by Mia Ford
“Er, yeah.” I dart my eyes between them both. “We’ve actually met already.”
“I’m so sorry, I know I shouldn’t just walk into your room, I just wasn’t thinking.” The words spill out of Al’s mouth like vomit, clearly, he’s been trying to keep them inside until this moment. “I just wanted to grab one of your books to look something up and I didn’t even look, I promise, I wasn’t looking at all.”
“I was naked,” I say dryly to a very confused looking Logan. “That’s why it’s weird.”
For one horrifying moment Logan’s face goes a funny shade of pink and I think he’s going to yell. There isn’t any reason for him to be mad, we aren’t together so much that we have a title or anything and it was only a mistake, but still, the moment could show me a side to him that I might not like very much…
But then he bursts into laughter and it’s a sound that comes right from the pit of his belly. I find it intoxicating, I can’t help but join in with it. Al does too and the atmosphere dispels in an instant. We all laugh together, sharing it as the joke it should be. Now that no one has made a big deal of it, we can all move past it.
“Oh, my goodness,” Logan gasps out while clutching onto his belly which seems to be aching from laughter. “That must have been quite some greeting, huh? Well, it’ll teach you to go in my room, Alistair, I’m always begging you not to. And I am sorry, Tamara, I should have warned you that the privacy in this place is minimal.”
“It’s okay.” I hold up my hands. “I’m not offended, it was just a bit of a shock, that’s all.”
“Yeah, you aren’t kidding.” Al raises one eyebrow. “Mostly that Logan has found someone to like him.”
“Oh my God, you’re such an ass, Alistair.”
“Hey, I’m just being honest. If you can’t hack it, that’s your issue.”
While they argue like teenagers, or possibly brothers since there’s a lot of love in their words too, I can look at Al without worrying too much. I see there’s something quite handsome about him. He’s got far too much of a city boy look to me, all smart all the time and serious about his career, but I think about what Katherine said about Logan having a friend for her to date and this could actually be perfect. Me and Logan might not have a title as yet, but we are going away together, which makes me feel more secure in us. This could be quite good. Of course, I’ll have to talk to Katherine first and Logan too, to confirm that it’s okay but I could imagine this being quite the match. If it all works out, it’ll be utterly perfect. The four of us together! What more could I want?
“So, Al.” I discretely lift up my cell phone and set the camera to silent with no flash. As soon as he looks at me I snap a picture of him. It isn’t the best image, I don’t think it shows off just how good looking he is, but I need to have something. Katherine won’t go on a date completely blind, I know her too well. “Are you the one who has girls around here all the time or do you have a girlfriend to keep you company?”
Not the most subtle, but I’m sure it’ll get the job done. I keep my expression as innocent as I can while I wait for an answer. Even more so when I get one.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He winks playfully at me, but not in a flirty way… thank goodness! “I’m just playing the field until I find the right woman, that’s all. I need someone to tame me and calm my wild ways. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere just looking for me too, and one day we’ll have this big romantic story…”
I know the perfect woman for that, I think with a smirk on my face. And soon enough, I’ll introduce you.
“Does anyone want any breakfast?” Logan leaps up from his seat and effectively ends the conversation for us. “I can make us a classic English fry up if you like? Eggs, bacon, toast, the lot.”
I nod and smile as my brain begins to build on the future I’m secretly planning for us, including Al and Katherine in it too. It’s probably an image that’s far too perfect but I like the way it feels all the same. It’s nice, and while it might be a fantasy I’d like to think after all the years of being sad I could have something come true. Maybe even a part of it. Either way, for now I’m happy to just enjoy the ride.
17
Logan
There’s a real excitement busting in my chest as I lay the map out across my bedroom floor. This scene is very familiar to me, it’s something that I’ve done a million times before, but this time it’s different. This time I have someone else sitting beside me who can barely contain herself as well. She’s itching with thrill, I can see it burning off of her. At least I know that she’s just as keen as me and this isn’t me forcing something on her.
“So, the dots are stickers I’ve stuck on of places I want to go and places that I can realistically afford to go in the time I have available. I can only pay the rent on this place without working for six months and also, I don’t want to run out of cash when I’m away because that’ll put a downer on it. That’s why I’ve waited until now. I need it to be perfect…” I give Tamara a side long look and she appears a bit bewildered. “Sorry, am I making this all sound a bit much for you? I know I can get a bit carried away when I’m excited. Jump in if you want to.”
“No, no, it’s not that.” She pauses and bites down on her lip thoughtfully. “I’m just… well, I don’t want to keep asking this, but are you sure you want me to come? I don’t want to step on your toes…”
I hook my arm around the back of her neck and bring her to me, reassuring her with a kiss. “I do want you to come, for sure. Nothing would make me happier. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.”
She visibly relaxes, her shoulders roll forwards and she smiles brightly. As her head bobs into a nod I know that I have her. Thank goodness. I don’t know if it would be the same without her by my side.
While Tamara talks, pointing out things on the map I realize that I haven’t even seen a spark of the girl who yelled at me on the train for spilling coffee accidently. There hasn’t been any time she’s lost her temper… not even when Al walked in on her naked which would be enough to send any girl over the edge! Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want to talk about it, because it was a heat of the moment, stress because of her job interview, not an actual personality trait thing. Well, fine by me, this side of her is absolutely adorable.
