Chapter 16 Maya
Maya
The rain comes in horizontal sheets at the edge of the earth: Orkney in November.
Was this place the inventor of weather, pitching it at the sea?
I clutch my fleece-lined collar as the ferry heaves—a battered thing smelling of diesel and kelp.
Spray and wind tangle my hair. Behind me stands Heath, his head bristling with wet, his glee the same as when we found that Invergordon bar with rugby fans and jam roly-poly.
He wraps his arms around me from behind.
His hands are warm through my sleeves, his chest pressed to my back with a quiet rumble.
I sigh, a thin sound the wind steals away.
We look out at Longhope, its cluster of roofs washed pale yellow by sodium lamps.
The water looks bruised, steel and violet, and broken by the black fin of a loon gliding over the surf.
The hotel sits low on the far side of a spit, its windows glowing orange like old teeth.
It looks menacing, like a horror-movie set: two Americans—one oversized, one oversharing—vanish at the end of the world. Cue the sad violin.
“We could turn back,” I say, but I know we won’t.
Heath squeezes me tighter, his beard scraping the cold rim of my ear. “Do you regret it?”
I know exactly what 'it' means. There are a thousand small things from the last two days.
Letting him kiss me—I felt wanted and nervous.
Letting him fuck me—I felt exposed and exhilarated.
Letting him see the parts I usually keep hidden, even from Blair—I felt both terrified and relieved.
I think about lying. Then I remember the electricity that still sparks, wild and hungry, behind my knees.
“I regret that I wore bad shoes today,” I say, “and that I didn’t pack an umbrella. Everything else is negotiable.”
He kisses my head, a single deliberate press like a stamp. “I can carry you to shore,” he says. “You know I can.”
We both know I’ll let him, which is the worst thing.
There’s no lobby, only a mudroom heavy with cedar and lavender.
Then, a hallway lined with maritime paintings in gilded frames.
The receptionist, distinguished in a tailored suit, greets us with the practiced warmth of someone used to royalty.
He says something in a lilting accent and hands us an antique brass key along with an elegantly folded map—the hotel’s signature welcome.
We climb two flights of a sweeping staircase.
The wide hallway and plush carpet soften our steps.
Our suite waits at the end, its windows framing the sea.
The room is refined: a four-poster bed with crisp linens, a marble fireplace glowing, and crystal lamps casting warm light.
Champagne chills next to chocolate-dipped strawberries.
"Well," Heath says, as I slip off my jacket. "This is exactly what I hoped for."
“It’s perfect.”
He kneels in front of the old fireplace and strikes a match, its light bright against the growing darkness. I stand behind him, watching the kindling catch and the flames reach for the bigger logs. He looks over his shoulder at me, then stands up slowly.
"Let me help with those," he says, nodding at my muddy boots.
He kneels, unties my boots carefully, and sets them by the fire. I let my feet dangle in my socks as the warmth comes back. He rubs my arches, bringing them back to life. His hands smell like sandalwood, espresso, and aftershave.
He stays there, looking up at me, hands clasped between his knees, mouth tight like he’s about to apologize again for something that happened so long ago it barely matters now. My heart beats faster as I wait, torn between wanting closure and fearing what he might say.
Instead, he says: "I know this wasn't your plan."
My plan was to see standing stones, try rare cheese, and check off every item in my worn Rick Steves’ Scotland guide. It did not include a man. Especially not this one, with haunted eyes and a way of undoing me in just a few words.
“Plans are bullshit,” I say. “Ask any five-year-old.” I sit next to him. The mattress sighs under our combined weight. The wind rattles the frame. The radiator hiccups.
He takes my hands in his, thumbs skating over fingers gone clammy from travel. “I want to be with you,” he says. “Not just here. I mean—when we get back. Every version of you.” He fumbles. It’s rare for him. Because it is, it feels almost tender.
I force a grin, but my stomach does an unhelpful pirouette, half dread and half hope making my voice wobble. “Like, dating-dating?”
Heath laughs, a low, almost humming sound. "Yeah," he says. "Dating-dating. And... everything else. I want to take you to museums you’ll hate and restaurants that are too loud. I want to hear you narrate your commute for the rest of my life."
I study his face, trying to remember every detail, just in case I ever have to picture him from memory.
"I want to travel," I say. "I want to see everything, but I also want to come back. I want..." I stop, embarrassed by how small it sounds and afraid he'll think less of me. "I want a real home. I want to get old and boring with someone." My vulnerability feels raw, exposed.
