I look down at the table, tracing the swirls of cream in my bowl from dessert with my eyes. His quiet laugh reaches me and I drop my spoon.
“Still mad at me, sweetheart?”
“Of course I am. I’m always mad at you. Extra mad today.”
“Look at me.”
I shake my head.
“Dayton. Look at me.”
My traitorous eyes look up at his sharp demand. He reaches across the table and takes my hand. His fingers are rough and warm, and try as I might to focus on the feeling of them threading through mine, his gaze holds me captive.
“Are you still mad about what I said?”
“Yes.”
“And hurt?”
“I’m not—” I pause at the tightening of his jaw. “Yes. Okay, yes. It hurt.”
He flips our hands over and rubs lazy circles on the inside of my wrist. “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Talk to me.” He tightens his grip on me when I try to pull away.
The young girl who brought out our food returns and silently takes our empty dishes. We stare at each other the whole time, an uncomfortable feeling brewing in my stomach. I don’t talk about feelings to anyone except Liv. Ever.
“Talk to me, Day,” he says in a softer voice once we’re alone on the deck again.
I tug my hand from his and stand, moving to the edge of the boat. The sea air hits me, wrapping me in a warm, salty embrace, and I inhale deeply, my eyes closed.
“It’s because you said it.” My voice is quiet yet strong enough to travel to him. “In fact, it’s not so much what you said. It’s how you did. When you said you ‘certainly wouldn’t pay for it,’ you said it in such a disgusted way it made my skin crawl.”
His hands cover mine on the railings, and he leans his forehead on my shoulder.
“It made me feel dirty, like you’d demeaned me. In that moment, you could have thrown me into a pile of pig crap and I would have come out feeling cleaner. And yes, it hurt because it came from you. Never mind the situation we’re in. It’s not something I ever would have expected you to say.”
“I’m sorry.” He drifts his lips across my shoulder blade. “I really am. I’m so f**king sorry.”
I shrug the other shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve said it now.”
Aaron wraps his arms around my waist and turns his face into my neck, and I flash back to Paris. Standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower… Holding me this way… Whispering that he loves me…
“It matters to me. Do you think I like paying for you? I don’t. It goes against everything I believe and I f**king hate it. So much. I just…” He sighs, his breath warm against my skin. “When you walked into the hotel and sat in front of me, I remembered everything. Looking at you was like being catapulted into the past again, and when you left a few hours later, I couldn’t let you go. All those times I’d thought of you and wished I could find you, and I finally had. Somehow you’d ended up in front of me again and I knew without a doubt I couldn’t just go on this trip and leave you there.”
“You didn’t have to do it that way.”
“I know. Believe me, sweetheart. I know. But you wouldn’t have come with me. You would have fought me.”
My lips curl slightly. I would have. There’s no way I would have followed him on this crazy trip if I hadn’t been forced into it.
“And I couldn’t let you walk.” He presses a kiss to my collarbone. “Not again.”
We stand in silence for a long while, our bodies together and his chin on my shoulder, just staring out to sea. The endless blue sea and perfectly clear turquoise water stretches for miles around us, the gentle breeze teasing my hair. The gentle bobbing of the boat is barely noticeable now. I feel Aaron sigh against my cheek.
“Do you ever wish we’d done it differently?” I ask.
“What?”
I look down at the water beneath us and whisper, “Leaving. Paris. Do you think back and wish we’d tried to make it work long distance instead of walking away?”
The tightening of his fingers into my stomach tells me what I need to know before he answers. I slide my hands along his arms until I'm holding myself as tightly as he is.
“Every day,” he whispers back. “And I’ve wished it every second of every day since you came back into my life.”
I wish it too, I want to say. I wish we’d looked at what we had and realized it was more than a boy and a girl having a whirlwind romance. I wish we’d stared into each other’s eyes in the airport just after he’d caught up with me and promised each other we wouldn’t give up.
I wish we’d both had the courage to hold on to us.
***
We’re in Paris again, strolling along the Champs-Élysées hand in hand. I’m laughing at something he said, my free hand covering my mouth to muffle my hysterical giggles. He grabs me around the waist and dips me back, staring into my eyes for a tantalizingly long moment before, finally, he lowers his lips to mine in a sweet kiss that promises everything…
I roll over and rub my eyes. Jesus. I stretch my arm out and hit a box instead of the body I was expecting. What’s the time?
The clock reads eleven a.m., and I sit bolt upright. Eleven a.m.? The last time I slept this late I was sixteen and faking being sick to get out of school. Really, I’d been partying the night before and was just too hungover to get up.
I slide out of bed and pad into the kitchen in my underwear. Sun filters through the large windows, and I lean back against the side as the coffee machine works its magic. Within minutes, the scent of freshly brewed coffee reaches my nose and I turn and grab the mug.
The Sydney skyline stretches out before me, the Opera House standing proud in the distance. I want to explore this city some more, beyond the shops and the harbor to everything else. The tiny cafés and bars no one but the locals know. The quiet spots where you can forget about everything and just watch the world pass you by.
The bar Liv works at is much like that—a quiet little place on the corner nobody really knows. With its view of the piers and Elliot Bay, it’s one of my favorite places ever. A glass of wine and book in the corner is pretty much my favorite way to chill out.
I hum the tune of The Way I Loved You by Taylor Swift and walk back into the bedroom. My eyes fall on the box when I put my coffee down, and I tilt my head to the side. My curiosity is spiked, incredibly so. I jump onto the bed like a little kid and pull it onto my bed. I shake it.