Atonement (The Atonement Duet Book 1)

by Selene Chardou

  Colin stood and poured the aquavit in a skilled manner. I’d almost forgotten he’d been a bartender before I had persuaded him to quit and open up his own business. I would have so much fun helping him get his business off the ground.

  We all raised our glasses of aquavit as Laurina said, “Here is to a long life and the wonderful houseguests we have been blessed to have. Kerstan and I get lonely out here, though our neighbors are wonderful. Unfortunately, we don’t see our grandchildren enough, so we are grateful you two are here. Thank you. And Deirdre, welcome to Norway.”

  I smiled back and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “As we say here in Norway, skål!” Kerstan added in a cheerful voice.

  “Proost!” Colin and Laurina replied. We all burst out laughing.

  “Proost is cheers in Dutch,” Laurina explained to me as she began to serve the seafood bisque. “Sometimes I think my husband wishes we’d been born Norwegian or something. I know and speak enough of the language out there, but I would rather speak Dutch here at home. We’re older. We’re not senile. Us speaking Dutch to one another isn’t going to make us forget Norwegian, not when everyone around us speaks it.”

  “Oh goodness, do you two expect Deirdre and I to learn any Norwegian?” Colin asked.

  “Just enough to get by. You know how to drive a car, and you’ll need to go into town. It won’t be so hard in Oslo, as you will find people who are willing to use English, but Norway isn’t the Netherlands. There, people love to use English if only to show off their language skills. Most Dutch children grow up knowing at least four languages. Your father knows French and German as well as Dutch and English. He also told us he was taking Mandarin classes. I suppose that comes in handy in Washington?”

  Colin clicked his tongue as he poured himself another shot of aquavit. “There are a lot of foreigners in Washington State, oma,” he explained in authoritative tone “I believe Dad thinks he can improve his practice if he learns Mandarin, as many of the Chinese residents speak it and are more comfortable with their native language than English, even when their English is perfect.”

  I began to eat my soup, which was actually better than it smelled, and I didn’t think that was possible.

  “Did Colin tell you why we moved here to Norway?” Kerstan asked.

  I looked up from my bowl and accepted the refill of aquavit Colin offered.

  “Yes, he did,” I replied.

  “Mmm, you must think we are terrible people?”

  “No, I don’t,” I answered honestly. “There is nothing worse than not enjoying your life. It is so fleeting, and I can only hope my father lived a fulfilling life before he died. I don’t judge people. It’s not really my style.”

  “Yes, well, our particular area of the Netherlands had progressed over the years to a place we didn’t want to live,” Kerstan began in a soft voice. “After 9/11…the terrorist attacks and the daily violence by the local youth, it just became too much. I couldn’t imagine us living our retirement years in those conditions. We researched several countries before we made up our minds. For a while we were considering New Zealand, but it seemed too far away and we wanted to be close enough so that our grandchildren would still bother to visit us. Norway seemed like the most logical choice. There is a very small but vibrant Dutch community here in the Oslo suburban area, and we get together a few times per month. We speak Dutch, bring traditional dishes, and talk about our country and how it was before…globalization.”

  “Please don’t get us wrong, my dear,” Laurina said. “We are happy Colin brought you here and can only hope you enjoy yourself. We didn’t want you to think we were racists. It’s just…both Kerstan and I grew up in a very different era. When we married, it was a huge scandal because my family is Catholic and his is Protestant. That was a big deal back then. The Netherlands has a very long history of separating their people by religion and ethnic groups. Everyone stayed within their own, and to want to deviate from what had already been established was seen as quite rebellious and not tolerated in polite society. Jews married Jews, Catholics married Catholics, and Protestants married Protestants.”

  Laurina paused. Seconds later, she continued. “There has been a lot of change since the fifties and the sixties. I love that small, beautiful country below sea level. Sometimes I wish we could just move back and deal with it, but…what kind of life would that be for us? I suppose what I am trying to say is that you must live for yourself, and although political correctness is wonderful in theory, it doesn’t quite gel with the harsh realities of life. We want our grandchildren to merely be as happy as we have managed to be over these years.”