He does not even blink. “That’s my dream, too.”
I shake my head. “No, your dream is to build apps that overthrow the entire banking system. Then maybe, I don’t know, die young and leave a hot corpse.”
Heath leans in. There is a sweetness in his voice I am still not used to. “You’re my dream now.”
His honesty almost breaks me. Tears threaten, so I blink hard to keep from crying. Reaching for the only joke I have left, I duck my head and feel a shaky laughter bubble up: “That’s the corniest thing I’ve ever heard, Heath Cameron.”
He kisses my hair, my forehead, the space between my eyebrows—where he says I get a stress crease if I haven’t eaten. He is silk and iron. I go soft beneath him, like a pocketknife sheathing after a long day of being sharp.
He pulls me onto his lap, and we sit with our breaths mixing and legs tangled until my teeth stop chattering. Streetlights cast shadows across our bed, making patterns on the comforter. Heath’s hands move down my arms and rest at my waist, grounding me with a warmth that spreads quickly.
“Room service menu says something about ‘the world’s second-best sausage roll in Scotland,’” he says. “Do I dare ask what’s first?”
I pull my face into mock horror. “Do not say ‘your own.’”
He winks. “You said it, not me.”
Laughter bubbles in my chest, wild but not unkind. I press my forehead to his, grinning so wide my jaw aches.
“I am very hungry,” I admit.
He sets me gently on the bed. Then he goes to the phone, ordering tea, sandwiches, and “the second-best sausage roll, please, with extra spicy mustard.” I slip under the covers, feeling suddenly and almost foolishly safe.
The whole island feels like a moat between us and whatever is waiting across the water.
He looks at me—once, then again—and I realize what I’ve known since day one: with him, there is no hiding.
We lose ourselves for a while, in the private country of limbs and lips and bad puns. There is a woodsmoke flame in my chest, licking higher every time he whispers my name.
At one point, he strips off my shirt and watches goosebumps rise on my skin.
He rubs his hands over my back, as if starting a fire.
His tongue finds my hipbone, and I can’t help the gasp: open, honest, unembarrassed.
He fucks me—slowly at first, then urgently.
We stifle sounds—mouths, fists, our foreheads clenching together.
The headboard startles us with its sound.
He apologizes in broken whispers, and I crush the apology with my teeth at his throat.
After the food arrives, he answers the door in his boxers, sets the tray on the end table, and sits cross-legged on the bed. “You look like a queen wrapped in that quilt,” he says. “Except you smell like sex.”
I peer at the sausage roll. It’s never the second-best anything. Still, he makes a show of splitting it in half and gives me the crustier end. The tea is so strong it could run for Parliament.
I drink deep; the tannic heat flushes color to my cheeks. "Next stop, Skara Brae," I say, mouth full of pastry. "I need to see the Neolithic houses. What kind of people would live here, and not, I don’t know, Spain?"
“You’d thrive as a Neolithic matriarch,” Heath says, not sarcastically. “You’d have the best cave. Yours would be impeccably organized.”
I throw a sandwich at him, which he catches and bows to me before eating.
Later, after the food and the tea, and after I’m three-quarters asleep, Heath pulls me onto his chest, my ear to the hard thump of his heart. He says, “Can I confess something?”
“Please. I love confessions.”
He is silent for half a minute. Then: “I’ve spent the last six years drifting.
Not unhappy, but not… connected. Not really wanting anything except the next distraction.
Even when things were good, I knew they wouldn’t stick.
But you—” He scratches the back of his neck.
“You’re the only thing I’ve wanted to stick.
Ever. Even if you think I’m ridiculous.”
I tip my head up. His eyes are luminous, emerald shot through with brown at the edges, and for once, the mask is gone, just open sweetness and a bashful, almost painful hope.
“I think I’m ridiculous too, you know,” I say. “I collect postcards from places I’ll never go. I keep old guidebooks because I’m afraid they’ll miss me. I’m terrified that I’ll turn into my mother, or worse, that I won’t. But with you, I feel… not less crazy. Just more like myself.”
He grins. “Good. Because I want all of that. All the weird. All the chaos. All of you.”
His hand drifts to my face, thumb brushing a spot below my eye. I rest my palm flat over his heart, feeling the echoing pulse.
“I want you everywhere,” he says, quietly. “Every room, every city. Every minute I can have.”
I tuck my chin and close my eyes. “You will.”