chest. “You learn to be comfortable with yourself.”
“I think it’s a guy thing,” she says. “I’m not talking about safety, although there’s that too. It’s that being seen out in public alone is just more intimidating to women. We always talk to each other as if everyone around us is keeping tabs on us. It’s paranoid and kinda vain, honestly.”
Our food arrives. Thalia unfolds her napkin across her lap with both hands, a little formal about it, which I find oddly endearing.
“I tend to assume the opposite,” I say. “I operate as if no one notices me at all. Just another foreigner. Which is true, up to a point. When you first arrive somewhere, people don’t see you. It’s only after you’ve been around a while that they start to.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s this girl who works at the massage place down by the beach,” I say. “She’s always out front trying to wave people in. One time she stopped me and said something that made me pull up short.”
“What did she say?”
I pick up my fork. “She said—you’re always alone.”
Thalia goes still. Not dramatically, just a pause over her salad, her fork hovering.
“How did that feel?”
“I was astonished she’d noticed me,” I say. “I thought I was invisible. But that’s never really true.”
“But did it make you feel lonely?”
She’s not pressing, but she’s watching me as she says it.
“Yeah,” I say. “A little bit.”
“Lonely enough to crave the human contact that only a Thai massage could provide?”
“Well, I walked in and got one, so what does that say?”
“That she knew what she was doing.”
Thalia smiles and goes back to her salad. A table of Russians next to us erupts into laughter at something, glasses raised. She glances at them, then back at me.
“You’re not always alone now,” she says. Simple as that.
I smile.
“Nope, not now,” I say.
I want to say “not anymore” but “not now” is more accurate. But I’ll still take it.