  “Well to me, that seems like a healthy attitude and with grandparents like you, I think Colin is very lucky indeed,” I said with a smile.

  Dinner was a drawn-out affair, but both Laurina and Kerstan were so interesting to talk to, I was almost a bit sad to see it end.

  Fatigue didn’t set in until Colin and I made our way up to the guest bedroom. We both undressed and readied ourselves for bed. I realized I was exhausted and the aquavit had definitely done its job of relaxing me and making me feel the strain of a long day that would only be rectified by a good night’s worth of sleep.

  Shortly after I changed into my pajamas, I crawled into bed and Colin did the same, opting to sleep in a pair of white boxers and a matching wife-beater. We curled up beside each other for warmth, and I inhaled his manly scent.

  “So, what do you think? I hope you don’t regret us making this decision to come see my grandparents.”

  “What a silly question,” I responded as I gazed into his amazing clear blue eyes. “I’ve fallen in love with your grandparents. Maybe because they seem so real and don’t put on any airs. They are great people, and I can’t wait to get to know them better.”

  “I’m glad you approve.”

  I kissed his lips quickly and murmured, “Good night.”

  He seemed a bit taken aback but he repeated, “Good night.”

  Before I could form another single coherent thought, I was asleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  The first week passed by before either one us knew what hit us.

  It was much too easy getting into the routine of awakening early followed by a shower and breakfast with Laurina and Kerstan. Colin and I would always go on walks, exploring the area and becoming more familiar with our surroundings. We hadn’t bothered to check out the nightlife in Oslo yet, but we planned to. However, the suburbs gave us plenty of opportunity to explore our curiosity.

  I made my very first trip with Colin to the Systembolaget, the name for all of Norway’s state-run alcohol stores, which staffed all the hard alcohol, beer, and wine that surpassed the proof limit of alcohol sold in grocery stores and convenient supermarkets. We picked up another bottle of aquavit along with vodka, whiskey, vermouth, and bitters.

  Colin had planned to make Manhattans for us that night and we needed to buy all the ingredients.

  It was a Monday evening, and I found it hard to believe we’d already been away from Seattle for a week. We loaded the alcohol into the truck of his grandparents’ Baltic blue Land Rover LR4.

  “Do you miss it?” I asked.

  After we were seated and he’d started up the vehicle, he replied, “Miss what?” The Land Rover was a manual, which meant driving for me was out until he taught me how to properly drive a stick shift vehicle.

  “The States, I mean. Being gone from Seattle?”

  “Not really. Not much to miss. My life pretty much consisted of a day-to-day routine that was starting to do my head in. Get up, go to the coffee shop, work my ass off and then head over to O’Shaughnessy’s and do what I had to do there. The more I think about my life in Seattle, the more I can see I was stuck in a rut.”

  He paused as he stopped at a red light. “The problem is, I was so desperate to have freedom to do what I wanted whenever I wanted, I didn’t really think about the consequences. Sure, life was passing me by and I was subsist
ing on too much booze, bar food, and one-night stands, but it was still my life. The longer we are away, the more I realize I don’t want to live like that anymore. I thank you for forcing me to see the error of my ways.”

  I stared at him with slight puzzlement. “Can I ask what I did exactly?”

  “Giving me a reason to go on and do something with my life. Do you realize my grandparents have never met a significant other of mine? They never met ‘Carrie’ because I didn’t truly think we were right for one another, so what was the use of them getting their hopes up and thinking I would give them grandchildren soon enough when I knew in my heart of hearts I would never marry her?”

