“Only you are,” Lise says.
“Well, I am driving us back to Todalen tonight,” Astrid says. “Someone has to be sober.” Her lips twitch as she looks between me and Anders. “Hey Lise,” she says, eying her sister wryly. “Come with me to 7-11.”
Lise frowns. “Now?”
“Yeah, I want the company.”
“But it’s right next door,” Lise says, and now Astrid is yanking her eyebrows in Anders’ direction, in an overly dramatic fashion. Lise’s lips form an “O” and then nods. She says something in Norwegian, under her breath, and gets up. “If you’ll excuse me,” she says to us, before they scurry off down the bar and out the door.
I look up at Roar to see what he’s going to do, but he just raises his beer in a ‘cheers’ and then heads to the bar, talking with the bartender, whom he obviously knows well.
And we’re alone again.
I slowly look back at Anders and clear my throat.
He’s looking at me, head low, brow furrowed. “Are you going to stay in Trondheim?” he asks carefully.
“Just for a night or two,” I tell him. “Then maybe make my way up north.”
“You have to go south too,” he says.
“I will. I have a plan.”
Finally.
“You have to come to Todalen.”
Totally not part of the plan.
“We’ll see,” is the only thing I can offer him. When I say that, it always means no.
“Tonight,” he adds.
Now this catches me by surprise.
I tilt my head, wide-eyed. “Tonight?”
“Yes,” he says with a nod, not even smiling. “Tonight. We can take you back to your hotel and you can cancel your stay.”
I shake my head. “I’ll be charged for the night for doing that.”
“I’ll talk to them, I promise you won’t,” he says, adding, “I can be very persuasive.”
“I know that,” I can’t help but say. “But no.”
No. No. Because Todalen is not part of the plan, and neither is Anders.
“Why not?” he asks, and he’s completely genuine.
“Because,” I say, fumbling for words. “It’s not…I have plans.”
“So change your plans. You said yourself earlier that you have no idea what you’re doing next.”
“I meant in life.”
“Isn’t knowing what you’re doing tonight a good start?”
“I did know I was going to spend a night in Trondheim,” I point out. I need my resolve to stay ice cold and razor sharp.
“You can spend a night here anytime. When am I at home? When are you in Norway? What are the odds that we met each other like this? Come on…don’t you think you should at least see the village I grew up in, the one I always talked to you about?”
And I do, I do, damnit. I want to experience this country the real way, off the beaten path, in the villages, with the locals.
With my ex-boyfriend.
Who now happens to be a Nordic god.
I just can’t decide if he’s Thor or Loki.
“It’s fate,” he offers, and his eyes are so sincere, I almost believe him.
“Fate?”
He shrugs. “Sure, why not? I’m here. My sisters are here. We have a car. We’re heading back there after this. The farmhouse has plenty of room.”
I eye him suspiciously. “Are you trying to bring me on as an extra farmhand?”
Finally he smiles, just a twitch of his lips. “Maybe.”
It’s tempting. Really tempting. But it doesn’t feel right. It shouldn’t be this way, so easy. Pathetic or not, I’m still mad at the guy, and I know we’re not the same people anymore but I’m stubborn as shit and besides, who says I even want to hang around him.
Just because he keeps staring at me the way he does, the way he’s biting his lower lip waiting for my response, which makes me remember the way his lips felt on mine, felt on my body, how his whole being awakened me into pleasures I never thought possible. We were so young and yet he left his mark, deep and hard, inside me, and I can still feel it, feel him, feel how beautiful he made me become.
No, I tell myself sharply, nearly giving myself whiplash. Stop looking at the gorgeous Viking before it gets messy. You’re recalling old feelings that mean nothing anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, even though something in my heart squeezes as I say it. “Thanks for the offer, but I think it’s best if I stay here. This whole trip was meant to be for me, on my own, you know. Discovering myself and all that.”
“Don’t you think I could help you?” he says. “I did once before.”
I exhale through my nose loudly. “Yeah. And look at the shape you left me in. Oh wait, I guess you couldn’t since you left right away.”
He frowns, looking pained. “I deserve that. I was an idiot.”
“It’s not the point,” I say quickly with a wave of my hand, not wanting to get into it now, or ever. “I’m just saying…thanks but no thanks. In fact, I should probably get going soon.” I grab my purse from beside me. “My hotel is in the old town anyway, should be easy to find.”
“Please don’t go yet,” he says to me, reaching across the table and touching my arm. He stares at me imploringly and it takes everything to not get lost in those grey-blues, looking extra rich in the dark bar.
I’m brought back in my mind to our first fight. It was over something stupid, I barely remember. Maybe he looked at a girl a little too long and I got jealous. He called me paranoid. I called him a liar. We had it out on my front steps and it ended with him groveling at my feet, asking me to stay with him.
The funny thing was, that should have been my first warning sign. He most likely was looking at a girl a little too long and if I knew any better, he was probably sleeping with her too.
But hindsight is twenty-twenty.
I swallow and manage a smile. “I better go check in.”
“I’ll walk you then,” he says to
