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“I have that effect on people.” She preened. “I’m easy to love.”
“That you are,” I muttered under my breath, swallowing a smile.
Sitting in the living room together held a new kind of ease, a domesticity that I relished. A quiet sense of security wrapped around me and hid me away from the rest of the world. It was something I was looking forward to once we were back in the office.
Which reminded me…
“So,” I prompted, keeping my gaze on my laptop. “What happens when we get back home?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, with us,” I said, clearing my throat nervously. “Are we going to keep living together, or will I move out now that your mom has cooled down? Are you going to spend your weekends at mine’?”
“I’ll be wherever you want me to be,” she said seriously, and my cheeks heated. “Whether that’s at your place, mine, at the office or, you know, wherever.”
“You’reinsatiable,” I hissed, chucking the nearest pillow at her to cover the embarrassment that flooded my cheeks.
“Only for you.” She winked.
“Insatiable and cheesy,” I accused and she shrugged it off.
“No point in denying the truth.”
“God, okay, we need to get back to work,” I said. “So, we’re cleared to fly the day after tomorrow. You don’t have any last minute meetings I don’t know about?”
“No,” she said, and then she frowned. “But there is one thing we have to do before we go back.”
“What’s that?”
Reid smirked at me and I instantly regretted asking her. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
Yeah, like I didn’t already…
“Are you fucking serious?” I laughed, my disbelief entirely drowned out by the crowd rushing around us.
Despite the sun hanging low on the horizon, hundreds, if not thousands, of people still milled about, their faces sunburnt but deliriously happy. I tugged at my loose T-shirt, the humidity clinging to my back.
Reid turned her bright smile to me, her golden hair hidden away under a blue baseball cap that said ‘I Love Brazil’ across the front. Her own T-shirt stuck to her back with sweat, but she didn’t seem to mind one bit just then.
“You can say what you want,” she responded, linking her fingers with mine and pulling me into the swaying crowd. “But there wasno wayI was going to leave without coming here first. I don’t care how much you say you hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” I scoffed, my fingers squeezing hers to keep from losing her in the crowd.
I craned my neck to look up at the statue that towered over most of the city. The Christ the Redeemer statue was even bigger in person than I remembered. And the crowds that surrounded his stone feet were larger and louder than the last time I’d been here.
Granted, the last time I’d been anywhere near the statue had been over a decade ago, so my data on the subject might have been skewed. It still didn’t make me feel any better, especially being surrounded by so many people. I shifted closer to Reid, hovering unnecessarily close. Even in a different country, my paranoia curled along my shoulders and tightened the muscles there.
“Oh, you do,” Reid accused. “Come here.”
She pulled me in and pressed a quick kiss to my lips before pulling out her phone and snapping a photo of us.
“Sneaky,” I chuckled, but the fatigue associated with tourist-heavy hot spots quickly fizzled out.
She spun around and snapped more photos, catching every possible angle of the statue looming high over us.
“You’re such a tourist,” I teased, watching her scan the area around us for a better spot to stand. “Is this really what you wanted to do before we left Brazil?”
She shushed me with another kiss and dragged me closer to one of the barriers.