I don’t know why though, but I still can’t seem to resist making a joke. Maybe it’s to show her just how fine I am, or perhaps I’m just a crazed freak with absolutely no control over myself. I know that we’re past that now, I’m aware that it’s silly to tug us backwards, but my mouth flaps of its own accord.
“At least they don’t sell coffee on the Orient Express.” I nudge her side. “So, we’ll be fine if we do that.”
I expect a giggle or even a blush, just anything to acknowledge it, but Tamara simply gives me a wide eyed shocked stare instead. She almost looks like she doesn’t get it, like she’s chosen to forget it entirely. It’s weird, her stare sends a cold trickle up and down my spine. I’m frightened there might be something deeper here.
“Yeah… I suppose we could go on the Orient Express…” she says slowly. “That’s one of those bucket list, dream come true things that everyone wants to do, isn’t it? And it could be a good way to travel between places.”
I gulp noisily, trying to shove my discomfort down. I’ve already decided that this is fine, why make it worse by dredging it all back up again? I really do need to learn to let things go! “Sure, sounds good. It’s fine anyway, because I don’t even like coffee that much, and I’m sure you don’t either…” Stop it, you idiot. “Especially not, you know, when it’s spilled everywhere and it makes a massive mess.” I chuckle like a fool. “That’s horrible.”
“Oh no.” She shrugs in a blasé manner. “I like coffee. I need my caffeine boost in the morning like everyone else.” She gives me a lop sided smile which sends my heart racing. “You know I like coffee, right? I suppose it is messy.” Her eyebrows knot together at this comment. “But that’s only if y
ou have an accident.”
There was meaning in that, right? I’m not going insane? But if I keep on pushing I’ll eventually send her over the edge which is the last thing in the world I want to do. “Of course.” My tone is hollow. “And me too…”
“Right.” She giggles girlishly. “So, we’ve both agreed that we like coffee, even if they don’t sell it on the Orient Express, which I’m not convinced is a true fact, actually. Doesn’t it go on for freaking ages? People that are on it from start to finish must need something to drink. I think you’ve totally made that up.”
My mouth is dry, my whole body stiff. I probably look like a statue right now. “Yeah,” I eventually rasp. “You’re probably right. When you, er, put it like that it makes sense that it does sell drinks. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.” An uncomfortable heat travels the length of my body. “You better just ignore me.”
“Okay, so I was thinking that maybe we should also see if we can travel this route because…
I bury my head back in the map because it’s the safest place to be as I listen to Tamara, all the while my head is spinning. I don’t know why it’s so important to me, why do I even care if we speak about it or not? I cannot seriously be that hung up on the moment we met. I don’t honestly think it matters too much, do I?
But as my eyes continually drag back to Tamara, I kinda feel like it might do and I’m not sure why.
We walk through the park hand in hand, admiring the sights of nature happily. This isn’t a place I normally choose to come to because of all the happy couples, but today I don’t mind. I cannot believe it, I’ve found someone that I actually like enough to commit to… although, I suppose aside from the trip I suppose we haven’t exactly laid titles on who we are. Would it be totally weird to do that now? I could just bring it up, right…
“I remember something here.” Tamara stuns me by breaking the silence. “But I don’t know what it is.”
“Erm…” I’m not entirely sure what she expects me to say to that. “A memory? Right…”
She smacks her hand against the side of her head as if she’s trying to shake her brain. It stuns me, I’m completely blown away. I thought this weird side of her was gone, but it’s back with a vengeance.
“Oh my God, my brain does my head in sometimes. It’s like… there are things inside there that I can’t quite access, do you know what I mean?” I can only shrug because I honestly have no idea. “I don’t know, sometimes it’s like my head doesn’t work properly. Maybe I’m not normal. I don’t know.”
Hmm, this mood is bizarre, I’m not quite sure how to take it. It just highlights to me that we don’t really know one another too well yet. I search my brain for the right words but I just can’t find them.
“I suppose everyone gets a bit like that,” I finish lamely instead. “It must be a sign of getting old.”
She chuckles, laughing along as if she gets the joke but I don’t know if the humor is fully there. This seems to be troubling her a lot. My initial instinct is to search ‘memory issues’ online just to give me some tips but I know that the Internet and health problems are a bad combination. I’ll start thinking that she’s dying in a moment which isn’t helpful for anyone. I’ll have to just hope that I can be at little bit comforting.
“Yeah, I suppose so. I don’t know if I’m just worrying for no reason.”
A thick silence clings to the air for a moment while we both digest this. I can tell that this is something that she doesn’t want to let go which I can understand. Since I’m the one who really can’t let our past meeting go. I think the best thing I can do is try to distract her from her worries. I don’t want this day to go downhill.
“Come on.” I tug on her arm in another direction. “There’s a café over there. Let’s go and get cake. We can picture us on the Venetian canals eating Italian cake, which I’ve heard is the best in the world.”