  He began to drive as the light turned green. “You are still the only woman who takes my very breath away by being in the same room with me. The connection we have is strong and palpable. Sometimes I think I am losing my mind, falling for you the way I have. It just doesn’t seem real at times, like I’m having a really great dream right before I am forced awake and I realize nothing in my life has changed except the latest conquest warming my bed. Just so you know, that’s how it was before we met. It’s not that I couldn’t keep a relationship; one-night stands have basically ruined me from being capable of caring about a woman and realizing her potential. How can I start a relationship if I haven’t even made a pretense at getting to know the woman? Her hopes, fears…what she wants for the future? Perhaps I have met a lot of great women and I allowed my misogynistic attitude to get in the way. I was too busy allowing my hormones to overrule my heart, and that is why I am always perpetually alone. It’s hard to have respect for someone who is willing to give you their body so easily. And it ruins all chances of you ever getting to know them because the sex part got in the way.”

  I turned to stare at him. “If it makes you feel any better, I’d like to take this…what ever is that exists between us…slowly. I like you and I am terribly attracted to you, but I don’t want to be another conquest, Colin. One-night stands have never been my thing, and I want us to take the time to get to know each other. If it makes you feel any better, isn’t that what we’ve been doing? We are building a solid foundation of friendship based upon mutual trust and respect. You don’t have anything to feel guilty about when it comes to me. Nothing has happened that could ruin us at the moment.”

  He remained silent as we drove, and all I could think about was how I wished he would filled that silence with words. I was one to talk. One-night stands my ass. I’d had one with his brother before we left, and I felt so guilty about it that just thinking of what I’d done brought color to my cheeks.

  What Liam and I’d done hadn’t felt like a one-night stand, and Liam hadn’t treated it as such. When I’d left his apartment, there was no walk of shame, and we were still friendly with each other despite knowing one another inside out. The man would’ve proposed a relationship had his brother not been in the way.

  However, there was no need for Colin to know about what happened between his brother and me. I was perfectly fine with him remaining in the dark about my tryst with Liam.

  I enjoyed volunteering and a part of me would never stop loving the gift of knowledge, but using my father’s death as a catalyst for arrested development was no longer a part of life. I realized I’d been coddled and as much as it excited me to get away, I couldn’t wait to begin my new life back in Seattle with uConnect.

  Colin was normal to a certain extent, but like me, he’d also been stuck in the merry-go-round of a stunted young adulthood that should have ended by our mid-twenties. Like Peter Pan and Wendy, we didn’t want to grow up. We wanted to stay in that youth-filled environment where responsibility eluded us and we could just mess around. Because we had enough disposable income, real life didn’t seem to beckon us the way it would have had we not been born into wealth and privilege.

  “I can do slow,” he finally said.

  We were both sitting inside the car, parked in front of his grandparents’ house. Colin turned to me and said, “I look forward to taking it slow with you because I think you’re worth it, but I also have to believe this isn’t going to be some game. I want to know that if we do decide to take it slow, we have a real shot at a relationship when we get back to Seattle. I don’t want this to be some sort of…vacation romance that is expected to end just because we have gotten back to the real world filled with jobs and responsibilities. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, I do.” I stepped out of the sports utility vehicle at the same time he did, and we both unloaded the bags from the trunk. “Listen, I don’t do vacation romances either, so if we’re going to do this then it will be real for me, just like it is for you. No half-measures, no games, only what we decide to do and where to take what we have. If that’s fine with you, of course.”

  We walked toward the house side by side. “Are we negotiating?” Colin asked.

  “Sort of, although this isn’t a business agreement. It’s strictly personal. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful and honored you have decided to introduce me to your grandparents. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal but now that I know it is, I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  Colin winked at me. “Well, I can’t say the same for myself, but I will do my very best to try to live up to your standards.”

  “Oh my God. What standards?” I asked. “I’m not that hard to please, really!”

  We continued a slow walk to his grandparents’ home as he looked at me with a wicked gleam in his eye. “Believe me, Ms. Bardot, you definitely have standards or you wouldn’t have been alone all this time. I know in a lot of ways, we are alike. In others, we’re different, but know it was you who planted the seed that I should start my own business and make something out of myself. Your standards are very high indeed, but I don’t mind working toward them at all.”

