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He is tall—completing the tall, dark, and handsome trifecta that I suppose makes him a bit of a cliché. He stands straight, his hair slightly ruffled, but otherwise as well-groomed as the picture he sent me. The stubble is gone today—in fact, it looks as if he just shaved moments before leaving to come pick me up.
He’s wearing a pale green collared shirt and a pair of business slacks—an odd wardrobe choice for a man who works from home, but he looks dashing in them. He’s staring up at me and I down at him, and then he abruptly looks away and down at his polished shoes, as if he’s just realized that we were gawking at each other.
I’m gawking.
Soon I’m at the bottom of the escalator, an
d closing the distance between us. I stop a few feet away. Do we hug? Or wave awkwardly?
“Hunter?” I ask, but I know it’s him.
“Sophia,” he says, and my name rolls off his tongue.
We both stand there for an awkward moment, and then I have what amounts to a social seizure and hold out my hand. He stares at it like it’s a snake, and I’m wondering if I should take it back when he abruptly reaches out and shakes it.
His palms are rough and calloused, but warm, and my fingers tingle against his. He lets go too soon and turns toward the baggage claim.
“Better get your things,” he says with a warm smile and walks off as if he can single-handedly tell which suitcases are mine just by looking at me.
I trail after him, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. When my bags are collected—containing almost everything I now own, except those things I left in Ireland with Anna, he pulls both of them toward the parking lot. I’m not sure whether to offer to take one—I pulled both of them through the airport before, after all—but decide to let him wheel them. He’s being a gentleman, and it would be rude not to let him. As I trot after him, I swear he’s taking one step for each two of mine.
We reach a large pickup truck with oversized wheels, and he hefts my bags into the bed of it. The truck woofs at me, and then I spot Cocoa in the back window, her golden tail waving furiously like a signal flag.
There’s someone I know how to greet. I open the door and hold a hand out to her. Cocoa sniffs me speculatively.
“She’s friendly,” Hunter says.
“Good thing,” I say, “if we’re all going to pile in the cab together.”
Hunter looks alarmed, but I’m glad he brought her. She rubs her cold nose against my hand, and I take that as permission to rub her head. Her tongue laps out happily.
“How old is she?” I ask.
“Seven,” he answers, taking my carry on and putting that in the bed with my suitcases.
I’m beginning to wonder if this man is capable of answering a question with more than a short phrase. He was a little better over email, wasn’t he? Not a lot, but…maybe he’s as nervous as I am right now.
He climbs into the cab, and I pause. This is my last moment to refuse to go with him, though then I’d be stranded in a country without a visa. I would find an Irish embassy, I suppose and plead for them to help me figure out what to do next. That would be horrifically embarrassing, having to explain that I came here to meet a man who I ran away from before he did, well…anything.
Hunter looks over at me, and I think he can sense what I’m feeling. He pats the seat next to him, and Cocoa scrambles back and sits on it, tongue hanging out, looking at me expectantly.
I take a deep breath. This may be the biggest mistake of my life, but I don’t feel afraid. Nervous, yes, and awkward as hell. But as he reaches over and pets Cocoa’s head, I make my decision.
I decided to do this, and I’m going to see it through, for better or for worse. I climb up on the bench seat and buckle my seatbelt in place.
Hunter withdraws his hand abruptly, starts the engine, and heads for the freeway.
“It’ll be about two hours to get home,” he tells me. “You need something to eat on the way?”
The last food I had was on the plane, and I hardly touched it, but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t eat now either. “I can last that long,” I say.
He doesn’t insist, and we drive the next few miles in silence.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “So how far is your cabin from civilization?”
He shrugs. “Depends on what you mean by civilization. There’s a gas station thirty minutes down the road. It’s not far, mind you, but it’s a windy, bumpy road, and you gotta take it slow. Another half hour down the highway and there’s a little town with a grocery store and a couple places to eat. There’s even a movie theater there, though they only get things that have been playing awhile. Past that another twenty minutes or so is another town with a department store. There’s a bunch of stuff there. I make it down every month or so.”
I nod. I’ve never lived anywhere but in the middle of the city, so being so far from conveniences seems terrifying.
