“Really?”
I spin around toward the voice, and she’s standing there, the woman from the bar, hands on her hips, looking about as pissed off as I feel. “Sorry?”
“I had it under control,” she continues.
Is she serious?
“I was going to throw my bag to the side and make a run for it,” she asserts, swinging her bag as if to demonstrate what she would’ve done. “I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t the first time something like this has happened. You didn’t have to hurt him—he was harmless. The most I would’ve done was bite him or something.”
No, she can’t be serious. Or maybe I didn’t realize he landed a blow to my head, and I’m hallucinating this conversation. It’s confusing enough that just by looking at her, her hair in a messy kind of wilderness, her face glowing with some sort of ethereal life, an inexplicable knot is forming in my stomach.
“Do you have a savior complex or something?” she keeps going on. “I had it under control in the bar as well.”
There’s something seriously wrong with this woman.
I raise an eyebrow. “Right.”
“Don’t you ever say anything more than one word at a time?” Narrowed eyes challenge me.
And I never back down from a challenge, so I say the only thing there is to say in this moment. “No.”
Instead of making her angrier, her frown splits into a wide grin, her deep brown eyes twinkling in the moonlight.
And every ounce of darkness around me is instantaneously engulfed by the light of her smile, like the midnight sky with the New Year’s Eve fireworks.
“I like you,” she says, suddenly reaching out and poking me in the chest with a pointed finger. “You’re all tall and frowny and grumpy and grunty. If you had on a little brown cardigan, you’d be just like my grandfather.”
What?“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I’m only forty-one!” I exclaim before I can stop myself.
Her delighted squeal echoes all the way down the street.
She jumps up into the air, clicks her heels like she’s in a musical, and punches her fist into the night. “I knew it. I knew I could make you say more than one word.” Her wolfish grin softens into a smile. “I’d like to hear some of those words someday.”
Then, rising up on her tiptoes, she presses a kiss to my cheek, spins around on her heels, and sprints down the street, the back of her skirt riding up her perfect legs.
I watch until she’s nothing but a tiny dot on the horizon, and the scent of strawberries-and-cream candies fade into the night air around me.
“Grandfather, my ass,” I murmur.
I continue making my way back to the office, this time with a soft, secret smile on my face and an invisible, indelible fingerprint on my chest.
Two
Luna
The hostel is quiet when I get back, a few stragglers lounging on the worn couches with beers in their hands, talking in a whole mishmash of foreign accents.
“Yo, over here, Luna.” Klaus, one of the German travelers, gives me a lazy wave. “Have a good night?”
“Not bad,” I reply with a shrug as I sink down on the end of the worn couch. I’ve spent so many hours here, it’s pretty much molded to the shape of my ass.
Klaus hands me his beer and I take a sip.
“Hmm, yummy. Warm and flat, my favorite,” I say, handing it back with a grimace.
“Backpackers can’t be choosers,” Peeta, a stunning South African woman who arrived today, jokes and throws me an open bag of trail mix.
I stay for a few minutes, catching up on everyone’s travel adventures over the last few days, and then excuse myself back to my dorm room, exhausted. Every bed is occupied, but it’s dark and quiet, everyone sleeping off their jet lag. Under the glow ofmy phone’s flashlight, I do a quick check of my things to see no one has touched anything. Sniffing the five outfits I have with me, I find a clean pair of underwear and put it aside. I used to think I could never live out of a duffel bag, but the last few years have taught me that I really only need the most minimal of material things. Flinging my towel over my shoulder, I shuffle to the shared bathroom on my floor, relieved when I see it unoccupied.