  “Spoken like a true gentleman.”

  We walked inside and discovered both his grandparents had gone off on one of their afternoon excursions into the woods. They kept active and spent a lot of time with one another. I hoped to be like them with the man I loved when I was their age. Relationships took time, work, and energy but when you truly believed in someone, it made it all the easier to do whatever it took to keep the relationship going and alive.

  I sat down at the table as Colin unpacked the alcohol before he decided to make us a late lunch. We hadn’t eaten yet, and it was shortly after two in the afternoon. I would have called my sister, but it was still too early in the morning Pacific Standard Time, and I didn’t want to wake her.

  “By the way, have you spoken to Liam?” I asked.

  Colin brought our lunch to the table, open-faced sandwiches which consisted of brown goat cheese and smoked salmon. I dug in, as I had quickly become quite a fan of smoked salmon though it had never been a favorite when I was in the States.

  He then brought two lagers and poured them into glasses for each of us while coffee brewed. My main drinks of choice since we’d gotten here had been a lot of coffee and lager along with water. Like in Seattle, there was never a wrong time to consume coffee, so I was in heaven regardless.

  “I spoke to him yesterday,” he said after drinking some of his lager. “He’s doing pretty good. The company is making money, he’s having fun, and he finally persuaded Caitlyn to go out on a date with him.”

  I almost choked on a piece of my sandwich. “I’m sorry? Did you say he asked Caitlyn out on a date? And she said yes?”

  “Well, not at first. Apparently, he had to really turn on the charm, but he said she was so sweet about it the first couple of times she turned him down before she said yes. He went all out and sent a dozen red roses to her desk at work and she called him back and said they should definitely go out to dinner because obviously, he knew how to treat a woman.”

  I smirked, though I knew it was completely immature. “Interesting. Have you seen him into someone like this before?”

  “Not really, but maybe he just thinks it’s time. He is in his thirties, and
perhaps he’s ready to finally take that step. As you’ve said on countless occasions, we’re not exactly twenty-two anymore.”

  I finished the first half of my sandwich. “Speaking of,” I began, “we’re not exactly pushing up daisies. How about we go into the city tonight and experience Oslo properly? Know of any clubs or happening bars where we can have a drink and relax? I feel like a married couple, and as we haven’t actually had any real fun since we’ve been here, we can look at it as an educational experience.”

  “I’m game,” Colin responded with a smile. “Let me do some research. I am sure we can find a place that will be perfectly suited for the both of us.”

  ***

  Colin, ever the gentleman and always looking out for his interests as well as my own, took me to a place appropriately called the Beer Palace, which was conveniently located in the Aker Brygge section of downtown Oslo. We both decided to try what they had on tap and settled on a Norwegian lager that was actually quite good.

  Although they had outdoors seating, I assumed we would be more comfortable inside. The weather definitely wasn’t warm enough to enjoy our time out there. I’d almost forgotten the reason why the outside beckoned for Colin.

  “I could really use a ciggie. I have been extra good at my grandparents’ and I swear to God I am trying to quit, but these withdrawals are doin’ my head in,” he explained.

  I smiled in return. “I’m just glad I brought my sweater coat. Come on, we can sit outside.”

  We walked to the patio, and although I thought it would be a place full of twenty-something professionals, the crowd consisted of well-heeled businessmen and women of all ages who worked in the area. The place smelled like entitlement and plenty of disposable income. We were definitely in our element.

  Colin had chosen to wear a pair of black slacks and a white silk shirt, a combination which complemented his naturally lean body, while I had opted for a tight black cashmere sweater, a short red skirt, black opaque tights, and black knee-length four-inch boots I had gotten on sale at the Christian Louboutin boutique the last time I’d visited Vegas.