Sarah:What do you want to do about it?
“Ready to go?” The sound of his voice gave me a fright and when I swung around, Max was standing there looking into the plane.
“Is there space in there for one more?” he asked, but didn’t wait for the answer. Instead, he started climbing in.
“What are you doing here?” I couldn’t hold back my smile. This was possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. Made nicer by the fact that it was Max doing it.
“I just had this overwhelming desire to fly today. It had absolutely nothing to do with you, by the way, just in case you think I think you’re some kind of damsel in distress who needs rescuing, which I don’t,” he teased.
“Well, far be it from me to keep you from your desires.” I smiled at him and shifted over a little bit in the seat.
He stopped and looked down at me, his eyes sweeping over my body, lingering in my lap for a moment too long. “Yeah?”
“Not those desires, and stop that,” I said firmly, but I don’t think I actually meant it. In fact, I meant the complete opposite. I wanted him to flirt with me, I wanted him to touch me, to hold me, kiss me, to wrap me up in his arms when he slept and . . .
I looked down at my phone. Reread Sarah’s last message to me. Max bent forward to put his bag by his feet and I brought my fingers down to the screen.
Ash:I know what I want to do about it
Ash:I’m just not sure it’s the right thing to do
The flight wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined; these things seldom were as bad as I built them up to be in my catastrophic imagination. And once we’d arrived, the lodge too was perfect. If these idiots didn’t like this, then they wouldn’t like anywhere.
I ran around taking photos of it first, sending them straight through to Sebastian. We’d managed to work out a very vague shot list last night, and while I worked, I had him on a constant videocall while we talked it all through. He would have probably come with me today if he wasn’t busy wrapping up post on our other job and driving Russ crazy. The day was hot and it was rushed and by 3 p.m. I realized that I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything at all.
I walked off to the dining area, a huge wooden deck that was open on all sides. A massive tree that had definitely been there first was growing through a specially made hole in the floor and providing the most amazing, and much-needed shade. I found Max sitting at one of the tables talking to the owner, I presumed. They were drinking ice cold beers and for some reason it looked so appealing, even though I hated beer. But in this African heat, the beer in the frosted glass screamed at me. I walked over to the table and Max immediately introduced me.
“Thank you so much for making this happen,” I gushed. “You don’t know how you’ve saved us from what could have been a terrible situation.”
“Not a problem. Anyone who is important to Max is important to me.”
I flashed Max a quick look out of the corner of my eye and found that he was smiling at me.
He pulled out a chair for me, and as soon as I’d sat down, I asked him for a sip of beer. But I was so wrong. The fantasy in my head did not match the reality of the flavor that I was now struggling to swallow down.
“You hate beer,” Max stated.
“But it looked so good.”
He laughed. “You should have had some water first anyway; you haven’t drunk all day.”
“How do you know?” I asked, making deliberate eye contact with him.
“When you get wrapped up and excited in something, you always forget to eat and drink. It was like that at school too. I used to bring you those electrolyte sachets and practically force them down your throat.”
“Bleghh. Those things tasted awful, but they worked—I admit that.” Something dawned on me now. It was something I knew already, but in that moment, it felt like it needed to be spoken out loud. “You always looked out for me. So well. Always.”
“So did you. After track, when my feet were sore, you used to make me put them in that foot spa you had.”
I laughed at the memory. His feet were so big that they’d barely fit.
“You used to pour arnica oil in and massage them.” Our eyes met for a while and we only looked away when the owner of the lodge cleared his throat. He stood up suddenly. I’d forgotten he was even there.
“I . . . need to do something,” he lied, and then scuttled off.
Max and I made eye contact again and this time, nothing stopped us from holding each other’s gaze.
“I’ve missed your foot massages like I cannot even tell you.”