“Sure.” Her mouth doesn’t turn up into a smile but I’ll take it as a positive. “Let’s do it.”
We grab our seats outside of the café so we can sit in the sun and wait for the waitress to come to us. I tilt my head back and bask in the warmth while half watching Tamara to do the same thing. This isn’t the right moment, I know it isn’t, but at the same time I feel like she needs shaking from this funk. I get a bit of the word vomit that I seem to get about Tamara. She unhinges something inside of me that never has been unlocked before.
“So, Tamara.” She drags her eyes down to look at me. My heart thunders in my chest and my mouth runs dry. “I know this is pretty crazy, but I think we should have a talk about us right? About what’s going to happen with us when we go away.” Shit, I’m making this sound a lot more serious than it is. “Like, I want to know what you want. Do you want…” Oh God, I’m starting to regret this sentence. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
Her face flushes brightly, I can tell that she’s speechless. But at least it looks like she isn’t thinking about her crazy memory right now which is a good thing. At least I’ve achieved that.
“You want me to be… your girlfriend?” Her hand starts fisting her tee shirt as if she doesn’t know how to take this. I can almost see the insanity dancing behind her gaze. “Are you serious? You really want that?”
“I do.” I nod determinedly. Now that I’ve started this I have to go on with it. “I understand if you think it’s too fast but since we haven’t really done anything in the right way, it makes sense, right?”
She furrows her brows together, frowning slightly, but then her face, all of a sudden, bursts into the shiniest smile that I’ve ever seen her do. “Are you serious?” Her hand claps against her mouth in shock. “That’s amazing, I would love to.” She giggles almost hysterically. “I would absolutely love to be your girlfriend.”
She wraps her arms around me and squeezes my tight, her mood completely lifted. Her lips crash into mine and we kiss, probably more passionately than we should be since we’re in public, but safe in the knowledge that we’re together now. So much for my fling… but I don’t want that. I want to just be with her.
I pull Tamara up onto my lap and wrap my arms around her, grinning like an idiot. I never would have thought that anything like this could happen, it almost seems completely unreal, but I suppose life doesn’t ever work out as planned. At least this is better, this is a happy change. It would be awful if something negative happened but I just can’t see it. Right now, it feels like everything is just getting better and better.
18
Tamara
Ring, ring… ring, ring… ring, ring…
I dance around my apartment nervously while I wait for Katherine to answer the phone. I’ve been busting at the seams about this all afternoon and I just have to get the information out. I can’t wait to tell my best friend. She should be out of work now which means I can finally speak to her about my big life changes.
“Hello?” She sounds a little harassed, but that’s normal when she just finishes work.
“Hey, Katherine.” Happiness bounces in my tone. “Do you have a minute? Can you talk?”
“Erm, sure. What’s going on with you? You sound all weird.”
“Well…” I bite down on my bottom lip to keep the smile at a minimum. I’ll end up giggling hysterically any moment. “I have some major changes going on. All of them involving Logan.”
“Logan? The guy you’ve been dating?” Now she sound interested. “Ooh, okay, what’s going on?”
“He asked me to be his girlfriend today and we’re also going to go travelling together.”
There’s a thick silence, I can almost hear the palpable tension flowing from the other end of the line. I don’t think Katherine is happy for me which is disappointing, but I suppose I half expected it. She’s much more cautious than me, she might be okay to date but she wouldn’t ever jump into anything head first. She’s cautious, which is why she doesn’t get her heart shattered, but at the same time I don’t mind following my instincts. Espe
cially right now when I just know that I’m right. I can’t tell her that though, she’ll have to just see it.
“I know it’s fast, before you warn me. I’m well aware of that but it’s okay. You need to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Her tone is hollow. “You said that to me before and it didn’t exactly work out.”
“Okay, so Pete was stupid and I did admittedly fall too fast for him but I was younger then. I didn’t really think before I acted.” I blanche as I realize that not much has changed, but I continue on trying to convince my friend that everything is just fine. “I’m going into this with my eyes wide open. Honestly.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy or anything, and it certainly isn’t like I don’t want you to have a boyfriend, but this all just seems a bit intense. I’m worried that it will implode.”
“Will you trust me more if you can see it for yourself? Because I was thinking that it might be a good idea for us to have a dinner so you can get to know him a bit better. Stop you from worrying.”
“But I don’t want to be a goose berry. It’ll be weird, won’t it? Just the three of us.”
I silently pump my fist with excitement, this is exactly what I wanted her to say. To Katherine, she might think that this conversation isn’t going well, but to me it’s absolutely perfect. I’m so freaking excited!
“Oh, well actually it won’t be like that at all.” I do a little victory dance while I keep my voice innocent. “Logan’s roommate wants to come along too, so he can get to know us both a bit better.”
“Oh, right okay, so this would be like a double date type thing?”
“Oh, well not exactly… it doesn’t have to be that way, but he is really cute. I might have a picture of him actually.” I pull my cell phone from my ear and shoot off the image I sent. “Take a look I sent it to you.”
I wait for the pause, my heart hammering with excitement. She’s going to like him, I’m sure of it. she has to, he’s just her type and now that me and Logan are official, I don’t see why this can’t happen.
